Belts with bling and glittered halters; hot pink show sticks and buckets and combs – cattle show equipment has certainly become more colorful in recent years! The buckets at my place are all red and that is fine, but sometimes I think adding one that is lime green or hot pink or purple might just brighten up the barn a bit. I doubt the cattle would care!
Brownfield’s Meghan Grebner shared this picture of the “can huggy” on the tables at the Illinois Beef Association Summer Conference. The meeting started this morning at the Western Illinois University Union on campus in Macomb.
Colt Stremsterfer comes from a long line of livestock show men and show women. Colt did a great job showing Porky Fourwheeler at the Sangamon County Fair, New Berlin, Illinois last week.
For this old farm broadcaster, it seems like only yesterday Colt’s daddy, aunts and uncles were in the showring at this same fair.
Brownfield Ag News has partnered with World Pork Expo for many years now. Ken Anderson accepted the “golden tractor“ recognizing Brownfield as a sponsor of the 2011 event held last week at the Iowa State Fairgrounds.
Ken was on site throughout the run of what we affectionately call the “Big Pig Gig” filing reports for Brownfield Ag News Radio Network and for a special event featured section on the Brownfield Website.
The Brownfield team took a little road trip over the week-end to visit Warm Springs Ranch, a state-of-the-art breeding farm for the world-famous Budweiser Clydesdales. The ranch is located in the rolling hills of Cooper County, Missouri, near Boonville. We had a wonderful time! Budweiser Clydesdale Duke was patient enough to pose for a picture with us.
The MU Collegiate Cattlewomen held their 2nd Annual Meet Your Meat, May 4. On the University of Missouri’s Columbia campus, black and pink t-shirts flooded Lowery Mall for the big event. The group had a live cow, educated others about the beef industry and sold steak sandwiches throughout the afternoon.
In a previous interview with Brownfield, Collegiate Cattlewomen member, Kielly Jewell says her favorite part about the event is telling others outside the agriculture industry about beef and agriculture, in general.
Brownfield Ag News intern Carah Hart chairs the education committee for MU Collegiate Cattlewomen. She took the pictures you see here and provided the detail about the event.
MU Collegiate Cattlewomen pictured L-R: Morgan Kueckelhan, Erin Mohler, Jordan Russell, Kaitlyn Lea, Kourtne Messner, Hannah Sandidge
When we think of the Big Dance we normally relate that to NCAA tournament time, The Sweet Sixteen, The Final Four and checking out those brackets. But on Wednesday al I could think of was the Big Dance feedlot operators were doing in the barn yard as cell phones played a happy tune of record high cattle bids.
Who could have imagined on March 30, 2011 live cattle contracts would set new all time highs and feedlot cattle on a dressed basis would trade at $200.00 a hundredweight in the North. And the Southern feedlots were dancing to the live prices of $120.00 to $121.00 and as much as $122.00 to $125.00 in the North. Prices were $5.00 to $9.00 higher live and the dressed trade was $10.00 to $15.00 more than a week ago.
Optimistic projections for increased worldwide meat demand have a lot to do with the historic highs in cash and futures. Tighter supplies down the road figure into the equation too. But we have to be realistic, what may seem like huge profits to cattlemen are not there due to increased costs for feed and fuel.
I am glad I was here today to report the record breaking market, because it may be a long time before we see prices this high again.
Jerry Passer
Brownfield Livestock Reporter
It is being called an “historic” weather event, the blizzard that swept across the country with fury this week. For the Brownfield Ag News team, it meant John Perkins, commodity market reporter, packed an overnight bag and sleeping bag to take to work with him Tuesday morning. And he needed it, although he doesn’t live far from the studios in Jefferson City, Missouri where he reports those markets. Travel was (and for some of us still is) at a standstill. Brownfield agribusiness news reporters are set up to broadcast from the road, so Julie Harker set up shop at home in Jefferson City, checking the snow levels on her deck from time to time and announcing a final estimate of about 18 inches. Our team of broadcasters are based in several states, so with Ken Anderson in Nebraska, Jerry Passer in Iowa and Bob Meyer in Wisconsin while Dave Russell covers NACD Annual Meeting in Tennessee and Tom Steever travels with Illinois Soybean farmers in Brazil, the partner radio stations that carry Brownfield programming can rest assured we’re providing relevant and timely news, markets, weather, feature and commentary programming.
I’m working from the home office on the 2nd story of our old farmhouse. It is difficult to say the exact amount of snowfall received, as the wind did a grand job of drifting the white stuff around the house, barns and trees. A top concern for all who raise livestock is the health and welfare of those animals. We provide plenty of hay, access to water, and shelter from the storm.
Occasionally a livestock report from USDA’s Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS) will contain the phrase “Due to confidentiality, this information will not be released.”
Such was the case with the Eastern direct hog report on Wednesday Morning. But what does that mean? On the surface it seems fairly clear, but what is behind it and who does it protect?
After a phone call or two and a search of the AMS website I came up with the answer. It is a rule called the 3/70/20 confidentiality guideline. This is the information I found on the AMS website.
The new 3/70/20 confidentiality guideline will require the following three conditions:
• At least three reporting entities need to provide data at least 50 percent of the time over the most recent 60-day time period.
• No single reporting entity may provide more than 70 percent of the data for a report over the most recent 60-day time period.
• No single reporting entity may be the sole reporting entity for an individual report more than 20 percent of the time over the most recent 60-day time period.
For more you can go to the site at: http://www.ams.usda.gov/AMSv1.0/getfile?dDocName=STELDEV3019136
It helped me to understand confidentiality. I hope it helps you too.
-Jerry Passer, Brownfield Market Reporter
WOW, what a day in the markets! Brownfield’s John Perkins gives us the scoop: