News Update
January 23, 2013
Celebrate Beef Day During Kansas School Lunch Week
The Kansas Beef Council (KBC) has been working with the Kansas Department of Agriculture (KDA) and the Kansas State Department of Education (KSDE) to feature beef on school lunch menus during Kansas School Lunch Week, which runs Jan. 28-Feb. 1. Wednesday, Jan. 30, has been designated “Kansas Beef Day.”
KDA and KSDE have provided school districts in Kansas with sample menus for the week, which highlight corn, sunflower, beef, milk and wheat during the five-day school week. Additionally, schools have been provided Kansas School Lunch Week daily fun facts, which can be read during morning announcements or included on the printed lunch menu.
KBC is encouraging Kansas farmers and ranchers to extend Kansas Beef Day by ensuring their local school district is participating in Kansas School Lunch Week. Farmers and ranchers can print the sample menus and recipes to take into their local schools. Additionally, Kansas Beef Day is a great opportunity to take the ranch to the school by planning beef-related activities with local schools. Please contact KBC with questions or for help in planning a school activity. Ideas include:
- Eating lunch at school with your child or grandchild on Kansas Beef Day, Jan. 30.
- Arrange a presentation at the school to discuss what you do on your cattle operation and the beef production lifecycle.
- Teach school children what cattle eat by utilizing the interactive Cow Chow quiz and showing feed and forages of what you feed your cattle.
- Invite a classroom to your farm or ranch to give children a firsthand look at agriculture.
- Read a book about raising cattle to an elementary school classroom. Suggestions include “Levi’s Lost Calf” and “Beef Cattle in the Story of Agriculture.” KBC has a limited quantity of books to loan, if interested.
- Encourage teachers of grades 2 and 3 to utilize a lesson plan from “Connect the Dots: Where does my food come from?"
Be creative! Talk to your local school to see what activities would interest them. Some good resources include beef checkoff-funded websites Explore Beef and Facts About Beef, as well as resources from the Kansas Foundation for Agriculture in the Classroom and the Kansas Farm Bureau.
For more information, contact the KBC office or to find all the reference materials, click here.
Irrigation Management, Technology Help
Producers Survive Drought
Two years of drought have forced adoption of new technology and management practices in crop irrigation, according to a Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service specialist in Amarillo.
Nich Kenny, AgriLife Extension irrigation specialist, said the key factor moving into the 2013 season will be for producers to concentrate on their irrigation management.
“There are new water pumping regulations in place, and we are coming off two years of pretty significant drought,” Kenny said. “What that means is on two fronts, these guys are limited to how much water they have available.”
On the regulatory side, most producers who had banked water in previous years through efficient measures have exhausted those banks, so they are only going to be allowed to pump and apply what they are permitted to within a single season, he said.
On the drought side, because of the stress of two back-to-back years, some of these well capacities have dropped. Where a producer may have been able to grow high-output corn on 120 acres before, he may now need to look at lower-output corn on that 120 acres or split those irrigation circles to match his capacity.
For more information and the full release, click here.
Cow Herd Management Planning for Spring Calving Herd
Calf values have definitely risen so it’s even more important to focus on management issues that affect calf health. Michigan State University Extension educators recommend nutrition and disease prevention as the top two focal points all producers should plan for.
Planning ahead helps meet nutritional requirements for cows and heifers:
- Cows need higher-quality feedstuffs during the last trimester and especially during early lactation to ensure health and performance of both the cow and her calf.
- Rations should be formulated from feedstuffs with known feed analysis, especially if producers are feeding “non-traditional” feedstuffs.
- Consider utilizing cow-ration-balancing software to improve efficiency.
- Focus attention on the cow and heifer the last 60 days prior to calving as it takes about 60 days to improve body condition score (BCS) by one point.
- Identify body-condition issues in the cow herd and group females that need additional nutrition and separate them from cows in good BCS.
- Mineral and vitamin requirements will likely change if you move away from hay diets.
Calf performance should focus on several factors:
- Consider vaccinating bred females to prevent calf scours (consult your vet for details).
- Identify calves and complete newborn health management and castration early.
