News Update
November 8, 2017
Helping Consumers Rethink the Ranch
Promoting beef has become more complicated than it was in 1992 when your beef checkoff kicked off the Beef. It’s What’s for Dinner. brand. That’s why Rethink the Ranch was born.
As the checkoff is re-introducing consumers to beef during this 25th anniversary of the iconic brand, we’re also introducing them to the real ranchers and farmers and their stories about how they produce beef.
You see, sometimes people assume that their beef comes from a nameless, faceless entity. That couldn’t be further from the truth. Rethink the Ranch is a campaign to highlight the humanity behind beef production — to connect consumers to the process and the people!
We want consumers to rethink everything that goes into beef production. So, this summer, a camera crew travelled 3,800 miles across the United States, visiting six different cattle operations in four states. They captured more than 100 hours of video, along with images and stories about people like you. Take a look at how producers are showcased in the Rethink the Ranch video at www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xs2FV_hyi_s&t=2s.
Continue reading this Angus Beef Bulletin EXTRA article online.
Producer Groups Urge President to Reverse
Ag Secretary’s GIPSA Decision
In a letter sent Nov. 7, Ranchers-Cattlemen Action Legal Fund, United Stockgrowers of America (R-CALF USA) and its statewide cattle association affiliates are among 80 producer groups urging President Trump to issue an executive order reversing Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue’s recent decision to withdraw what are known as the Grain Inspection, Packers and Stockyards Administration (GIPSA) rules or Farmers Fair Practices Rules.
The purpose of those rules was to implement Congress’ directive that livestock producers be protected from the unfair, unjustly discriminatory, deceptive and preferential practices of highly concentrated meatpackers that wield potentially abusive market power due to their dominant control over fed-cattle marketing outlets. That directive was first passed in the Packers and Stockyards Act of 1921 and restated in part in the 2008 Farm Bill.
In the United States only four meatpackers control about 85% of all marketing outlets for slaughter-ready cattle. The second largest of those four behemoths is Brazilian-owned JBS. The JBS corporation has already paid a multi-million dollar fine in Brazil for engaging in the anticompetitive practice of coordinating price agreements with other meatpacking cartels to keep producers’ cattle prices low.
Read the full R-CALF news release online.
USDA Chief Scientist Statement
on WHO Guidelines on Antibiotics
The World Health Organization (WHO) has released recommendations regarding the use of antibiotics in agriculture. Chavonda Jacobs-Young, USDA acting chief scientist, Nov. 7 issued the following statement:
“The WHO guidelines are not in alignment with U.S. policy and are not supported by sound science. The recommendations erroneously conflate disease prevention with growth promotion in animals.
“The WHO previously requested that the standards for on-farm antibiotic use in animals be updated through a transparent, consensus, science-based process of CODEX. However, before the first meeting of the CODEX was held, the WHO released these guidelines, which according to language in the guidelines are based on ‘low-quality evidence,’ and in some cases, ‘very low-quality evidence.’
“Under current Food and Drug Administration (FDA) policy, medically important antibiotics should not be used for growth promotion in animals. In the U.S., the FDA allows for the use of antimicrobial drugs in treating, controlling and preventing disease in food-producing animals under the professional oversight of licensed veterinarians. While the WHO guidelines acknowledge the role of veterinarians, they would also impose unnecessary and unrealistic constraints on their professional judgment.”
Learn more in the full USDA news release online.
NPPC Statement On WHO Call For Ban
On Prevention Uses Of Antibiotics
A ban on disease prevention uses of antibiotics in food-animal production being advocated by the WHO would be ill advised and wrong. Denying pigs, cows and chickens necessary antibiotics would be unethical and immoral, leading to animal suffering and possibly death, and could compromise the nation’s food system.
America’s pork farmers share the WHO’s concern about the rise in antibiotic-resistant bacteria, which is why they have taken steps over the past 30 years to ensure they’re using antibiotics strategically and responsibly to keep animals healthy and to produce safe food. They are complying with an FDA directive that prohibits the use of antibiotics important to human medicine for promoting animal growth, and that requires feed and water uses of those same antibiotics to be under a veterinary prescription. They also participate in pork industry-developed programs that include responsible antibiotics use and support federal efforts to track antibiotic resistance in foodborne bacteria from humans, retail meats and food animals.
Prevention uses of antibiotics involve administering antimicrobial drugs to animals that aren’t exhibiting clinical signs of disease but that likely will get disease if a drug isn’t administered.
View the full NPPC news release online.
Hope After Harvey: More than $142,000
in Donated to Texas Farmers and Ranchers
As Harvey’s winds died down, yet while the waters were still rising, Alltech launched Hope After Harvey to raise support for Texas farmers and ranchers, who lead the United States in cattle, cotton, hay, sheep and goat production.
Alltech committed to match donations made to its 501(c)(3) nonprofit, the Alltech ACE Foundation. As a result of the Hope After Harvey donation response, Alltech representatives presented Texas Farm Bureau’s (TFB) Agriculture Research and Education Foundation with a $42,607.12 check. The funds will be used to provide support and relief to those in agriculture who were affected by Hurricane Harvey.
“We’re very grateful for Alltech’s donation and others like it from across the state and country,” said TFB President Russell Boening, a South Texas dairyman, farmer and rancher. “Every dime contributed to our Hurricane Harvey relief fund will go directly to the men and women who grow our food and fiber, who suffered losses when Harvey hit. Rebuilding won’t be easy, but with the generosity of companies like Alltech, Texas agriculture is sure to recover.”
Additionally, the Alltech family committed to donating $100,000 in value of animal feed and crop products, which have been distributed through dealers and Texas AgriLife Extension.
Keep reading this Alltech news release online.
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