Randy Blach of CattleFax Says 2014 Wilder Than Expectations 

Earlier this year, Cattle Fax CEO Randy Blach and his Cattle Fax team were making predictions as they always do at the Cattle Industry Convention. At that time they were expecting a wild year, but 2014 has even surpassed what the market analysis arm of the industry was anticipating. Blach said all of the stars aligned and one aspect that accelerated the move was when mother nature brought much needed rains for the plains country.


"We really started to see the reduction in the number of cows going to market," Blach said. "That really set this market on fire and continues to be a big driver today."


Ahead of his presentation to the TCFA- Randy Blach and I discussed the current state of the beef industry.  Blach was one of the featured speakers at the 2014 Texas Cattle Feeders Association Annual Convention held this week in Oklahoma City.


There is a speculation on how much herd building is taking place. The US Department of Agriculture will release the next National Cattle Inventory report in January. Blach believes it will show more than 300,000 head of beef cows as of January first- and he sees accelerated growth in 2015.  Click here to hear the first of two Beef Buzz audio segments with Blach on the status of the US Mama Cow herd. 
 

National FFA Convention Underway-  Brian Walsh of Virginia Running Point in Louisville

The 2014 National FFA Convention is underway in Louisville, Kentucky. This is the culmination of planning and preparation for the National FFA Officers. Throughout the year the six members of the national team visited all 50 states. National FFA President Brian Walsh said he personally visited 32 states from visiting FFA members in Alaska raising reindeer to seeing FFA members in Florida growing citrus.


"To see the drastic difference of backgrounds and people that come from this organization, but the fact that we can all find a home here is pretty special," Walsh said.


FFA is bringing a wide variety of people together. Walsh said that is an important aspect in growing food for a ever increasing world population. Last January the National FFA officer team meet with Tyson Foods. Walsh said he assumed an agricultural company like Tyson would only be hiring for typical ag jobs, but found that wasn't the case at all.  Tyson is hiring technologists, business people, economists, among others. Walsh said to be able to feed an additional two billion people in the next 30 years we need all of those people to rally behind agriculture.  

I interviewed Walsh at the National FFA Convention.  Click here to read or to listen to the full interview as Walsh talks about his FFA experience and how he sees FFA continuing to increase members and chapters throughout the US.  

Selk Addresses Dressing Percent Impact on Cull Cow Marketing

Glenn Selk, Oklahoma State University Emeritus Extension Animal Scientist, writes in the latest Cow-Calf Newsletter.

Cull cows that are destined to go to the packing house are graded by their fleshiness. The fattest cows are called "Breakers". Moderately fleshed cows are "Boners". Thin cows are called "Leans" or "Lights", depending upon the weight of the cow. There will be price differences among these four grades. However, within each grade, large variation in prices per hundredweight will exist because of differences in dressing percentage. Cow buyers are particularly aware of the proportion of the purchased live weight that eventually becomes saleable product hanging on the rail. Dressing percentage is (mathematically) the carcass weight divided by the live weight multiplied by 100.


Key factors that affect dressing percentage include gut fill, udder size, mud and manure on the hide, excess leather on the body, and anything else that contributes to the live weight but will not add to the carcass weight. Most USDA Market News reports for cull cows will give price ranges for High, Average, and Low Dressing Percents for each of the previous mentioned grades. As you study these price reports, note that the differences between High and Low Dressing cows and bulls will generally be greater than differences between grades. Many reports will indicate that Low Dressing cows will be discounted up to $8 to $10 per hundredweight compared to High Dressing cows and will be discounted $5 to $7 per hundredweight compared to Average Dressing cows. These price differences are usually widest for the thinner cow grades (Leans and Lights). See examples from last week's sale in Oklahoma City National Stockyards, by clicking here.   

As producers market cull cows, they should be cautious about selling cows with excess fill. The large discounts due to low dressing percent often will more than offset any advantage from the added weight.     

NCBA and PLC Tell EPA To Withdraw WOTUS

The National Cattlemen's Beef Association and the Public Lands Council filed comments calling for the immediate withdrawal of the Environmental Protection Agency and the Army Corps of Engineers' proposed "waters of the United States" rule. The proposed rule vastly expands the agencies' jurisdiction and attempts to regulate all land uses.


"The agencies' proposal jeopardizes private property rights and violates Supreme Court precedent by subjecting nearly all waters to regulation," said NCBA Environmental Counsel Ashley McDonald. "Through the use of broad and ambiguous language, the proposal is a limitless expansion of authority that cannot be supported by the Clean Water Act or the U.S. Constitution."


