Drovers' cowboy columnist believes "there was value beyond economics to the agriculture of my youth, with chicken houses to be scooped and cows to be milked and gardens to be tended."
Satire regarding instructions packers provide their buyers was published by a popular online newsletter, triggering cowboy conspiracy theorists to bloviate before they investigated. Our ex-reporter has the current facts.
Our favorite retired cowboy editor spent a few winter evenings reading the latest anti-beef ramblings. His review of "Raw Deal" is not likely to spur a spike in book sales, nor change many mindsets, we suppose...
Proposed new beef processors face multiple challenges in launching their new ventures, but Sustainable Beef, LLC and Producer Owned Beef believe their new models make them attractive to both cowboys and retailers.
Plenty of folks are scared of the chickenization scenario, in which first come formulas, then come production contracts, then come “no other options.” Which sounds pretty awful. Is it?
Why are we importing beef, especially processed beef, from Brazil? Why aren’t we and all the environmental groups working together to hit DC like Jan. 6, demanding we stop importing that stuff.
Next week will be a good one for folks with good internet access and a few free hours who want to see some rhetorical fireworks about cattle price discovery.
Regional processing plants are not likely to be an easy success, but we need them so badly. So much more badly than we need crabs-in-a-bucket laws telling big feeders their marketing methods are too efficient to be fair.
Regarding those cash mandates, now we have NCBA and Farm Bureau saying don’t do it. Don’t need it. And R-CALF apparently saying they won’t settle for such weak tea.
Senators renewed their call for mandatory minimum cash trades for the purchase of fed cattle as they unveiled a revised Cattle Price Discovery and Transparency Act, and suggested Senate will hold hearings soon.
The owner of a Kansas City barbeque joint says he's "embarrassed" by brisket prices. He wants customers to "order anything besides the brisket and burnt ends." Have the Biden folks read the history of the Nixon debacle?
In a rebuttal to accusations of being an “ally” to big packers over federal mandates for minimum cash trades for live cattle, Steve Cornett pleads not guilty and offers additional arguments for consideration.
While we were busy exploring whether the government should make laws mandating how cattle are marketed, The New York Times has been writing beef's eulogy. Indeed, "beef is the Kiev of foods, besieged on all fronts."
In the fifth installment of a series exploring cattle market reforms, Steve Cornett conducts a Q&A with Brad Kooima, a commodity broker and independent cattle feeder in Sioux Center, Iowa.
Taking a detour into how stewardship and sustainability play a role in the future of cattle marketing, Steve Cornett offers the fourth installment of a who-knows-how-many series on proposals to reform cattle markets.
In the third installment of a who-knows-how-many series, Steve Cornett ruminates about the responses he's gathered from readers who are either for or against Sen. Chuck Grassley's proposed fix for cattle markets.
In the second installment of this series about the current cattle markets, veteran editor Steve Cornett visits with a Midwestern feeder who helps us understand Senator Grassley's curmudgeonly attitude about packers.
This idea of mandating a certain level of cash cattle trade is a bit revolutionary in what has been an evolutionary change in cattle price discovery over these last couple of decades, says veteran editor Steve Cornett.
NCBA approved interim policy that removes any doubt about the group's distaste for government to regulate "cattle producers’ freedom of choice to conduct their own business and utilize their own marketing programs.”
NCBA's Marketing Committee passes policy suggestion on the Cattle Price Discovery and Transparency Act. The policy will need approval of NCBA's general membership.
"A lot of folks think we should mandate with a law—a federal LAW, mind you, because those always work out so well—that more feeders sell in the cash market. But tying feeders’ hands like this isn’t the answer."
With cheaper corn, cattle prices at record highs and cattle numbers at record lows, nobody doubts the cattle industry is about to enter a rebuilding phase.
If every calf, cow and bull had a unique number all stored in a central location like a USDA database, cattle owners, buyers and lenders would all be protected.
I’ve always thought of export markets as important to byproducts—the stuff you and I won’t eat. But if this economy doesn’t improve, or corn prices don’t come down, we may have to start thinking of the loin as a byproduct—not something Americans won’t eat so much as something they can’t afford to eat.
In W. Edwards Deming’s theories of management, there is a basic tenet that strikes me as immutable: You can’t inspect quality into a product; you must build quality in throughout the production process.
Texas Cattle Feeders Association Tuesday sent this information to its members, which include both buyers and sellers involved with the Eastern Livestock mess.
Eastern Livestock, LLC., one of the oldest and the biggest cattle order buyers in the U.S., has some $81 million in bad checks floating around the country.
