Bill Exempts Farms From Reporting Emissions

jamie johansenAg Group, AgWired Animal, Animal Agriculture, Animal Health, Beef, Dairy, Livestock, Pork, Poultry

The National Cattlemen’s Beef Association (NCBA), National Pork Producers Council (NPPC), National Milk Producers Federation (NMPF) and poultry groups including National Turkey Federation, National Chicken Council, U.S. Poultry & Egg Association, and United Egg Producers applaud introduction of bipartisan legislation in the U.S. Senate that would prevent farms, ranches, and other agricultural operations from having to report livestock manure data under Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act (CERCLA).

The law governs toxic Superfund sites which are used primarily to clean hazardous waste sites but also includes a mandatory federal reporting component. Lead sponsors include Sens. Deb Fischer (R-NE) and Joe Donnelly (D-IN), along with 18 other Republican and Democratic senators, including Environment and Public Works Committee Chairman John Barrasso (R-WY) and Ranking Member Tom Carper (D-DE).

“There’s not a lot of truly bipartisan legislation in Washington these days, but one thing that pretty much everybody can agree on is that a responsibly-run cattle ranch isn’t a toxic Superfund site,” said fifth-generation California rancher and NCBA President Kevin Kester. “On behalf of cattle producers across America, I want to sincerely thank the Senators from both parties who worked together to introduce this bipartisan bill. I also want to encourage other Senators to join the effort and pass this bill as quickly as possible.”

“Routine emissions from hog manure do not constitute a ‘hazardous’ emergency that requires the Coast Guard to activate a national cleanup response,” said NPPC President Ken Maschhoff, a pork producer from Carlyle, Ill., “We’re extremely grateful to the 19 cosponsors of the FARM Act for their leadership and common sense on this issue. EPA exempted farms from CERCLA reporting because it knew responses would be unnecessary and impractical. Frankly, the court created a problem where none existed.”

“CERCLA was never intended to be applied in this way to dairy farms,” said NMPF President and CEO Jim Mulhern. “Congress needs to stipulate that this burdensome regulatory overreach serves no legitimate health or safety purpose, and needs to stop.”

“This is significant breakthrough legislation restoring CERCLA reporting to its intended purpose, a united legislative effort that has been nearly 15 years in the making, and we appreciate their swift action on behalf of America’s turkey, chicken and egg farmers,” said the poultry groups in a joint statement. “Marking a bi-partisan level of cooperation, the bill demonstrates strong support from both Republicans and Democrats on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee to clarify Congress’ intent.”

Fighting Bovine Respiratory Disease

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Bovine Respiratory Disease (BRD) is the leading cause of calf death after weaning. Boehringer Ingelheim takes a holistic approach when helping producers fight the disease, said Professional Services Veterinarian Dr. Rich Linhart.

“We look at everything on the ranch, from personnel to feed bunk space to mud to wind to the way pens are set up, and cattle flow,” said Linhart, who is based in Boise, Idaho.

He said the company does offer both vaccines and antibiotics to help prevent and battle BRD, but also recognizes the importance of good nutrition and many other factors when it comes to keeping the disease off the farm or ranch. Linhart answered questions from producers at the 2018 Cattle Industry Convention and National Cattlemen’s Beef Association Trade Show in Phoenix.

Listen to Jamie’s interview with Dr. Linhart: Interview with Dr. Rich Linhart, Boehringer Ingelheim

2018 Cattle Industry Convention & Trade Show Photo Album

Farm Credit at #CattleCon18

AgWired Animal, Audio, Beef, Cattle Industry Conference, Exports, Farm Credit, Trade

During #CattleCon18 I visited with Farm Credit to learn what they are offering to cattle ranchers. I talked with Todd Moore (pictured), Farm Credit Mid-America, first and asked him what the message is for those attending. He says that with the volatility in cattle prices lender are talking to their customers and asking questions like, “Do they have a risk management plan?” And if they do, “Do they have enough information to know their fixed and variable costs to devise a good plan?”

When it comes to what questions he is getting from producers he says they are very diverse but with some common themes like interest rates. With interest rates expected to continue to rise they wonder about locking in rates or having fixed interest rates. He says that is something Farm Credit can help them with. Learn more from my interview with Todd.

Listen to my interview with Todd here: Interview with Todd Moore, Farm Credit Mid-America

During my time with Farm Credit I also spoke with Rod Alt, Capital Farm Credit. He says that one of the benefits of being able to be a part of the NCBA Trade Show is the wide variety of cattle producers who attend and have very different needs. He also talks about having a good business plan and how Farm Credit and help their customers with that effort. He also offers some ideas for dealing with the upcoming year with all of its challenges.

