NCBA Committee Considers Cattle Health Issues

Cindy Zimmerman

Government activities that affect cattle producers and cattle health were among the topics discussed at the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association (NCBA) Cattle Health and Well-Being Policy Committee Friday at the Cattle Industry Convention in Denver.

Committee chairman Tom Talbot, a veterinarian and cow-calf operator from California, says the committee’s objective is to provide guidance and develop policy to ensure cattle health and well-being issues are addressed in an efficient and effective manner to maintain the health and quality care of cattle; and to provide consumers consistent, high quality, safe and wholesome beef. “The majority of things that we talk about are things that affect each and every producer across the United States,” he said.

During Friday’s meeting, Devin Koontz, with the Food and Drug Administration’s district office in Denver, updated the committee on the FDA’s draft guidance on antimicrobial resistance. Brian McCluskey, western region director of APHIS’ Veterinary Services, was on hand to provide an update from APHIS.

The committee also heard about herd health management from Dr. Dan Thomson of Kansas State University, and Dr. Guy Longeragan from Texas Tech University gave an update on the current state of the science regarding pre-harvest tools. Read more about the meeting here.

“Obviously, animal health, food safety and animal welfare all come under cattle health,” Tom said. “We want the consumer to know that we do our best to make sure that the product comes out at the end is extremely healthy and safe and has been handled well its entire life.” Tom is pictured here with NCBA staff veterinarian Dr. Elizabeth Parker.

Listen or download my interview with Tom here: Interview with Tom Talbot
2011 Cattle Industry Convention Photos

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NCBA PAC Auction Raises $50,000

Cindy Zimmerman

Karl Rove helped the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association raise more than $50,000 for the organization’s Political Action Committee (PAC) during the Thursday general session.

In addition to several great packages already on the auction list, Rove donated a vacation at his personal Florida panhandle property – which ultimately sold for almost $10,000.

During his address just prior to the auction, the former White House advisor mentioned the importance of the political action committee for a policy organization like NCBA that is working daily for the interests of cattle producers in the nation’s capitol. “You want to have a role, you want to have a voice, you want to have an influence in making our country what you want it to be,” Rove said. “The first thing you ought to do is you ought to write a check to the PAC.”

Thanks to Karl’s generous contribution and NCBA Communications Director Mike Deering’s enthusiastic auctioneering, the PAC has a few more dollars for lobbying efforts on behalf of the cattle industry in Washington. If you want to help, contributions to the PAC can now be made on-line.

Watch Mike the auctioneer at work here:

Cattle Industry Conference, NCBA

NCBA CEO Says Industry is Optimistic

Cindy Zimmerman

National Cattlemen’s Beef Association CEO Forrest Roberts is thrilled at the turnout at this week’s Cattle Industry Convention, which was exceptional even without considering the bad weather.

“We started the week with expectations that we would set a record for attendance over the past ten years,” Forrest said. “We had a little bit of a scare with Mother Nature with some bad weather across the entire US, but we’re right at about 6,000 cattlemen that have come into Denver with a real focused effort to make good business decisions for this industry.”

Forrest says the producers have come together with a sense of optimism. “We’ve obviously had good levels of profit throughout just about every segment of the beef industry and that’s not a situation we’ve ever had. So when you seen that type of an opportunity, you tend to see people come into it with their spirits high, despite the weather.”

Forrest talked about the beef industry long range plan and how NCBA hopes to implement those long term goals.

Listen or download my interview with Forrest here: Interview with Forrest Roberts
2011 Cattle Industry Convention Photos

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NCBA Live Cattle Marketing Issues

Cindy Zimmerman

The proposed GIPSA regulations and the impact of the recent Eastern Livestock bankruptcy case were the top issues on the agenda for the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association Live Cattle Marketing Committee meeting today.

Allie Devine, VP & General Counsel for the Kansas Livestock Association, gave an update on both at the meeting. While the outcome of GIPSA is still up in the air, Allie says there are lessons cattle producers can learn now from the Eastern Livestock bankruptcy situation.

