McDonalds Lines Up With HSUS- Tells Pork Suppliers to Show Plans to End Use of Gestation Crates  

McDonald's Corporation announced on Monday that it will require its U.S. pork suppliers to outline their plans to phase out the use of sow gestation stalls, a move supported by The Humane Society of the United States (HSUS).


"McDonald's believes gestation stalls are not a sustainable production system for the future. There are alternatives that we think are better for the welfare of sows,"said Dan Gorsky, senior vice president of McDonald's North America Supply Chain Management. "McDonald's wants to see the end of sow confinement in gestation stalls in our supply chain. We are beginning an assessment with our U.S. suppliers to determine how to build on the work already underway to reach that goal. In May, after receiving our suppliers' plans, we'll share results from the assessment and our next steps."

HSUS President Wayne Pacelle calls the word from McDonalds "important and promising."  HSUS has waged a tough and at times, rather shady, campaign against gestation crates.

Both the National Pork Board and the National Pork Producers Council quickly responded with statements- with the NPPC offering to help the fast food giant in sorting through the options of properly caring for sows.  NPPC, in their statement said "Farmers and animal care experts know that various types of housing systems can provide for the well-being of pigs. After an extensive review of scientific literature, the American Veterinary Medical Association determined that both individual sow housing and group housing can provide for the well-being of sows."  

The Pork Board indicated that the NPC "recognizes that food companies, including McDonald's, make decisions in the best interests of their businesses."   

You can read all of the statement released earlier today from McDonalds, as well as the full statements from the pork industry- click here to jump to our webpage to review the latest in this continuing push by HSUS to get their way in this animal husbandry practice.

WheatWatch 2012- North Central Oklahoma Wheat Pictures Showing Good Crop Conditions  

WheatWatch2012 has new pictures for you to see of the developing 2012 Hard Red Winter Wheat Crop in Oklahoma. We stopped on Thursday, February 9, 2012 and took several pictures in three different fields in south Kay and northern Noble Counties- just west of I-35 in each case.


The picture featured at the top of our story online comes from a field near Billings on February ninth- and you can see the indentation of tire tracks where apparently a fertilizer top dressing application happened. We saw many fields that looked very similar to this field in these two north central counties. This field appeared to be in good to excellent condition.

We have two more fields that we also got several shots of- click here to jump over and take a look at them- and we also have a link to to the FLICKR set of pictures that make up WHEATWATCH 2012- a service of the Oklahoma Wheat Commission, working hard for Oklahoma's wheat producers.

 

US Ag Secretary Tom Vilsack Brags on Obama FY 2013 Budget- While House Ag Committee Chair Lucas Laments Shortcomings

US Secretary of Agriculture had lots of good things to say about the Budget proposal put forward by his boss- President Barack Obama.  Among his comments on the plan for FY2012- "USDA has supported farmers, ranchers and growers so that last year they enjoyed record farm income. We have focused on creating jobs and building a foundation for future economic growth, especially in rural America, where unemployment is falling than in other parts of the country.

"The President's 2013 USDA budget helps us to continue this progress, supporting robust farm income and good jobs in rural communities.

"To help sustain record farm income, we will invest in research and development to improve agricultural productivity. The budget makes a 23% increase in funding for our premier competitive grants program to support the most worthy projects and continues support for in-house research and the land grant universities. We'll continue our efforts to combat destructive pests and disease that threaten crops and livestock."

on the Obama budget proposal.    

Click here to see the USDA summary that fleshes out their portion of the FY2013 proposal.   

While Vilsack praised every aspect of the plan, House Ag Committee Chairman and Oklahoma Republican Frank Lucas was a much tougher sell. In fact, in his more to the point statement, the Congressman had little positive to say. "The President's budget demonstrates that neither rural America nor fiscal discipline is a priority for this administration. Raising taxes on small businesses and ignoring the real drivers of trillion dollar deficits is a failure of leadership."

The rest of the comments from House Ag Committee Chairman Lucas can be had by clicking here.    

