Friday October 16 Ag News

LATE SEASON COUNTY AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTION SURVEY BEGINS IN OCTOBER

Many Nebraska row crop and hay producers will soon be receiving a questionnaire designed to collect data that will be used to determine county level acreage, yield, and production for 2015. The USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) will begin mailing these forms mid-October to producers across the State of Nebraska.

“County-level yields have a direct impact on farmers around the State. The USDA’s Risk Management Agency relies on survey results to determine when to make crop loss insurance payments. In addition, USDA’s Farm Service Agency uses the data in its disaster assistance program calculations,” said Dean Groskurth, Director of NASS’s Northern Plains Region. “NASS cannot publish a county yield unless it receives enough reports from producers in that county to make a statistically defensible estimate. So, it is very important that producers respond to this survey. In 2014, we were unable to publish several larger producing counties because we lacked a sufficient number of responses.”

“As required by Federal law, all responses are completely confidential,” Groskurth continued. “We safeguard the privacy of all respondents, ensuring that no individual operation or producer can be identified. Individual responses are also exempt from the Freedom of Information Act.”

“Many producers respond by mail or on our secure website. If not enough responses are received by county, we will begin contacting producers by phone or in person. County-level data for corn, sorghum, soybeans, and sunflowers will be published in February 2016 and hay and dry edible beans in April 2016.”



BE ALERT TO HEALTH RISKS WHEN GRAZING TURNIPS
Bruce Anderson, UNL Extension Forage Specialist

               Good moisture has boosted growth of summer planted turnips and many are ready to graze.  This wonderful resource is not without potential health hazards, however.

               Turnips may be the best grazing option available for late fall and winter.  But, like everything else, they can cause problems.

               Turnip leaves can cause a blood mineral disease called hemolytic anemia, a brain disorder called polioencephalomalacia that is characterized by twitching and incoordination, a breathing disorder called pulmonary emphysema, and even bloat.  These problems generally occur during the first couple weeks of grazing.  Turnips can be high in nitrates and also affect function of the thyroid gland and, thus, are goiter-genic.

               Now this may all sound scary, but most problems are rare and are reduced or eliminated with careful management.  To begin, don’t shift cattle onto turnips suddenly.  Adjust them by feeding high quality hay or pasture for a couple weeks before grazing turnips to prepare their rumen for the high energy and protein in turnips.  Giving them just a few hours access to turnips at the start also helps.  Make sure they have access to a dry roughage like corn stalks or a palatable hay.  This also helps reduce diarrhea, which is common with turnips.  Strip grazing that forces cattle to eat both roots and tops reduces problems and increases carrying capacity.  And finally, always provide an iodized salt-trace mineral mix.

               Many folks worry about choking.  It’s not very common but it does happen.  Growers who have experienced this problem tell me that they usually can remove the plug using a stick or by hand.

               Don’t be afraid to graze turnips; they’re a wonderful resource.  Just manage carefully and be alert so problems don’t affect you.



Current National Drought Summary
(droughtmonitor.unl.edu)

A more tranquil weather pattern emerged this week, with light to moderate precipitation falling on the Pacific Northwest, southern High Plains and Rio Grande Valley, western Tennessee Valley, southern Appalachians, and South Carolina, and most of New England. Heavier totals (more than 2 inches) were limited to extreme western Washington, parts of the Rio Grande Valley and southern High Plains, central South Carolina, and along the southeastern Alaskan coast. Elsewhere in the lower 48 States, mostly dry and warm weather was observed, with temperatures averaging more than 6 degrees Fahrenheit above normal across the Far West and the northern halves of the Rockies and Plains. The first 12 days of October have seen little or no rain from eastern Texas to Mississippi and northward from the eastern Dakotas into southern Minnesota and Wisconsin. Unfortunately, this dry pattern has persisted for at least 3 consecutive months in the southern Great Plains and Delta, leading to severe to extreme short-term drought. While a limited period of dry and warm conditions is ideal for the maturation, dry down, and harvesting of summer crops, too much time under such conditions degrades topsoil moisture, pasture conditions, and winter grains growth while creating ideal wild fire conditions.