- Develop bedding areas away from the cows where calves can stay clean and dry.
- Observe calves daily during the first 14 days of life for early disease detection.
As winter starts moving toward spring, cow-calf producers should focus on calving and managing the cow-calf environment. Calf values have definitely risen so it’s even more important to focus on management issues that affect calf health. Nutrition and disease prevention are the top two focal points all producers should plan for.
Many cow-calf producers may be facing feed shortages and economic challenges this year if feed resources remain scarce or prices don’t come down. Managing these challenges should help you survive this battle so your cow-calf enterprise will survive to be rewarded in future years. For registration information on upcoming programs in Feb., click here.
Monsanto Company joins WBCSD
Monsanto, a leading global provider of technology-based solutions and agricultural products that aim to improve farm productivity and food quality, has joined the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) and is offering the WBCSD’s Business Ecosystems Training (BET) course globally for employees. The BET course will enhance employees’ awareness and understanding of the links between ecosystems and business.
Monsanto is working to help find ways to produce more food within the limits of the world’s natural systems. A global population expected to grow to 9 billion people by 2050 will mean rising demand for food coupled with increasing strains on natural resources — such as water, arable land and ecosystem services. This requires new agriculture systems and products that are both more productive and more sustainable.
“In joining the WBCSD, Monsanto is taking an important step along a continuum toward developing a more sustainable agriculture system — one that improves our daily lives, respects our global environment and recognizes the importance of the world’s small-holder farmers,” said Peter Bakker, president, WBCSD. “We must find new ways to protect soils, enhance ecosystems and optimize land use in ways that are environmentally sound. And we must move toward a future vision for agriculture where absolutes become as out of place as a one-size-fits-all approach to farming.”
AFBF Board Establishes Strategic Action Plan for 2013
Following the delegate session of the American Farm Bureau Federation’s (AFBF’s) 94th Annual Meeting, which wrapped up this week in Nashville, the organization’s board of directors met to establish priorities for AFBF’s strategic action plan for 2013.
“This plan represents those issue areas where we believe the American Farm Bureau Federation and its grassroots members will have real opportunities to achieve success this year, as well as challenges we will need to tackle to help safeguard our members’ ability to operate their farms and ranches,” said AFBF President Bob Stallman.
Aggressively working to secure passage of legislation early in the year that addresses both long- and short-term agricultural labor needs is a priority for AFBF. A recent Farm Bureau economic analysis concluded that $5 billion to $9 billion in annual production is in jeopardy if the employee shortage cannot be filled.
“Comprehensive immigration reform through legislation is needed to solve the agricultural worker problem,” Stallman said.
Passage of the Water Resources Development Act and reform of the harbor maintenance trust fund and the inland waterways trust fund is another priority for AFBF.
“A reliable and efficient inland water system for shipment of farm goods is essential for U.S. agriculture to be competitive,” explained Stallman.
For more information and the full release, click here.
Ohio Forage and Grasslands Council Conference is Feb. 8
While the drought of 2012 was an extreme example of dry conditions during a growing season, it was not an anomaly, meaning producers have to be prepared to deal with periods of dry conditions as part of their annual management plans, an Ohio State University (OSU) Extension specialist said.
Tips and techniques of how to do so will be discussed by experts in the field from OSU Extension and regional and national experts during a day-long conference hosted by the Ohio Forage and Grasslands Council Feb. 8.
The event is designed to help provide information for producers on how to make their pastures and forage crops more resilient and higher yielding, said Mark Sulc, an OSU Extension forage specialist. OSU Extension is the outreach arm of the College of Food, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences.
The issue of how forage producers can cope with changing climate conditions is particularly significant considering the record extreme weather events that occurred in 2012, he said. The drought of 2012 hit many producers hard, leaving them short on hay and silage and looking for alternative forages to plant or other feed sources to make up for the shortages, Sulc said.
“We are still in a teachable moment,” he said. “As people look back and think about what they did last year and how they might deal with extreme weather next time, we’ll offer them information on how to plan in advance for filling in the cool-season grass summer slump and other periods of forage deficit with alternative forages.”
For more information and the full release, click here.
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