In the eight months the proposal has been public, cattlemen and women have voiced their concerns only to have them deemed "ludicrous" by EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy. NCBA and PLC state the agencies must start over with a transparent and inclusive process with more stakeholder involvement.
 

Click here to read more from NCBA and PLC on how 'WOTUS' would expand EPA regulation over private and public land.

National FFA Advisor Steve Brown Says FFA Continues to Grow

The head of the National FFA Organization is excited about the future of the organization and agriculture. At the 2014 FFA Convention, National FFA Advisor Dr. Steve Brown expressed his excitement for the growth of the organization with membership setting a new record of 610 thousand and this year's convention has the potential to break another record for attendance. Brown said there will be close to 60 thousand FFA members this week in Louisville.


Beyond the growing number of chapters and members, Brown also hopes people will see the opportunities that careers in agriculture provide. This represents the transition the organization has seen from being called the Future Farmers of America and changing the name of the organization to simply FFA.


"Agriculture as we know is a broad field," Brown said. "When we chose to modify that name we wanted to make sure we didn't exclude anyone that might have interest in the broad field of agriculture including forestry and our environment, natural resources, conservation and biotechnology, so it's a great field and a lot of opportunities for our members." 


I talked with Dr. Brown here in Louisville right after the Welcome Luncheon sponsored by the Louisville based Host Committee for this year's national convention. Click here to read or to listen the full interview as Brown address how agricultural education is fitted into the overall direction of education in the US.  

OSU Names Ochsner and Wilson to Prestigious Professorship

Tyson Ochsner and Gail Wilson of Oklahoma State University's Division of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources have been named Sarkeys Distinguished Professorship recipients.

Ochsner, an associate professor of applied soil physics, is internationally renowned in his career field, working with scientists in environmental science, climatology, agronomy, genetics and biofuels development. 

Wilson, a professor in the OSU Department of Natural Resource Ecology and Management, leads or is a major partner in research programs that are strongly collaborative with scientists at OSU, the Argonne National Laboratory, Samuel Roberts Noble Foundation, Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, U.S. Department of Agriculture's Agricultural Research Service, Kansas State University and a number of other universities across the United States.
   

Click here to read more about the accomplishments of Tyson Ochsner and Gail Wilson. 

This N That -  Kyle Hilbert Advances in Bid for National Office, Big Iron Wednesday and COOL Appeal Months Away

Last night, the group of 42 National Officer candidates vying for the right to become a National FFA Officer in the coming year was reduced to basically half.  Annually, the Nominating Committee will take the initial pool of candidates- cut that pool in half and then begin the serious work of mixing and matching those candidates that remain into the six slots that make up the National Officer team.  Four of them have to come from their region, with the top two candidates fitted into the at large positions of President and Secretary.

Kyle Hilbert of Depew is the Oklahoma National Officer candidate- and he remains in the running- making the 50% reduction as he heard his name called on Tuesday evening in downtown Louisville. He next hopes to hear his name called at Freedom Hall on Saturday as one of the six National Officers.  You can listen to our earlier conversation with Kyle by clicking here.

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It's Wednesday- and that means the Big Iron folks will be busy closing out this week's auction items- all 358 of them- starting at 10 AM central time.                  

Click Here for the complete rundown of what is being sold on this no reserve online sale this week.

If you'd like more information on buying and selling with Big Iron, call District Manager Mike Wolfe at 580-320-2718 and he can give you the full scoop.  You can also reach Mike via email by clicking or tapping here. 

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The United States won't appeal the World Trade Organization's recent ruling on Country of Origin Labeling until the beginning of next year, according to USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack. Vilsack says the U.S. Trade Representative's office is in the process of considering an appeal, but the U.S. also has been asked to take its time. Vilsack said the WTO has asked the U.S. to wait because "they are not capable of processing any additional appeals, based on the level of work at the WTO that is currently in the queue." A WTO panel ruled this month the U.S. can have a country-of-origin label for meat products, but the current USDA rule discriminates against Canadian and Mexican cattle.

Vilsack said to change the rule, congress would need to get rid of the COOL mandate. Vilsack has asked USDA staff to see if there is another way to craft a labeling rule or a way to not violate WTO rules. Canadian Ag Minister Gerry Ritz has demanded the rule be dropped and preferably by the next WTO meeting in November.