“I would tell any cattle producer today, there’s nothing wrong with writing contracts, they’re not hard,” she told me. However, she acknowledges that goes against the grain of the people in this business. “The handshake is the hallmark of the cattle industry,” she said. “For the vast majority of them, they’re honest and hardworking and their word is their honor.”

“It’s tough, but when we’re talking about hundreds of thousands of dollars, it’s better to put it in writing,” Allie advises.

Listen or download my interview with Allie here: Interview with Allie Devine
2011 Cattle Industry Convention Photos

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CattleFax Outlook at Cattle Industry Convention

Cindy Zimmerman

It was a full house for the CattleFax Annual Outlook Seminar this morning in Denver, showing how important future trends in weather, prices, grain markets and exports are to members of the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association.

According to CattleFax market analyst Brett Stuart, global beef demand is increasing alongside tighter world beef supplies.

“2011 will be the fourth consecutive year of global beef production declines,” said Stuart. “This will not correct quickly. We will see very tight supplies moving forward.”

A major contributing factor to increasing demand comes from outside the borders of the United States. Stuart said business in the international marketplace is growing quickly as improvements to infrastructure and logistics are made. Beef exports are witnessing substantial growth with 75 percent of all U.S. beef exports going to Mexico, Canada, South Korea, Japan and Vietnam.

“Korea is very aggressively buying beef from the United States,” said Stuart, adding that the foot and mouth disease issue is causing substantial reductions in Korea’s domestic meat supplies. “Last week we had outstanding sales to Korea at 24,000 tons, which is up from 9,000 tons a year ago.”

Stuart projects the increasing demand from outside the United States will continue the upward trend. He suggested an 8 percent to 10 percent increase in U.S. beef exports in 2011 compared to last year. He said it could even surpass his expectation.

“I am not saying exports will be up 18 percent (from 2010), but I’m not saying they won’t be,” he said.

Listen or download Stuart’s presentation here: CattleFax's Brett Stuart
2011 Cattle Industry Convention Photos

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NCBA Outlines Long Range Plan

Cindy Zimmerman

Members of the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association Long Range Plan Task Force unveiled the core strategies and goals for the industry going forward.

I talked with task force member Homer Buell of Shovel Dot Ranch in Nebraska about some of the six core areas – improving domestic consumer preference for beef, global growth opportunities, strengthening the image of beef, protecting the freedom to operate, improving industry trust and positioning the cow herd for growth.

“We developed a three year plan.” said Homer. “We really wanted to set out a vision, a mission, and then locked together six core strategies to make that happen and as we move forward, if the things in our plan can be made to happen, then we can continue to have success.”

The vision statement is, “An industry united around a common goal of being the world’s most trusted and preferred source of beef and beef products” and the mission statement is “To provide the safest, highest quality, most consumer-friendly beef and beef products in an environmentally and economically sustainable manner.”

Listen or download my interview with Homer here: Interview with Homer Buell
2011 Cattle Industry Convention Photos

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Using Alge to Improve Ag Sustainability

Joanna Schroeder

Agriculture often gets a bad wrap on the sustainability scale but growers know that they aren’t going to jeopardize their livehoods and they are great stewards of the land. But for those growers who are still looking for some unique ways to be a little “greener” with their operations, they should consider algae.

Kent Bioenergy has its roots in aquaculture. The company was a pioneer in fish farms and needed a way to clean the water. Enter algae. Over time, the company has discovered how to harvest the algae and the co-products can be used for a variety of things depending on where the nutrients came from to grow the algae.

For example, Barry Toyonaga, Ph.D. who is the Chief Business Officer for the company, explained that they have been working with growers and livestock, dairy and hog producers to use algae as a way to reduce normal agricultural run-off.

Most of the waste is unused fertilizer coming straight off farm land and so if our algae is just recapturing the used fertilizer, and we’re harvesting that algae, its really a renewable resource for fertilizer,” explained Toyonaga.