Listen to my interview with Rod here: Interview with Rod Alt, Capital Farm Credit

Farm Credit also held a series of open forum roundtable discussions during the convention. The first one was conducted by Trevor Amen, Cobank and Sarah Fitzgerald, Capital Farm Credit. The topic was trade. As you can imagine that is a very important one for the industry. Listen in to hear about things like alternative meats and more.

Listen to the roundtable discussion here: Forum with Trevor Amen, Cobank & Sarah Fitzgerald, Capital Farm Credit

2018 Cattle Industry Convention & Trade Show Photo Album

Ag Policy Update: Farm Bill, Budget Deals & Trade

jamie johansenAgWired Animal, AgWired Precision, Audio, farm bill, Farm Bureau, Government, Trade

The Missouri Farm Bureau’s Young Farmers & Ranchers Conference took place over the weekend. I was able to attend with my husband and had great intentions to not ‘work.’ But when I heard topics being discussed that are timely and others might learn from, I couldn’t help but pull out my recorder and gather some content.

Missouri Farm Bureau’s Director of National Legislative Programs, Spencer Tuma, spoke to attendees during breakout sessions providing policy updates on topics like the farm bill, infrastructure, rural broadband and trade.

If you were sleeping last Thursday night, you may not have realized a government shutdown occurred. But Spencer shares how that shutdown impacted two key commodity groups.

“What that budget agreement does is fund our government until March 23rd through a continuing resolution, but it also had some really cool agricultural provisions including fixes to the current cotton and dairy program. Cotton was not eligible for the traditional commodity programs ARC and PLC. It has the STAX Program, which was plagued with low adoption rates. The current farm bill provisions for dairy, the Margin Protection Program, needed some serious work to be more effective for our farmers and ranchers,” said Tuma.

Even though this budget agreement will only last a short time, it did make those changes to the cotton and dairy programs permanent. “By addressing these through the budget process, it actually frees up some funding baseline in the upcoming farm bill to address some of the other commodity issues,” she added.

Listen to our complete conversation to learn more about the President’s incoming budget’s impact on infrastructure and rural broadband and how changes to trade agreement KORUS could impact U.S. agriculture. Interview with Spencer Tuma, Missouri Farm Bureau

The Crystalyx BioBarrel Focuses on Environment

jamie johansenAgribusiness, AgWired Animal, Alltech, Animal Agriculture, Audio, Beef, Cattle Industry Conference, NCBA

The Crystalyx BioBarrel was on display in the Alltech booth during the 2018 Cattle Industry Convention & NCBA Trade Show. This unique barrel allows for optimal mineral intake and is environmentally friendly.

“Crystalyx products are unique because they are a low moisture block. They are a dehydrated molasses product which is continuously looking for moisture to soften. Cattle consume by licking. They can’t bite or chew it. This ensures intake is regulated,” said Dan Dhuyvetter, Ridley Block a division of Alltech.

Wheat straw, soy flour and a small amount of wood fibers make up the content of the biobarrel. The container will degrade over time yet still withstand precipitation.

Dan said as attendees see the biobarrel in the booth it strikes up great conversation and gets them wanting to learn more. If you are also interested in learning more listen here: Interview with Dan Dhuyvetter Ridley Block Operations

2018 Cattle Industry Convention & Trade Show Photo Album

NCBA Names 2018 Beef Quality Assurance Award Winners

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2018 BQA Feedyard Award Winner – BLAC-X Farms

The National Cattlemen’s Beef Association recognized winners of the 2018 Beef Quality Assurance (BQA) awards at the recent Cattle Industry Convention in Phoenix.

BQA Feedyard Award winner Peter Bakken of BLAC-X Farms, Inc. in Rock County, Minn., said the components of the program, which include low stress animal handling, pharmaceutical use, record keeping and feed management help to set important standards for the industry.

“It’s a standard set of practices that feedyards, whether they’re in Rock County, Minn. or in Little Rock, Ark., can follow the same set of animal raising and care practices so that at the end of the day the steak that’s on the plate or in the meat counter, the consuming public can have confidence that’s in been raised by a standard set of practices that everybody is following, not just us,” said Bakken.

2018 BQA Educator of the Year – Dr. Ron Gill, Texas A&M University

BQA Educator of the Year Dr. Ron Gill said reducing stress is a key component of the program.

“The main thing we’re talking about through livestock handling and stockmanship is to reduce stress on the cattle and the people that are handling them,” said Gill. “If we can reduce stress, we can cut down on sickness rates in those cattle, which allows us to use less antibiotics to treat respiratory disease and other illness. Everything starts kind of rolling together if we can keep stress down.”

Gill said the program offers a self-assessment tool for producers and encouraged more operators to use those tools to evaluate what they are currently doing and to see where they might make improvements.

The complete list of winners is as follows:

2018 BQA Cow-Calf Award
Bently Ranch, located in Minden, Nev., is the recipient of the 2018 Cow-Calf BQA Award. The ranch has a focus of doing the right thing in all aspects of beef production. Bently Ranch takes on a relaxed and low-stress attitude with a commitment to proper animal care and handling. With a recent focus on selling direct to the consumer, the ranch has noticed a big difference in the quality of their cattle thanks to implementing BQA practices.
2018 BQA Dairy Award
Kraft Family Dairies, located in Fort Morgan, Colo., is the winner of the 2018 BQA Dairy Award. Simply put: they care for their cows. By combining their passion with a focus on preventative health management, the farm showcases their commitment to BQA guidelines in every step of their dairy operation. What makes Kraft unique is its two-farm operation. One site houses healthy cattle. The other takes in animals that may need a little TLC. By using this two-site system, Kraft Family Dairies has drastically cut down on the number of cattle in the hospital.
2018 BQA Feedyard Award
The winner of the 2018 BQA Feedyard Award is BLAC-X Farms in Rock County, Minn. Between the two minds of the Bakken brothers, Jay and Peter, they share an extensive knowledge of the feedlot, cow-calf herd and crop operations. With a focus on education, they participate in several research projects and share their ideas on the best BQA practices with hundreds of others during tours of their operation.
2018 BQA Marketer Award
Central Livestock in South St. Paul, Minn., has been named the 2018 BQA Marketer Award winner. Their marketing practices encourage producers to focus on BQA vaccination standards by incentivizing vaccinations in the sale ring. Cattle that are up-to-date on vaccinations sell for higher prices. They also have step-by-step guides for producers to follow that highlight animal safety, ultimately yielding the best cattle.
2018 BQA Educator of the Year
Dr. Ron Gill is the winner of the 2018 BQA Educator of the Year award. In addition to his responsibilities as professor at Texas A&M University, Dr. Gill takes his lessons outside the classroom and into the field for collaborative, hands-on demonstrations through NCBA’s Stockmanship and Stewardship program. Not only an avid proponent of BQA practices, he’s also helped develop some of the BQA guidelines that many producers follow today.

Listen to Chuck’s interview with Peter Bakken here: Interview with Peter Bakken, BLAC-X Farms, Inc.

Listen to Chuck’s interview with Dr. Ron Gill here: Interview with Dr. Ron Gill, Texas A&M University

2018 Cattle Industry Convention & Trade Show Photo Album

Animal Ag Bites 2/12

AgWired Animal, Animal Bites

  • The American Hereford Association will open for business Monday, Feb. 5, at its new headquarters location, 11500 N.W. Ambassador Dr., Suite. 410, Kansas City, MO 64153, in the Kansas City Northland. The mailing address for the new location is P.O. Box 901570, Kansas City, MO 64190.
  • NutriQuest has added a number of new team members, including Kenny Seidel as Senior Account Manager for Swine, Petra Chang, Ph.D. as Technical Sales and Service for Swine, and Liang (Ted) Chen, Ph.D. as a Dairy Research Coordinator. NutriQuest Business Solutions welcomes Kevin Christensen as a Consulting CFO serving the Midwest region. Jennifer Brown has also joined NutriQuest Business Solutions as a Consulting CFO.
  • National Cattlemen’s Beef Association offers Part 2 of 4 in its Cattlemen’s Genetics Webinar Series on Thursday, Feb. 22 at 7 p.m. CST. The webinar is titled “Show Me The Money: Are There EPDs For Profit?” Click here to register.
  • The Make It With Wool National Finals celebrated 70 Years on Feb. 3 at the San Antonio Marriott Rivercenter. State winners in the junior and senior divisions gathered to compete for prizes and honors at the 70th annual national finals.
  • All American Quarter Horse Association (AQHA) and AQHYA members are invited to attend the AQHA convention as a way to stay involved with the horse industry, have an impact on decisions, voice opinions and learn new things. Click here to register for this year’s convention, scheduled for March 2-5 in Jacksonville, Florida.
  • The American Meat Science Association (AMSA) is excited to announce an additional PORK 101 course to be held in 2018 at the University of Florida March 5-7. The course will be offered March 5-7 at the University of Florida, May 22-24 at Texas A&M University, and October 22-24 at Iowa State University. Click here to register for one of the upcoming courses.