Northern and Central Plains
Short-term dryness (less than 25% of normal precipitation at 30-days, less than 50% at 60-days) warranted an expansion of D0 westward into south-central North Dakota and southward into northeastern South Dakota. The dryness, combined with strong winds and high temperatures, quickly dried out crops and produced blowing dust, with some wind-driven fires over the weekend. Several stations in northeastern South Dakota had one of the ten driest Septembers on record, ranging from Watertown (0.27”) to Clear Lake (0.63”), while stations in the southwest were similarly dry (Rapid City 0.25”, Newell 0.04”, Hill City 0.26”). Several locations in the Plains also set record October highs (degF) including 98 at Broken Bow and Norfolk, NE; 97 at Grand Island and Hastings, NE, Wheaton, MN, and Fargo, ND; 95 at Sisseton, SD; 94 at Pueblo, CO; and 88 at International Falls, MN. Farther south, light rains during the past 2 weeks were not enough to offset development of short-term dryness in northern and southeastern Kansas as warm and windy weather is impacting fall planted crops such as winter wheat and canola. In northwestern Colorado, D0 was introduced to Grand, Routt, Moffat, and Rio Blanco counties based upon low SPIs at 30- and 90-days, and degrading vegetative health and soil moisture conditions.

Midwest
October (and the past 30-days) has been quite dry across portions of the Corn Belt, especially in the eastern Dakotas, eastern Nebraska, southern Minnesota and Wisconsin, Iowa, northern Illinois and Indiana, Missouri, and western Kentucky. This short-term dryness comes after a wet July and somewhat wet August in many areas, thus 60- and 90-day shortages are not as widespread and severe as the Delta and southern Great Plains. As previously mentioned, limited dryness and warmth are generally good for the maturation, dry down, and harvesting of summer crops, but too much of this can degrade pastures, decrease soil moisture, and exacerbate wild fires. Using the 2- and 3-month tools and short-term blend indices, D0 was expanded in central Illinois, southwestern Indiana, western Kentucky and Tennessee, south-central Missouri, southwestern Wisconsin, and northern and central Minnesota, with D1 added or increased in southwestern Indiana (D1 reassessed and adjusted westward), south-central Missouri, western portions of Kentucky and Tennessee, southwestern Wisconsin (July 1 deficits of 4-7 inches), and northwestern Minnesota. The new D1 areas were added where the 90-day SPI was -1.6 or lower (D3). The 0.5-1 inches of rain that fell across the western Great Lakes region was not enough to eliminate short-term departures, hence status-quo here.

Looking Ahead
For the upcoming 5-day period (October 15-19), a rather dry weather pattern should exist east of the Rockies, with only light to moderate precipitation expected in the Great Lakes region and New England, and extreme southern Florida. In the West, however, widespread and heavy rainfall (1-3 inches) is possible in the Southwest (southeast California, Nevada, Arizona, Utah, western New Mexico, southwest Colorado) and western Washington, with lighter amounts in Idaho, Oregon, and western Wyoming and Montana. Temperatures should average below normal in the eastern third of the Nation, with much above normal readings from the Plains westward.

For the ensuing 5 days (October 20-24), the odds favor above-median precipitation throughout much of the middle third of the U.S., in the Northwest and Southeast, and southern Alaska, with a tilt toward sub-median precipitation in California, along the mid-Atlantic and New England coasts, and western Alaska. Above-normal temperatures are favored in much of the lower 48 States and southern Alaska, with only near-normal readings expected in northern Alaska, the Carolinas, and New Mexico.



Shared values of farmers, Casey’s touted in Iowa Food & Family Project campaign

The Iowa Food and Family Project (Iowa FFP) is partnering with Casey’s General Stores to bring the face of farming to Iowans through a fall campaign titled “Homegrown Food. Hometown Values.”

The initiative appropriately coincides with National Pork Month and National Pizza Month and includes multimedia messaging, TV advertising and point-of-purchase materials in 12 Casey’s locations.

