The USDA says cattle placed in feedlots during February 2022 was 9% above 2021 at 1.85 million head. That’s at the top end of the pre-report range. Nearly 65% of the cattle placed weighed less than 800 pounds, which could imply ranchers are expecting lower feed costs in the coming months, giving them more time to feed out before heading to market this summer. February marketings were 5% above 2021 […]
Brandon Wipf is on the American Soybean Association Board and is also on the committee that oversees putting on the Commodity Classic. The 2022 Classic was his first as a committee member, and to hear it from Brandon, there’s a lot of behind-the-scenes work that goes into producing the mammoth show, especially coming off the one-year hiatus that resulted from the global COVID-19 pandemic. “We were definitely challenged this year […]
Congressman Greg Pence says he’d like to see action taken to ease the burden of high fertilizer prices on farmers. The Indiana republican joined more than 80 lawmakers in asking International Trade Commission Chair Jason Kearns to reconsider duties on phosphate fertilizer imported from Morocco and suspend the process to impose new duties on urea ammonium nitrate fertilizer from Trinidad and Tobago. “These are ways we can immediately impact or […]
U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown says he’s pleased with the administration’s plans to support and expand American fertilizer production. “We’ve got to begin to resource and get more of these jobs in Ohio and America and get more production in the United States,” he says. “If we don’t, every time there’s a pandemic or a terrible climate event, it will continue to cause inflation and cost us jobs in our […]
The National Cattlemen’s Beef Association hopes to increase export opportunities for US beef in the United Kingdom. Kent Bacus, senior director of international trade and market access with NCBA, has been in the U.K. this week talking about US beef production practices. “You have to start that conversation and you have to build that trust,” he says. “One of the things we’re doing is correcting the narrative for a lot […]
A rancher in Mexico is using regenerative agriculture practices to transform his pastureland. Alejandro Carillo’s 30,000-acre ranch is nested in the Chihuahuan Desert in northern Mexico. He says about 12 years ago a soil health practitioner gave him a new outlook on his pastures. “He looked at my land, he looked at my hills and mountain range, and I just pretty much have a lot of bare ground and […]
Poultry farm (aviary) full of white laying hen A third case of highly pathogenic avian influenza has been confirmed in Nebraska. The Nebraska Department of Agriculture and USDA Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service say a flock of 400,000 broilers has been infected close to where the first case was reported on March 16th. The farm in Butler County is being depopulated and a control zone of more than six […]
Private estimates are coming in ahead of USDA’s planting intentions report March 31st. Matt Bennett with AgMarket.Net says they’re forecasting 90.7 million corn acres, 89.8 million for soybeans, and wheat at 48.3 million acres. “We know the USDA has already printed 2 million-plus acres of all wheat. And whenever you start putting acreage like that out, for instance we know cotton acres are going to be up at least some, […]
