News Update

February 27, 2017

Deadline Approaching: 2017 Beef Leaders Institute

The Beef Leaders Institute (BLI) is a premier leadership experience for American Angus Association members that provides a look into the entire beef supply chain, while enhancing participant knowledge of the Association and strengthening their leadership skills.

Now in its tenth year, Angus producers between 25-45 years old are invited to apply for the five-day tour hosted June 19-23, 2017. Applications are due March 1.

Thanks to generous support from the Angus Foundation, BLI offers producers a chance to tour all facets of the beef production line. With a trip to the Association, tours to feedlots, harvesting and packing plants and industry leading genomic companies, all the way to Certified Angus Beef LLC (CAB) in Wooster, Ohio, Angus cattlemen and women receive elite hands-on learning and insight into quality cattle production.

For more information, view the Angus news release online.

— Adapted from a release by JD Rosman, Angus Media.

Statement by North Dakota Stockmen's Association

“Private property rights were dealt a devastating blow today (Feb. 22, 2017) when the Senate voted 17 to 28 to kill SB 2225. The bill would have established a pilot program in up to five counties that created an electronic database where landowners could register their land as open or closed for hunting and removed the requirement that land must be posted in those counties to keep others off or to know who was accessing it.

While the bill was a far slower and milder approach than the agriculture community’s goal to remove the posting requirement completely, the amended bill represented a compromise — a step in the right direction in asserting the fundamental private property rights of landowners and a way to help ensure that access would not be impaired for sportsmen. It embraced technology and would have been a helpful tool for hunters and a building block in sportsman-landowner relationships.”

— Adapted from a release by North Dakota Stockmen’s Association.

Livestock Slaughter

Commercial red meat production for the United States totaled 4.29 billion pounds (lb.) in January, up 6% from the 4.06 billion lb., produced in January 2016.

Beef production, at 2.12 billion lb., was 8% above the previous year. Cattle slaughter totaled 2.58 million head, up 9% from January 2016. The average live weight was down 11 lb., from the previous year, at 1,370 lb.

Veal production totaled 6.3 million lb., 5% below January a year ago. Calf slaughter totaled 46,600 head, 12% above January 2016. The average live weight was down 39 lb., from last year, at 235 lb.

Pork production totaled 2.15 billion lb., 3% above the previous year. Hog slaughter totaled 10.1 million head, 4% above January 2016. The average live weight was down 1 lb., from the previous year, at 284 lb.

Lamb and mutton production, at 12.3 million lb., was 9% above January 2016. Sheep slaughter totaled 177,000 head, 10% above last year. The average live weight was 138 lb., down 1 lb., from January a year ago.

For more information, view the full NASS report online.

— Adapted from a release by USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service.

R-CALF USA to Hold Producer Meetings

R-CALF USA CEO Bill Bullard will continue his group’s speaking tour March 7-9 in Missouri to discuss the fundamental changes his group says are needed to prevent the U.S. cattle industry from being “chickenized” by the handful of remaining multinational beef packers. Chickenization is the term used to describe the process of vertical integration, where beef packers capture control over the live cattle supply chain.

The upcoming meetings will provide updates on the group’s new “COOLin100” campaign designed to reinstate country-of-origin labeling (COOL) for beef and pork within the first 100 days of the Trump Administration.

Other issues for discussion include the recently published Farmers Fair Practices Rules, antitrust enforcement, the impacts that captive supplies and one-sided trade policies are having on the cattle industry and on rural America, the dangers of the Global Roundtable for Sustainable Beef initiative, and a discussion on R-CALF USA’s pending federal lawsuit against the beef checkoff program.

For more information, view the R-CALF news release online.

— Adapted from a release by R-CALF USA.

UK Master Haymaker Program

A new University of Kentucky (UK) College of Agriculture, Food and Environment program focused on helping livestock and forage managers more efficiently produce and use stored forages will begin next month in Adair County, Ky.

Farmers in Adair and neighboring Green and Taylor counties recognized the need for such a program. While attending a Master Cattleman program put on by their local UK Cooperative Extension Service offices, the producers suggested a new program that focuses on hay, haylage and baleage to extension agents for agriculture and natural resources Nick Roy, Ricky Arnett and Pat Hardesty.

Master Haymaker will begin at 5:30 p.m. CST on Thursday, March 2 and continue each of the next six Thursdays with sessions rotating between Adair, Green and Taylor counties. Speakers will be UK extension specialists for forages, livestock, soils and weeds.

For more information, access the complete news release online.

— Adapted from a release by Katie Pratt, University of Kentucky.

— Compiled by Paige Nelson, field editor, Angus Media.

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