Now the nation’s fifth-largest pizza chain, Casey’s serves as a backdrop for recognizing the vital role farmers play in growing quality food and contributing to vibrant communities. Farmers David Ausberger (Jefferson), Kellie Blair (Dayton) and Cristen Clark (Runnells) are featured in the campaign and offer specific examples of their commitment to growing quality food while caring for the land, their families and communities.

“Casey’s is an Iowa gem,” said Clark, a sixth-generation grain and pig farmer. “They’re a huge purveyor of Iowa agricultural products and an ideal partner of the Iowa Food & Family Project. Not only does Casey’s serve up fresh Midwest ingredients on their pizzas, but they also recognize the importance of relationships, community and farming.”

The centerpiece of the campaign is a 60-second video that juxtaposes a morning on the Clark family farm with a morning in a Casey’s kitchen. It can be viewed on Iowa Food and Family Project YouTube channel and is also appearing on select TV stations. The faces and stories of all three farmers also appear on pizza boxes, atop fuel pumps and in-store signage at Casey’s stores across central Iowa.

“Being a farmer embodies many roles, including ‘entrepreneur,’ ‘caregiver,’ ‘risk-taker’ and ‘continual learner,’” said Blair, who grows soybeans and corn and raises cattle and pigs. “No matter what hat I wear, I always remember how and why we’re able to farm. Iowa’s precious natural resources make agricultural production possible while our core family values drive all that we do.”

“Homegrown Food. Hometown Values.” celebrates the priorities shared by farmers and all Iowans, a sentiment Iowa FFP and its partners at Iowa Pork Producers, Iowa Soybean Association and United Soybean Board bring to the forefront of conversations about today’s farming and food system.

“Regardless of your occupation, good, safe food is top-of-mind for your family,” said Joyce Hoppes, promotions director of the Iowa Pork Producers Association. “That especially holds true for farmers who continually improve their work to benefit their communities and the state. Good food starts with dedicated people who care about what they do and why they do it.”

Participating Casey’s include locations in Ames, Boone, Dallas Center, DeSoto, Grimes, Huxley, Jefferson, Ogden, Story City and Waukee.

To learn more about food and the families involved in farming, visit iowafoodandfamily.com and register for Iowa FFP’s “Fresh Pickings,” a monthly e-newsletter with farm family feature stories, special offers to popular restaurants and retailers and an assortment of great-tasting recipes.



BILL WOULD HELP PREVENT PORT SLOWDOWNS

Rep. Daniel Newhouse, R-Wash., this week introduced legislation that will help prevent port slowdowns such as the ones that affected dozens of West Coast facilities late last and early this year. The “ECONOMICS – Ensuring Continued Operations and No Other Major Incidents, Closures, or Slowdowns – Act” includes trigger mechanisms that would require a board of inquiry to convene and to report findings to the president of the Unites States, who could invoke the Taft-Hartley Act to get workers back to work. The law would be triggered if four or more ports have slowdowns, if the number of workers at the ports experiencing slowdowns totals 6,000 or more and if there’s a drop in exports from those ports of 15 percent or more in one month, or 5 percent or more in two consecutive months.

The West Coast slowdowns that occurred from November 2014 into February 2015 were the result of a labor dispute between the Pacific Maritime Association (PMA), which represents companies that own West Coast ports, and the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU), which represents dock workers. The U.S. meat and poultry sectors lost an estimated $40 million a week during the slowdowns.



