Cattle producers around the country have been busy this winter trying to care for their animals in particularly harsh weather.
Ice, snow and freezing temperatures mean lots of extra work to feed and water cattle and there were lots of producers who were unable to make the trip to Denver last week for the Cattle Industry Convention because of that. There have even been reports of barns collapsing and killing cattle. USDA Farm Service Agency (FSA) officials are reminding livestock producers throughout the Plains states and the Midwest that FSA programs may be available to assist them.
“This is turning out to be a tough winter for many ranchers and farmers in the nation’s heartland, and learning about our FSA programs is an important step for producers to take,” FSA Administrator Jonathan Coppess said in a release last week. “We need producers to document the number and kind of livestock that have died as a direct result of these winter storms and timely notify their local FSA office of these losses. There may be situations where producers are transporting feed to their livestock. Producers should document these additional costs.”
FSA administers several programs that help producers recover from livestock deaths that are beyond normal mortality rates, losses of purchased and/or harvested forage, and with the additional costs of providing or transporting feed.
Here in mid Missouri, we still have a foot or more of snow in some areas after last week’s storm that dumped about 20 inches. The photo is from Brownfield Network’s Cyndi Young-Puyear who has a cow-calf operation with her husband Jim not far from the state capitol. She’s really proud of her little black and white striped calf and she reports on Facebook that the snow hasn’t slowed little “Oreo Speedwagon” down a bit!
Bryce Stremming is one of MID-CO’s Commodity Risk Consultants. “What MID-CO keys on is basis trading within the grain industry and as the market moves up and down, you have different opportunities with the basis on whether it is improving or not,” Bryce told Agwired during a recent interview.
At a recent grower seminar in Chicago, 
This year marks the 38th anniversary of 
Bill Donald, a third generation, pony-tailed Montana rancher, was officially elected as president of the NCBA. Bill says putting the long range plan into motion is the organization’s first order of business this year. “We’re going to have an executive committee meeting in about three weeks and make sure our strategic plan is aligned with the long range plan and then we’re going to get to work and get that implemented,” he said. Like anything else, meeting the goals of the plan will require funding, and Bill says NCBA is prepared to meet that challenge. “We passed a resolution to increase total revenue, both checkoff and non-checkoff, to have $150 million annually. That’s about double from where it is right now.”
J.D. Alexander, cattle feeder/farmer from Nebraska, moved up from vice president to NCBA president-elect at the conclusion of the business meeting. J.D. says the cattle industry is in a good position right now as far as profitability is concerned. “We’re very optimistic and from the CattleFax information at the convention, our market is still on the right track and doing well,” he said, adding that NCBA’s top priority will continue to be looking out for producer interests on the national level. 
Scott George, a dairy and beef producer from Wyoming was elected as the new vice president for NCBA, switching over from