What is especially interesting about using algae to capture run-off is that the agriculture industry is being criticized for causing “Dead Zones” in the ocean, areas where marine life cannot be supported due to depleted oxygen levels. Integrating algae can reduce this run-off, and help to remove the criticism that agriculture is causing this problem. It’s also beneficial for the grower because once the algae is harvested, it can be “reused” on the farm as an organic fertilizer, reducing costs and reducing another common criticism launched against agriculture – using fossil-fuel based inputs.

Toyonaga truly believes that his company is on to something and they are trying to interest both the agricultural community and the USDA in the technology. So if you’re a grower who is open to trying something new, considering reaching out to Kent Bioenergy.

To learn more about how integrating algae into your farm or livestock operations, listen to my interview with Barry here. Barry Toyonaga interview

You can also view photos from my San Diego Algae Tour here.

Aquaculture, Audio, Biodiesel, Livestock, Sustainability

NCBA Stewardship Awards Celebrate 20 Years

Cindy Zimmerman

The 20th annual national Environmental Stewardship Award (ESA) winner was announced Thursday night during the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association tailgate party held at the Denver Broncos football stadium.

The seven regional award winners were honored during a reception where they all received specially commissioned bronze sculptures by artist Vern Friesen of Nebraska, courtesy of sponsor Dow AgroSciences. The national winner was Couser Cattle Company of Nevada, Iowa – represented here by Bill and Nancy Couser. They received another special bronze for being the best in the country.

The awards are also sponsored by USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service and the US Fish and Wildlife Service. Since the ESA program began in 1991, nearly 130 cattle operations in 33 states have been recognized for outstanding environmental stewardship. The 20 year milestone of the program is being marked by a special video presentation that will be aired on NCBA’s Cattlemen to Cattlemen program this summer.

BTW, we did a post about the Couser Cattle Company last year when they hosted a tour of the operation as part of the TATT Global Farmer to Farmer Roundtable.

Listen or download my interview with Bill here: Interview with Bill Couser
2011 Cattle Industry Convention Photos

See more coverage on BeltwayBeef.org.

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Zimfo Bytes

Melissa Sandfort

    Zimfo Bytes

  • The National Soybean Research Laboratory at the University of Illinois is organizing the upcoming Corporate Social Responsibility Conference: Nutrition Solutions for Central America in Guatemala City, Guatemala.
  • The U.S. EPA has granted DuPont registration approval for DuPont Perspective, Streamline and Viewpoint herbicides.
  • The London-based commodity consultancy VM Group launches Worldcrops.com, a unique service that gathers in one web-based location all the essential analysis and data that track developments in global crop markets.
  • Ag Leader Technology, Inc., introduced its latest product offerings: OptRx Crop Sensors for North American wheat and ParaDyme automated steering system which can receive GLONASS signals.
    Zimfo Bytes

    First Ever NCBA Communications Awards

    Cindy Zimmerman

    The National Cattlemen’s Beef Association inaugurated some new awards this year for excellence in agricultural communications and journalism.

    The Excellence in Agricultural Communications awards were presented to an outstanding state beef association communicator and to a state breed communicator. The winners were Eric Grant of the American Angus Association (pictured on the right with Mike Deering and Mary Geiger of the NCBA Communications Staff) and Jaime King from the Ohio Cattlemen’s, who was not present.

    There were over 90 nominations from state associations for the first Excellence in Ag Journalism. The winner this year, picked by a panel, Ron Hays of the Radio Oklahoma Network (RON).

    That’s me with Mike and Ron in the second photo. ZimmComm was proud to be the sponsor of these new awards, which included traveling plaques and gift certificates for ZimmComm services for the organization awards, as well as $100 in cash for the ag journalist award. Congrats to all and thanks to NCBA for starting this award to honor excellence in ag media and communications.


    2011 Cattle Industry Convention Photos

    See more coverage on BeltwayBeef.org.

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