TAIWAN MUST ADDRESS PORK ISSUE BEFORE IT CAN JOIN TPP
(NPPA newsletter)

The Taiwanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) last week said Taiwan must address its U.S. pork issue if it wants to join the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). Taiwan has banned U.S. pork because of the industry’s use of the feed additive ractopamine, which is widely used in U.S. pork production. Ironically, Taiwan dropped in 2012 its ban on U.S. beef from cattle fed ractopamine, which also is widely used in the U.S. beef industry. Taiwan’s domestic beef industry is small in comparison to its powerful pork industry, which explains the country’s disparate treatment of the two U.S. meats. Ractopamine is approved for use in hogs by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and by the food-safety agencies in 25 other countries. In 2012, the U.N.’s Codex Alimentarius Commission, which sets international standards for food safety, approved a maximum residue limit for ractopamine, which U.S. pork meets. MOFA also warned that Taiwan needs to take steps to meet high international standards if it wants to join the TPP, including “scientific evidence as the basis for trade issues.” The TPP, which concluded Oct. 5, includes the United States and 11 other Pacific Rim countries, which combined account for about 40 percent of the world’s economy. Past U.S. free trade agreements, which have substantially reduced or eliminated trade barriers, demonstrate the importance to the U.S. pork industry of opening foreign markets. Since 1989 – the year the United States began using bilateral and regional trade agreements to open foreign markets – U.S. pork exports have increased by 1,550 percent in value and 1,268 percent in volume and now are valued at nearly $6.7 billion.



CoBank: Live Cattle Prices Expected to Rally as 2015 Closes

Live cattle prices are poised for a strong year-end rebound following the steepest 30-day decline since the 2003 discovery of mad cow disease in the U.S., according to a new report produced by CoBank's Knowledge Exchange Division.

The report, titled "What's Behind the Cattle Market Price Collapse?," cites three factors for the sudden price decline in August and September: feedyards with an overabundance of unusually heavy fed cattle; exceptionally wide price disparities between beef prices and those of chicken and pork, which increased consumer purchases of chicken and pork at the expense of beef; and the market's psychological overreaction to the abrupt price drop, which accelerated the decline.

"The price drop was very sudden -- dropping $26 per hundredweight in 30 days -- and clearly caught the market off-guard," said Trevor Amen, animal protein economist with CoBank. "But we believe the causes of the drop were temporary, which sets the stage for a price rally. In fact, most cattle future contracts have posted near limit up moves over the past several days, perhaps indicating that the rally has already begun."

The near-term outlook for beef demand calls for continued growth during the next four to six months, both domestically and overseas. According to Amen, the expected rally in cattle prices will be triggered by the normalization of price disparities between beef and chicken and pork, which will bolster consumers' purchases of beef. As demand grows, wholesale/box-beef prices are expected to head higher, leading the way for a near-term rally across the entire beef complex.

However, the longer-term outlook for 2016 and 2017 still calls for cattle prices to trend downward, pressured by an anticipated increase in supply. Herd rebuilding efforts are expected to boost beef production starting in late 2016 and accelerating in 2017 and beyond. After rallying during the closing months of this year, cattle prices are expected to trend downward from late 2016 and through 2017, off their cyclical peak in late 2014.



Food & Ag Resource Guide for Educators Available

The American Farm Bureau Foundation for Agriculture has released a new Food & Ag Resource Guide http://www.agfoundation.org/ag-resource-guide, a curated list that features top recommended resources by age group. The guide is designed to encourage agricultural literacy for young rural and urban students and to teach them about the importance of agriculture.

The resource guide is intended to offer an easy way for educators and ag literacy coordinators to find the latest resources on the web.

"People in the agricultural community are often invited into local classrooms but do not have access to resources appropriate for students," said Julie Tesch, executive director of the Foundation. "The Food & Ag Resource Guide provides appropriate and accurate activities and resources developed to help students learn about agriculture."

The top-rated resources will be recognized at the American Farm Bureau Federation's Annual Convention each year. The goal of the guide is to save educators time and energy by bringing the most relevant resources to their attention.

The guide provides a unique, easy-to-navigate source of activities that will be reviewed, commented on and rated by educators. Each year new submissions will be considered and the guide will be updated with the top 10 resources in each age group and area. The resources will be selected based on their ability to communicate key messages about the agriculture industry, as introduced in the Pillars of Agricultural Literacy http://www.agfoundation.org/resources/ag-pillars.



