News Update
Nov. 23, 2010

American Angus Association Members Approve Amendments

Delegates from throughout the U.S. and Canada traveled to Louisville, Ky., last week to attend the American Angus Association’s 127th Annual Convention of Delegates. Elected delegates met Monday, Nov. 15, to conduct Association business and to elect five directors to the Association Board of Directors.

The meeting was held at the Kentucky Fair and Exposition Center in conjunction with the North American International Livestock Exposition (NAILE) Super-Point Roll of Victory (ROV) Angus Show.

In addition to electing five directors from the unprecedented slate of 10 board candidates (click here for more information), the delegates approved four amendments to the Association’s bylaws. Read more.

Cost/Benefit Analysis of Forage Testing is Favorable

When it comes to knowing the quality of your forage, cattle producers owe it to their bottom line to have the facts. That’s why the Iowa Beef Center (IBC) and Iowa State University (ISU) Extension beef specialists are encouraging producers to take advantage of a cost-share forage testing project.

Denise Schwab, ISU Extension beef program specialist who’s helping lead the project, said producers who are uncertain about participating in the project should ask themselves a few questions starting with, “What’s the cost/benefit ratio of testing the 2010 hay crop?”

“The testing is simple and the cost is low. Through the IBC project, your share is just $6.19 thanks to sponsorship of the Grass Based Livestock Working Group of the Leopold Center, the Iowa Forage and Grassland Council, and Southern Iowa Forage and Livestock Committee,” Schwab said. “The benefits are: You’re able to better meet the nutritional needs of your cow herd while controlling feed costs and waste.”

If producers still aren’t convinced, Schwab suggested that a more important question might be, “What is the cost if you don’t test your forages?”

She looked at results from early project samples and found some sobering results. About half of the hay samples had inadequate energy to maintain a late-gestation cow, and about 20% were inadequate in protein.

“A mature 1,350-pound beef cow eating 30-plus pounds of hay per day at these levels would actually be losing one and a half pounds per day, or half of a body condition score per month during late gestation,” Schwab said. “That’s definitely not what you want to see in your cows.”

Ramifications of a herd losing 1.5 to 2 body condition scores (BCS) between now and calving are costly in several ways, Schwab said.

“Cows that are too thin at calving typically have a higher incidence of calving difficulty and weaker calves at birth. Also, their calves tend to have lower weaning weights,” she said. “Thin cows also produce lower volumes of colostrum with lower levels of immunoglobulins than cows in a body condition score of 5 or 6, and their calves have a lower resistance to disease.

“Finally, cows that have a body condition score below 5 at calving have a slower return to estrus, resulting in later calves in following years. Just two-thirds of cows at a BCS of 4 at time of calving are cycling 90 days after calving.”

Knowing the composition of your hay is vital in making decisions that will meet the nutrition needs of your herd and, in turn, have a more positive effect in your operation, Schwab said. At less than $7 per sample as part of this project, forage testing is an inexpensive investment in the health of your herd.

For more information on the forage testing project, contact your ISU Extension county office.

— Release by ISU Extension.

Summer Grilling Beef Promotion Invited Home Cooks to Stay Home and Grill Out

The summer grilling season celebrated beef in the heavily populated Northeast this summer, though many beef lovers continue to grill at home throughout the year. The beef checkoff partnered with 17 retailers in the Northeast for the 2010 Stay Home Grill Out promotion. In total, 367 store locations featured recipe booklets, shelf wobblers and meat department posters from May through September. Shoppers participating in the Stay Home Grill Out promotion had the chance to enter to win a grand prize of $500 in free groceries plus a Weber grill by entering in at StayHomeGrillOut.com. Runner-up prizes included professional BBQ tool sets and The Healthy Beef Cookbook.

Lucy Williams from Suffolk, Va., was selected as the Grand Prize Winner. Williams is a shopper at Balducci’s Food Lover’s Market, based in Bethesda, Md. 

“We were thrilled that one of our customers won the Grand Prize,” says Michael Lamb, director of meat sales and merchandising for Balducci’s and King’s Super Markets. “The ‘Stay Home Grill Out’ promotion helped both the Kings and Baldacci banner stores by relieving the pressure on the meal makers to have to dine out to have a great steak. We were able to promote relatively underutilized cuts of beef such as the Denver Steak and the boneless chuck short ribs to an extent that we had not thought possible or practical in the past. Whenever we can be in tune with a social need of the customer and still provide great tasting center of plate, it’s a win-win.”

Through its Northeast Beef Promotion Initiative (NEBPI), the checkoff partnered with eight new retailers in Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York and Maryland for the 2010 summer grilling promotion this year.

“It is exciting to see retail participation increase each year that we offer these checkoff-funded promotions,” says Christie Molinaro, NEBPI director of retail and foodservice. ”Our website, StayHomeGrillOut.com, was exceptionally successful this year, with an increase of 12.5% for our sweepstakes entries and a 16% increase of our website visitors. Although the promotion is over, consumers are able to log on and view recipes and nutritional information.”

For more information about checkoff-funded activities, visit MyBeefCheckoff.com.

— Release by the Beef Checkoff Program.

Farmers Launch #foodthanks Social Media Campaign This Thanksgiving

With harvest in the rear-view mirror, forward-looking farmers and others in agriculture have been busy cultivating a new social media campaign to help Americans publicly express their gratitude for their food this holiday season. Launched in time for Thanksgiving, foodthanks.com provides simple steps that people can take to show their #foodthanks.

“For many of us this time of the year, giving thanks for food on the table is a time-honored tradition,” says Jeff Fowle, president of the AgChat Foundation, a 100 percent volunteer organization that aims to empower farmers and ranchers to “agvocate” via social media platforms. “Our goal with the #foodthanks campaign is to provide tools and inspiration for spreading personal expressions of gratitude beyond the family table to that extended circle of friends and family in our social media networks.”

A dedicated microsite offers visitors five simple tips for showing #foodthanks, from linking off to the www.foodthanks.com site from their Facebook and LinkedIn pages, to adding #foodthanks avatars to their social media sites.

AgChat Foundation Vice President Mike Haley, a fifth-generation grain and cattle farmer from Ohio, says some AgChat members have shown additional creativity in sharing the #foodthanks message: “We’ve seen a twibbon that can be added to a current avatar, a “tweetdown” of people and activities to be thankful for, photos of meals tweeted with the hashtag, a video from an AgChat community member, and we are just getting started!”

Haley says AgChat Foundation has a simple purpose with the campaign. “This holiday, we aim to broaden and deepen our connections throughout the food chain.”

The site instructs visitors to tweet, post and blog about #foodthanks, “especially on November 24,” as final preparations are made for Thanksgiving Day. AgChat Foundation hopes the simple message has staying power throughout the holidays.

This is not the first time members of the AgChat community have flexed their collective farmer muscle to raise awareness via social media. In August 2009, the grassroots organization worked together to establish #MOO as a top-ten trending topic on Twitter for eight hours one Sunday afternoon as a way to call attention to low milk prices and struggling dairy farm families.

“We are farmers of all stripes — conventional and organic, large and small — but we are united in our effort to put food on the table,” Haley explains. “We represent less than 2%of the population but are eager to engage with the other 98% who are not directly involved in agriculture. Many more people are engaged in getting the food from our farms to plates on tables at homes and restaurants across the country, and we wanted to say thanks to them.”

— Relesase by the AgChat Foundation

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