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
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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
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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
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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
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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

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    NCBA President Reflects on 2010

    Cindy Zimmerman

    Steve Foglesong of Illinois has just a couple more days as president of the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association and I spent a few minutes with him today reflecting on his year as the head of the organizations.

    When it came to over-reaching government regulation, Steve said, “It was non-stop, one issue after another” but, he is pleased that NCBA was successful in getting some of those things changed or stopped.

    GIPSA was the biggest regulatory issue that NCBA faced in 2010, and while a final decision has not yet been made, Steve is happy the Secretary of Agriculture has now ordered a full economic analysis of the proposed rule. “And they’re going to take their time and do that job right.”

    After so many struggles in 2010, Steve said it was strange that the year ended with a victory that meant a great deal to the cattle industry – two years of death tax relief in the lame duck session of Congress. But, he notes that the industry will still be “looking for a full repeal.”

    Listen or download my interview with Steve here: NCBA president Steve Foglesong
    2011 Cattle Industry Convention Photos

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    Karl Rove at Cattle Industry Meeting

    Cindy Zimmerman

    Addressing about 5,000 cattle industry members from around the country Thursday morning, the man who served President George W. Bush in the White House gave a nice, if somewhat backhanded, compliment to the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association. “This is one damn confident organization to have a man with a ponytail coming in as your president,” said Karl Rove, referring to Montana cattleman Bill Donald, NCBA president-elect.

    Rove, who served as Senior White House Advisor under Bush and is now a Fox New contributor, talked about a number of policy issues important to cattle producers, starting with international trade. “We gotta find ways to take what we grow and produce and manufacture and create and sell them all around the world because America can compete anywhere in the world as long as the rules are fair and the playing field is level,” he said.

    Listen or download all of Rove’s remarks here: Karl Rove Remarks at NCBA
    2011 Cattle Industry Convention Photos

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    NCBA President-Elect Stresses Working Together

    Cindy Zimmerman

    The pony-tailed president-elect of the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association took a little good-natured ribbing from former White House advisor Karl Rove this morning for his hairstyle, but he also poked a little fun at himself during his address to the thousands of cattle industry members.

    “I am the first president of the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association to be on Facebook,” said Bill, noting that he had to come up with some of his favorite quotes for his profile. They are “If you don’t think too good, don’t think too much” and “If it’s worth doing, it’s worth overdoing.”

    Getting more serious, Bill stressed the importance of the industry working together. “We’re a diverse outfit, we cover every segment of the industry, and I don’t apologize to anybody about that,” he said. “Yeah, we’ve got packers who serve on the board of this outfit. And we’ve got retailers and we have importers and cow-calf guys and stocker guys and feedlot operators. Because that’s what it takes for all of us to be profitable is all of us to be in the same room working on the same issues.”

    Bill used a painting by Montana artist David Hodges to illustrate teamwork in the beef cattle industry. That painting is pictured here. Among other things, Bill drew attention to the freight wagon going up the hill on the high road. “We get a lot of challenges, a lot of groups and individuals that can say a lot of nasty things about us,” he said. “We’re gonna stay on the high road.”

    Listen to Bill’s remarks here: NCBA Bill Donald Remarks


    2011 Cattle Industry Convention Photos

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