USCA Conducts Annual Membership Meeting

The United States Cattlemen’s Association (USCA) concluded its annual membership meeting October 3rd in Bismarck, North Dakota.  The meeting, held in conjunction with USCA state affiliate, Independent Beef Association of North Dakota (I-BAND), brought producers from across the country, including California, Indiana, Virginia, South Dakota, Nevada and Montana.

The meeting consisted of a full-day ranch tour of local producers’ operations followed by a second day of policy discussions and speaker presentations.  Presenting were Jerry Hagstron, The Hagstrom Report; Terry Stewart, Managing Partner, Stewart & Stewart Law, USCA’s legal counsel on COOL at the World Trade Organization (WTO); Senator John Hoeven (R-ND); Senator Heidi Heitkamp (D-ND); South Dakota State University Professor and Extension Risk/Business Management Specialist Matt Diersen; North Dakota Agriculture Commissioner Doug Goehring; North Dakota State Veterinarian Susan Keller, DVM.  Speaker topics and presentations focused on: COOL, TPP, proposed trade agreements with Brazil and Argentina, Mandatory Price Reporting, EPA Waters of the U.S. rule, Greater-Sage Grouse listing decision and industry trends.

USCA President Danni Beer commented on the meeting, “This year’s annual meeting highlighted a number of issues in which USCA remains engaged in D.C.  Of particular note, several speakers included updates regarding the EPA’s Waters of the U.S. rule implementation and served as a precursor to the eventual stay ordered across the nation this past week.  USCA will continue to be active on this issue and others as the year draws to a close.  Action on COOL, trade with Argentina and Brazil and listing decisions under the ESA remain of utmost concern to the USCA membership and our team in D.C. will continue to represent the best interests of producers as they unfold.”

USCA members will receive a mail-in ballot to vote on regional Director nominations, and policy statements and revisions that were introduced and addressed in Bismarck.  The slate of Executive Officers, as voted on by the membership at the annual meeting, for 2016 is as follows:

President: Danni Beer
Vice-President: Kenny Graner
Secretary: Whitney Klasna
Treasurer: Jane Wooster
Parliamentarian: Chuck Kiker

Beer concluded, “USCA appreciates all of our members who made the trip out to North Dakota this year.  As we continue to build on policy successes in DC, the need for a strong and active membership base is as important as ever.  The meeting also served as a platform for elections to the USCA Officers team and nominations to the Board of Directors.  The slate of Directors to be voted on by the membership in the coming months will serve our members and the U.S. cattle industry well.”



Merck Animal Health to Sponsor 2015 FFA National Convention & Expo

Merck Animal Health today announced its sponsorship of the 2015 National Future Farmers of America (FFA) Convention & Expo, which will be held Oct. 28-31 at the Kentucky Exposition Center in Louisville, Ky. This year’s theme – “Amplify” – brings into focus the need for agriculture advocacy. Throughout the event, FFA members will be provided with opportunities to shape their stories and learn how to have their voices heard - helping educate others about the importance of agriculture and the resources needed to meet future food needs.

"More than 80 percent of the U.S. population resides in urban areas, and an increasing amount of people are four to five generations removed from an agrarian lifestyle,” said Scott Bormann, Vice President, North America, Merck Animal Health. “This ongoing urbanization has created a significant gap in cultural understanding and acceptance of food and food production. As part of the industry, we have a responsibility to help close that gap. That’s why we are proud to partner with the National FFA in shaping the next generation of leaders by arming them with the information and resources needed to bring the story of agriculture to life.”

The company will sponsor daily workshops, hosted by Michele Payn-Knoper, author of No More Food Fights: Growing A Productive Farm and Food Conversation. She will present on the issues facing consumers and farmers, and will share insights on ways that FFA students can help bridge the disconnect between farm and food. Workshop advisor attendees will receive a free copy of Payn-Knoper’s book.

 “I see a fork in the road between the farm gate and food plate – a divide that can be bridged through meaningful conversation,” Payn-Knoper said. “I have firsthand knowledge of the overwhelming amount of misinformation working against the science, business and technology of feeding the world. On a daily basis, I see people frustrated about food and believe it’s time to bring people together around the plate.”