Final Numbers for 2011 Confirm Record Smashing Year for US Beef and Pork Exports

According to year-end statistics released by USDA and compiled by the U.S. Meat Export Federation (USMEF), exports of U.S. pork, beef and lamb set new records across the board in 2011, reaching all-time highs in both volume and value and exceeding $11.5 billion in total value.


Pork exports totaled 2.255 million metric tons valued at $6.11 billion, breaking the previous volume record of 2.052 million metric tons and shattering the value record of $4.88 billion, which were both established in 2008. Year-over-year, pork exports were up 18 percent in volume and 28 percent in value.


Beef exports finished the year at 1.287 million metric tons valued at $5.42 billion. This broke the 2003 volume record of 1.274 million metric tons and easily surpassed the 2010 value record of $4.08 billion. Export volume was 21 percent larger than in 2010, with value up 33 percent.

Click here for the complete rundown of both pork and beef, as well as the lamb export numbers as well.

Cotton's Key in 2012- China

National Cotton Council economists say cotton's 2012 outlook will be influenced primarily by China's national reserves stocks, uncertainty over the general economy and weather developments in the southwestern United States.

Dr. Gary Adams, the NCC's vice president Economics & Policy Analysis, told delegates at the NCC's 74th Annual Meeting in Fort Worth today that 2012 is not starting out as a normal year for the U.S. Cotton Belt's southwest region, particularly Texas and Oklahoma. He said drought conditions persist, and as a result, for those two states, the outlook assumes above normal abandonment and yields below trend. Adams said the NCC sees a 2012 U.S. cotton crop of 18.30 million bales, with 17.51 million upland bales and 783,000 extra-long staple (ELS) bales. When combined with international 2012 production of 101.1 million bales, the world crop for 2012 is estimated at 119.4 million bales. 

Regarding China- Adams says "it is important to remember that as much as 30 percent of the global ending stocks could be held in China's government reserves. By late January, more than 11 million bales have been purchased into the China reserve, with some speculating that total purchases could exceed 15 million bales."

Adams noted that while China's reserves policy is providing short-term support to the cotton market, China's implementation of this policy "is the single largest wildcard in the cotton market." Regarding prices, he also noted that though the forecasted stocks/use relationship is likely to dampen upside price potential, current polyester prices and cotton's need to remain competitive with grains are supportive of prices on the downside.

Click here for more of Gary Adams' analysis as released over this past weekend at the National Cotton Council's annual meeting.

Boxed Beef Trade Moves Higher Again But Auction Receipts Begin to Dwindle - Audio Comments with Ed Czerwin

According to Ed Czerwin of the USDA Market News Office in Amarillo, Texas, choice boxed beef ended the week higher again last Friday, over $3.00 from the previous week, at $186.65 cwt. As far as the finished cattle last week, Czerwin says the Texas Panhandle showed a dollar higher trade last week but the rest of the Southern Plains trade was about steady with the previous week.  

The average weight in the Texas Panhandle jumped about seven pounds to 1,243 pounds which draws us a little closer to last year's weight at this time. The cow harvest numbers continue as usual but auction numbers continue to dwindle. Czerwin says area auction receipts have slowed down considerably. 

Click here to be able to hear Ed's full audio analysisof this past week's cattle and beef markets, with an emphasis on what is going on here in the southern plains.

The Beef Herd Replacement Dilemna- as Explained by Derrell Peel 

For the third week in a row, OSU extension livestock market economist Dr. Derrell Peel has offered a multi part look at the shrinking cattle industry- and in this week's look at the business- a look at how finally turn around the cull cow numbers and start saving more females in the US cattle herd than we are liquidating.  

Dr. Peel says of the balancing act of cow slaughter versus rebuilding the US cattle herd "The replacement heifer patterns suggest that the industry is clearly attempting herd expansion and has been for the last three years. However, it is cow slaughter that holds the key to stopping liquidation of the herd. Beef cow slaughter needs to decrease at least 20 percent from last year's levels to stop herd liquidation."  

Read the rest of this current take on this aspect of the US Beef Cattle business- and we have links to the previous articles as well- just click here to jump to Part Three of this look at the state of the industry in our southern plains beef cattle business.