Today, the U.S. Department of Agriculture announced it intends to make significant investments to expand processing capacity and increase competition in meat and poultry processing to make agricultural markets more accessible, fair, competitive, and resilient for American farmers and ranchers.
This is one of several key steps that USDA will take to increase competition in agricultural markets, pursuant to President Biden’s Executive Order on promoting competition and as part of USDA efforts to build a more resilient supply chain and better food system. Together, USDA’s actions will help farmers, ranchers, farmworkers and consumers all get a fair shake.
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Imagine ordering dinner at your favorite restaurant. You know what you want without hesitation: a perfectly marbled 8-ounce steak cooked medium rare. Just before you order, your date tells you they’ve read that cows cause climate change and that meat might be unhealthy. Suddenly, the Caesar salad seems like a better option.
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This month we celebrated July 4, Independence Day and it gave us time to stop, pause and reflect on what we have in America; Freedom, Independence and Choices. As we enter into the last 6 months of 2021, let us in the cattle business focus on where we are today and where we want to be in the future.
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A Rapides Parish man was arrested for a third time on livestock theft related charges. The Special Rangers with the Texas and Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association (TSCRA) arrested Justin G. Thompson, 42, on behalf of the Louisiana Department of Agriculture and Forestry (LDAF) Livestock Brand Commission which had a warrant out for his arrest.
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Animal-rights activists get worse every year, calling our children who participate in FFA or 4H livestock exhibitions “murders,” “slave owners,” and some things too extreme to print. The first time I encountered this type of extremist activism was when I read a Protect the Harvest blog post responding to PETA2’s hit piece called “FFA is Lame AF.” Lovely. PETA2 is PETA’s Youth Education Program (basically, propaganda for youth).
In PETA’s “FFA is Lame AF” post, the activists accuse the National FFA Organization of not upholding its Code of Ethics because of the youth group’s support of animal agriculture. So, because the FFA promotes a keystone element of agriculture (livestock), PETA wants to see them go by the wayside or eliminate the animal agriculture elements in the FFA.
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Agricultural producers with crop insurance can hay, graze or chop cover crops for silage, haylage, or baleage at any time and still receive 100 percent of the prevented planting payment. Previously, cover crops could only be hayed, grazed or chopped after November 1, otherwise the prevented planting payment was reduced by 65 percent.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Risk Management Agency (RMA) added this flexibility as part of a broader effort to encourage producers to use cover crops, an important conservation and good farming practice. Cover crops are especially important on fields prevented from planting as they help reduce soil erosion and boost soil health.
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China’s hog population rose 24% in the year through May and has now almost fully recovered from the recent resurgence in African swine fever, according to the country’s agriculture ministry.
Herd sizes are close to normal for this time of year, Xin Guochang, an official at the ministry’s animal husbandry bureau, said in an interview on state television. Meanwhile, around 3.5 million of low-productivity breeding sows were culled in the first five months of the year, he said, which should lead to an improvement in herd fertility.
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