News Update
August 12, 2010

Not Too Late To Order Black Books

The pocket-sized Beef Record Service (BRS)/AngusSource® black books are still available for purchase through the American Angus Association.

The 2011 books are available in any quantity for $3 each and are customizable — free of charge — with purchases of 100 or more. Custom order deadlines have been extended to Oct. 1, 2010. Books will be delivered by Nov. 1 — in time to distribute to customers during the fall marketing and holiday seasons.

To order, e-mail blackbooks@angus.org, call 816-383-5100 or click here.

New Checkoff-Funded Research Publications Available

New checkoff-funded materials from two Research, Education and Innovation (REI) program areas are now available. The Product Enhancement team has created a new fact sheet to describe the recently revised online Beef Cutout Calculator, an interactive tool that allows users to view yields for selected carcass components, as well as current USDA-reported values.

The team has also reported on the cull-cow market, which comprises a significant portion of U.S. beef production. In fact, culled market cows, cows culled from cow-calf and seedstock producers as well as dairy operations, have consistently accounted for 17%-19% of all cattle harvested in the U.S. each year. For most beef and dairy producers, marketing culled cows translates to 15%-25% of annual income and clearly contributes to profitability. For years, cattle producers have been searching for ways to increase the profitability of their culled cows. The checkoff’s research team commissioned Dale Woerner, Colorado State University, to create a white paper, Beef from Market Cows, which addresses changes in the production of market-cow products.

The Beef Safety Research team has also completed four new fact sheets to educate cattle producers on preharvest safety issues: (1) Overview of Preharvest Safety Interventions; (2) Advancing the Preharvest Commitment; (3) A Basic Look at Salmonella; and (4) A Basic Look at E. coli.

“The REI Group continues to do important work that benefits producers, the checkoff, and the industry as a whole. It is the REI research findings that give us the solid footing on which to defend our product,” says Craig Uden, chairman of the checkoff’s Joint Research, Education and Innovation Group and feeder from Cozad, Neb. “Checkoff communications and marketing programs rely on REI discoveries to not only defend the industry but also to communicate beef’s taste and nutrition benefits. Having this unified perspective, we are able to quickly react to economic and environmental factors that can potentially affect industry profitability.”

For more information about your beef checkoff investment, visit MyBeefCheckoff.com.

— Release by The Beef Checkoff.

Southwest Research Extension Center Field Day Set

The Southwest Research Extension Center will host its annual field day on Aug. 26, with registration from 8 a.m. to 9 a.m. The field day features two tours in the morning and four afternoon seminars and will be held at the center located at 4500 East Mary St. in Garden City, Kan.

The tours will focus on a variety of topics such as iron fertilization in soybeans and sorghum, corn disease and new corn and sorghum herbicides, water conservation, managing alfalfa irrigation and switchgrass biofuel production.

Improved technology for nitrogen fertilization, winter canola production, corn borers and insecticide management for soybean stem borers are the topics for the afternoon seminars.

The speakers include a variety of agricultural specialists from Kansas State University (K-State) Research and Extension. Numerous agricultural companies will have booths and displays in the morning. A free lunch will be provided.

Attending the field day can count for up to two credits toward commercial pesticide applicator recertification and 4.0 Certified Crop Advisory continuing education units.

For more information, contact Jovita Baier, jbaier@ksu.edu.

— Release by K-State Research and Extension.

Agribusiness Seminar to Focus on Strategic Decision Making

A three-day Purdue University seminar will help farm and agribusiness managers and company leaders make strategic decisions for their businesses in what have become turbulent economic times.

“Structuring Decisions: Innovating Through Turbulence” will be Sept. 14-16 at Purdue’s West Lafayette campus, and attendees will develop a structured approach to making strategic decisions that help foster innovation and manage uncertainty. The program also will focus on introducing and illustrating tools that allow participants to analyze problems at their own companies and in the industry.

Allan Gray, director of Purdue’s Center for Food and Agricultural Business, and Mike Boehlje, Purdue Extension agricultural economist, will lead the program, which will highlight taking a more reasoned, systematic approach to decision making and mitigating downside risk, common psychological traps, capitalizing the value of time while minimizing the opportunity for appropriate choices, understanding how to frame multiple alternative futures, and discovering techniques to maintain current business while driving future growth.

“Almost everyone I run into says that turbulence and uncertainty is increasing, and their decisions become tougher and more complicated all the time,” Gray said. “This program really helps managers learn how to weed out the noise and get down to the business of making a decision.”

Participants will have the option to develop a personal case study and apply some of the tools presented in the classroom to a specific business-related decision. They also will have the opportunity to interact one-on-one with faculty instructors and discuss any questions about decision-making tools.

Gray and Boehlje will use an agribusiness case study to highlight the following sessions:

• “Framework for Decision Making,” which focuses on defining the problem, setting objectives, considering alternatives, describing consequences and identifying tradeoffs.
  
• “Tools for Effective Decision Making,” which will help participants identify sources of uncertainty and alternative consequences; outline critical variables and frame the decision; define potential outcomes in financial terms; make first choices, identify gaps and gather more information; and utilize managerial flexibility in decision making.
  
• “Implementing the Decision,” focusing on learning from failure, knowing when to kill a project, and aligning resources and avoiding traps in decision making.

Registration is $2,395 per person and will be accepted on a first-come basis. Once the program is full, names will be added to a waiting list in the order received. Registration fees include all program materials, refreshments and some meals.

More information about the program and a registration form are available online at www.agecon.purdue.edu/cab/programs/sdit.

— Release by Purdue Extension.

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