News Update
January 13, 2017
Follow Along with National Western Stock Show Results
See the results of yesterday’s Angus events at the National Western Stock Show in Denver, Colo., by visiting the show results page at www.angus.org/showresults/denver/2017/index.html.
Long Live the Angus Female
The MaternalPlus® program is a voluntary whole-herd inventory-based program allowing breeders to report reproductive-trait data and cow records to the American Angus Association. In this whole-herd system, a producer will pay on a per cow basis rather than per calf. Each cow is charged a $3 annual enrollment fee, which then replaces her calf’s Angus Herd Improvement Record (AHIR®) weaning weight processing fee.
Requirements of the program include heifer breeding records and, for mature inventoried females, calf records (weight, preweaning or disposal code) and/or disposal or reason codes for each female. For example, if a female is used as a donor dam in the current year, a reason code will be assigned to the individual, so she is not incorrectly disadvantaged for a missed natural calf.
Breeders can enroll in the program at any time and will have a corresponding re-enrollment date each year thereafter. If, down the road, a producer decides there is a better time period to maintain and update his or her cow inventory, the Association will work with producers on an individual basis to make changes.
For more information, please view the full Angus Media news article online.
Cattlemen Rally Behind Pruitt to Lead EPA
The Missouri Cattlemen’s Association (MCA) stood with 36 other state organizations, representing tens of thousands of cattle farmers and ranchers, in submitting a letter to the U.S. Senate Environment and Public Works Committee (EPW) urging confirmation of Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt to head the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The letter was sent to EPW Chairman Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) and ranking member, Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.).
“Cattlemen are ready for an EPA administrator who will bring transformational change to an agency that should base policies and regulations on legitimate science. A little common sense wouldn’t hurt either,” said MCA President Butch Meier, who is a full-time cattleman from Jackson, Mo. “Attorney General Pruitt understands the importance of the farming and ranching community to every citizen in the United States and abroad.”
Meier noted that the nation’s cattle industry is the single-largest segment of American agriculture and represents the largest landowner group in the country.
“We want to produce food for this country and beyond without unnecessary, scientifically unfounded rules and regulations promulgated by out-of-touch bureaucrats,” said Meier.
For more information, please view the full MCA news release online.
MCA Establishes Legislative Priorities
The MCA established policy priorities for the 2017 legislative session. MCA Policy and Legislative Affairs Chairman Jimmie Long said reviewing current policies, establishing new policies and setting policy priorities is a grassroots function of the association that is completed at the its annual convention, which occurred Jan. 6-8 in Osage Beach, Mo. He said the association will focus its efforts on private property rights in the 2017 legislative session.
“There is no policy established by staff or a few people in a closed-door meeting. Our policies generally start at the county level and move up. This is a member-driven process that we take very seriously,” said Long, who is a cattleman from Cole Camp. “Our members made clear that private property rights is of the utmost importance. The association will support measures that strengthen private property rights in Missouri and will vehemently oppose any invasion of those rights.”
Two issues the association decided to tackle this year do focus on strengthening private property rights.
Long said if an animal owner is charged with animal abuse or neglect and they are found not guilty, the owner is still required to pay for all expenses associated with their case.
For more information, please view the full MCA news release online.
Record-setting Year for Canadian Angus Association
Canadian Angus Association (CAA) members registered a record 62,414 purebred Angus calves in 2016. The previous highs were in 2008 when 61,578 calves were registered and in 2015 when 60,034 calves were registered. The CAA maintains a closed herd book that prohibits breeding up.
The number of registrations in 2016 is a 4% increase over 2015, which was a 7% increase over 2014 registrations.
The number of members grew 5% during 2015 to 2,346 active members across Canada in 2016. This is the first time that the number of memberships has increased in more than two decades. Nearly 250 new members joined the CAA last year.
Tag sales were the second-highest in the program’s history, with 278,010 Canadian Angus Rancher Endorsed RFID tags sold. The Canadian Angus Rancher Endorsed tag program remains the largest branded tag program in the world.
“I am incredibly proud that the Canadian Angus Association registration certificate has never been in such high demand as it is right now,” says CAA CEO Rob Smith.
For more information, please view the full CAA news release online.
Farm Bureau Delegates Urge Congress
to Support Regulatory Reform
American Farm Bureau Federation (AFBF) delegates from all 50 states Jan. 10 approved a special resolution urging Congress to enact swift, meaningful and strongly bipartisan regulatory reform. The resolution, adopted at AFBF’s 2017 Annual Convention in Phoenix, comes in the wake of the introduction of bills in Congress that would pare back the rapid growth of oppressive regulation and government overreach.
Delegates called on the federal government to adhere to a series of principles, including:
- the use of sound science;
- consideration of costs and benefits to stakeholders;
- transparency in federal agencies and departments;
- reduction of abuses of the court settlement process;
- limiting deference granted by courts to agencies’ interpretation of law;
- prohibiting agency misuse of social media to lobby the public in support of agency proposals;
- greater congressional oversight of agencies;
- congressional approval of major rules;
- a minimum comment period for rules; and
- reform of the Equal Access to Justice Act.
The full text of the resolution is available at: www.fb.org/files/AFBF_Delegate_Resolution.pdf.
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