News Update
June 2, 2009

Tuberculosis Herd Discovered in Nebraska

According to Nebraska Department of Agriculture (NDA) State Veterinarian Dennis Hughes, NDA and the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) veterinarians have discovered a herd of beef cattle in the Rock County area that has tested positive for Tuberculosis (TB).

NDA and USDA are currently in the process of working with the producer, who has been cooperating with the two agencies. The herd, which is under quarantine, is undergoing herd testing and an epidemiological investigation.

“The testing of these animals will take a significant amount of time,” said Hughes. “We will be working to determine the source of the infection and the extent of the spread of the disease. Neighboring premises are being contacted to determine if the disease has spread beyond the original premise.”

TB is a slow, progressive disease and is difficult to diagnose in the early stages; however, as the disease progresses, animals can exhibit emaciation, lethargy, weakness, anorexia, low-grade fever, and pneumonia with a chronic, moist cough.

Further information on tuberculosis can be found at www.agr.ne.gov under the Bureau of Animal Industry link.

— Release provided by NDA.

All Breeds Cattle Tour meeting planned

The North Dakota Stockmen’s Association (NDSA) Seedstock Council will host the 23rd annual All Breeds Cattle Tour in the Belfield/Medora, N.D., area this fall, and planning for the event will begin soon.

An informational meeting for any member who is interested in displaying cattle on the tour will take place at 7 p.m. (MT) Thursday, June 11, at the Great Plains National Bank Community Room located at 201 N. Main Street in Belfield. Dates and a rough route will be established at this meeting. Those who are interested but not able to attend should contact NDSA Member Services Director Tracey Koester at 701-223-2522 or tkoester@ndstockmen.org to ensure a spot on the tour.

The All Breeds Cattle Tour has traditionally been held in early October to showcase progressive seedstock operations and other points of interest for commercial cattle producers and others.

— Release provided by NDSA.

Successful Farming Sponsors Farm Family Grants

For 15 years, Successful Farming© magazine has teamed up with Farm Safety 4 Just Kids (FS4JK) to provide Farm Family Grants to 10 individuals. The program gives rural residents up to $250 to make safety improvements to their family farms or host safety programs in their communities. Examples of previously funded projects include purchasing fire extinguishers for tractors, combines and workshops; installing fencing and shock-absorbing materials like sand and wood chips to create safe play areas for children; and buying Sterilite cabinets to keep syringes and animal medications away from kids.

To apply for a Farm Family Grant, submit a one-page request describing how you will use the money to make safety improvements to your farm, how others will benefit from your project, and an estimated budget to FS4JK by Sept. 1. Applications can be sent to Farm Safety 4 Just Kids, 11304 Aurora Ave., Urbandale, Iowa 50322 or e-mailed to Shari@fs4jk.org.

— Release provide by Successful Farming.

ACRE Extension a Benefit to Farmers

Among the major U.S. field crop commodities, wheat is the crop most likely to benefit from the extension to enroll in the new Average Crop Revenue Election (ACRE) farm support program introduced in the 2008 Farm Bill.

The USDA Farm Service Agency (FSA) has extended the sign-up deadline from June 1 to Aug. 14 to give farmers more time to review details of ACRE and make a more informed decision of whether they want to try the new program or stay with traditional countercyclical farm payment programs.

“Farmers are likely to benefit from the enrollment extension because they will know more about the crop on their own farm and nationally by August,” said Carl Zulauf, an Ohio State University agricultural economist with the Department of Agricultural, Environmental and Development Economics. “This holds true particularly for wheat farmers because the wheat crop is harvested much earlier than corn and soybeans.”

Traditional farm support programs are designed to help farmers with what has been the traditional farm income problem since the Great Depression, and that is chronic surplus capacity keeping prices chronically low over an extended period of time.

“The marketing loan and countercyclical programs presume that we will have farm prices low enough to trigger a payment,” Zulauf said.

In contrast, “ACRE is a revenue (price times yield) program, not a price program. More importantly, ACRE does not presume what the market is going to be; it just follows the market. If prices or yields decline dramatically, ACRE provides support given the market conditions we are in at the time,” Zulauf said. “Both ACRE and traditional programs are risk management programs, but they manage different kinds of risk. ACRE helps manage the risk of a decline in revenue over a short period of a few years. Producers need to understand that they can’t look at ACRE through the same eyes they looked at traditional programs.”

Using data from the monthly USDA World Agriculture Supply and Demand Reports, Zulauf calculated that the amount of uncertainty resolved on average for the upcoming national revenue per acre for each crop between the May and August reports was 5% for corn, 12% for soybeans, and 51% for wheat.

Farmers may not know now what they intend to do, but Zulauf recommends they prepare the paperwork now in the event enrolling in ACRE becomes their choice.

Zulauf, who helped develop the ACRE program, has written a series of web-based documents outlining the specifics of ACRE and how the program works. The documents can be downloaded by logging on to http://aede.osu.edu/people/publications.php?user=zulauf.1.

— Release provided by Ohio State University.

Daily Livestock Report

Pasture conditions will play a critical role in U.S. cow harvest rates this summer. While much of the focus recently has been on U.S. dairy cow harvest, thanks to the implementation of a dairy herd buyback program, beef cow harvest rates will be just as important, especially when comparing to the big numbers that came to market a year ago. So far, U.S. pasture conditions appear to be in relatively good shape but the most recent reading from USDA also provided some early warning signals.

For the week ending May 31, USDA reported that 58% of U.S. pastures and ranges were in good or excellent condition, this compares with 51% a year ago and 51% for the five-year average. Indeed, this was the best pasture rating for this week (based on the good/excellent total) since 1999. The warning sign was the fact that pasture conditions declined slightly from the prior week. Conditions tend to improve through mid- to late June before the summer heat begins to take a toll. Plentiful rains this spring have provided cow-calf operators with some relief in an otherwise trying year, but it is early to tell whether conditions have peaked or if we will see further improvement in the next two to three weeks. Somewhat worrying is the condition of pastures in the southern plains, especially in Texas, where currently only 34% of pastures and ranges are listed as being in good or excellent condition, compared to 42% a year ago.

— Release provided by Chicago Mercantile Exchange.

— compiled by Mathew Elliott, assistant editor, Angus Productions Inc.