The Power of Prevention

jamie johansenAgribusiness, AgWired Animal, Animal Agriculture, Animal Health, Beef, Boehringer Ingelheim, Cattle Industry Conference, NCBA

Prevention truly is key when it comes to herd health. During the NCBA Trade Show in Phoenix, Boehringer Ingelheim (BI) vets were there to discuss the economic proof points on why stopping problems before they started leads to reduced antibiotic use and higher profitability for producers’ operations.

“We are seeing more and more people interested in preventing disease instead of having to treat it. It is very expensive to treat disease. We know if we can prevent diseases the cattle are going to do better, they are going to gain more and be healthier overall,” said BI’s Professional Services Veterinarian, Dr. Peggy Thompson.

Dr. Thompson said when an animal is sick early in life, they are 30-35 pounds lighter at weaning and that impacts a producer’s bottom line. It’s also more than just getting an animal vaccinated, timing is key.

Listen to my complete conversation with Peggy to learn more about the trends in preventative medicine we are seeing today.
Interview with Dr. Peggy Thompson, Boehringer Ingelheim

2018 Cattle Industry Convention & Trade Show Photo Album

Alltech Research Leads to Changes in Mineral Management

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Mineral management is changing, thanks to research in nutrition and genomics. Butch Whitman is an Alltech beef nutritionist who was at the 2018 Cattle Industry Convention and National Cattlemen’s Beef Association Trade Show in Phoenix.

Whitman said research at Alltech’s Center for Nutrigenomics and Applied Animal Nutrition looks at how nutrients impact the expression of genes. That includes what nutrients are essential for genes that control the immune system and animal health, feed digestion, growth feed efficiency, or even at the cellular level for composition as far as fat or muscling. Producers can follow Alltech’s Blueprint Beef Nutrition program, targeted for the needs of the animal at various stages of the production cycle.

“What we used to do is feed cattle a feed, we’d see a response and we’d take the next 10 years trying to figure out why. How it worked, what was the right level to feed,” said Whitman. “The [Alltech] Nutrigenomics lab has a lot of applications to producers because it’s identified what we expect to do up front as far as how nutrients impact gene expression. So when we go to the field for either live cattle research, we’re going to the producer or the customer, we’ve got a pretty good idea of what we expect to achieve.”

Whitman said it’s an exciting change in animal nutrition that should bring new technology to customers much more quickly.

Listen to Jamie’s interview with Butch Whitman here: Butch Whitman, Alltech

2018 Cattle Industry Convention & Trade Show Photo Album

NMPF Seeks to Improve & Expand Legislative Provisions

Jamie JohansenAg Group, Dairy, Dairy Group, NMPF

The National Milk Producers Federation (NMPF) said the proposed dairy policy reforms included in the newly unveiled congressional disaster assistance package are “much-needed improvements to the dairy safety net,” according to NMPF President and CEO Jim Mulhern, and come at a time when many of America’s dairy farmers are struggling financially after a third year of stagnant prices.

NMPF sent a letter to the leaders of the Senate and House of Representatives, urging passage of the larger spending bill that contains reforms to the dairy Margin Protection Program (MPP) and provides access to additional risk management tools from the Agriculture Department (USDA). These key dairy-related elements in the bill will create $1.2 billion in baseline spending for the next Farm Bill, paving the way for additional improvements to the MPP.

The MPP reforms included in the dairy package include:
– Raising the catastrophic coverage level from $4.00 to $5.00 for the first tier of covered production for all dairy farmers;
– Adjusting the first tier of covered production to include every dairy farmer’s first five million pounds of annual milk production (about 217 cows) instead of four million pounds, a recognition of the growth in herd sizes across the country;
– Reducing the premium rates, effective immediately, for every producer’s first five million pounds of production, to better enable dairy farmers to afford the higher levels of coverage that will provide more meaningful protection against low margins;
– Modifying the margin calculation to a monthly (from bi-monthly) basis, to make the program more accurate and responsive to producers in difficult months;
– Waiving the annual $100 administrative fees for underserved farmers;
– Directing USDA to immediately reopen the program signup for 2018.

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