The Senate Agriculture Committee advanced two bills on Wednesday with bipartisan support – the Cattle Price Discovery and Transparency Act and the Meat Packing Special Investigator Act. Both bills were strongly supported by Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA). During his weekly call with agricultural reporters Tuesday, Grassley said he thinks the bills have a good chance of making it to the …
RIP Cowboy Poet Baxter Black
Baxter Black, nationally popular cowboy poet, storyteller, and comedian died June 10 at the age of 77. I had the pleasure of meeting Baxter in 2007 when he was working with the Beef Checkoff on radio spots and he would entertain at the Beef Board dinners during the annual meetings. He was the real deal, a rodeo cowboy and and …
USDA Announces Meat Supply Chain Actions
Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack used an appearance before the Senate Agriculture Committee on Thursday to make a few announcements, including issuing a new Packers & Stockyards Act rulemaking, making available $200 Million to expand competition in meat processing, and investing $25 million in workforce training. Vilsack said the actions build on President Biden’s whole-of-government effort to promote competition in …
Agri-Pulse Newsmakers Focuses on Cattle Hearings
The newest edition of Agri-Pulse Newsmakers is out and this week the focus is on cattle hearings and beef politics. The House and Senate Agriculture Committees both convened hearings to examine the beef sector this week. Now, Congress is left to determine its next steps and whether or not to pursue big reforms to the nation’s cattle sector. Newsmakers interviews …
NCBA President Testifies on Cattle Market Policies
National Cattlemen’s Beef Association NCBA President Don Schiefelbein of Minnesota testified before a House Agriculture Committee hearing Wednesday on cattle market policy issues. Schiefelbein urged House members to support key policies with broad, unified support across the entire cattle industry including a cattle contract library, Livestock Mandatory Reporting (LMR) reauthorization, and investments in small regional processing capacity expansion. “The only …
NCBA Opposes Mandate on Cattle Sales
Two bills designed to address transparency and oversight within cattle marketing were the subject of a Senate Agriculture Committee hearing on Tuesday where the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association expressed opposition to a “government mandate on cattle sales.” The hearing was specifically on the Cattle Price Discovery and Transparency Act sponsored by Sens. Deb Fischer (R-NE) and Chuck Grassley (R-IA) and …
U.S. Agricultural Exports Shattered Records in 2021
The American agricultural industry posted its highest annual export levels ever recorded last year, according to the final 2021 trade data from the Department of Commerce. The report shows exports of U.S. farm and food products to the world in 2021 totaled $177 billion, topping the 2020 total by 18 percent and eclipsing the previous record, set in 2014, by …
ZimmCast 685 – Cattle Industry Convention
Hello and welcome to the ZimmCast. I’m Chuck Zimmerman. Last week I traveled to Houston for the annual Cattle Industry Convention and NCBA Trade Show. We produced a customized virtual newsroom for NCBA on AgNewsWire.com. It is loaded with content including photos, interviews and session audio that is all available all media. In this week’s episode I’m going to feature …
Find Your Blueprint® for Beef Production
What if you supplemented your cattle with only organic trace minerals? That was the question Alltech set out to answer a few years ago and the result is Blueprint®, a supplementation program designed to target animal health and performance and help build upon the genetic potential at each stage of an animal’s life cycle. The program is formulated with Alltech’s …
Trailblazers and Beef Advocates
Speaking of beef, Markie Hageman was selected as the 2021 Beef Advocate of the Year and also named as one of the very first industry Trailblazers. The Advocate of the Year award, given by the Beef Checkoff-funded Masters of Beef Advocacy (MBA) program, recognizes one outstanding beef advocate for their efforts in educating consumers about cattle and beef. Hageman was …