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Dealing with Drought

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November 22, 2010

As 'Slurpee Summit' Got the Boot,
Focus Turns to Estate Tax

Congress returned to Washington this week to begin the lame-duck session of the 111th Congress. President Obama was scheduled to meet with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and House Minority Leader John Boehner to discuss the future of our nation's tax policy, including the current tax rates as well as the estate tax. Unfortunately, this meeting, dubbed the "slurpee summit," was postponed. However, the National Cattlemen's Beef Association (NCBA) did not let that deter them from continuing to urge Congress to pass estate tax relief during the lame-duck session. Read more.


USFRA Reveals Vision and Initial Focus

Organized to be a united voice of agriculture, USFRA announces founding board and executive committee.

Today's agriculture continues to be attacked by a number of different groups. Unfortunately, as the majority of the U.S. public has become further and further removed from the farm, they tend to believe the groups attacking agriculture, according to the U.S. Farmers & Ranchers Alliance (USFRA). This new alliance is comprised of leading national farmer- and rancher-led agricultural organizations.

The Alliance's vision is to enhance consumer trust in today's U.S. food production system, to maintain and enhance the freedom of U.S. farmers and ranchers to operate in a responsible manner, and to strengthen collaboration with the food production, processing and distribution systems, explained newly elected USFRA Chairman Bob Stallman, who is also president of the American Farm Bureau Federation. Read more.


Logan Ipsen

Logan Ipsen

Association Perspective

A tool chest for profit.

Undoubtedly, anyone who has listened to a talk given by American Angus Association staff has seen slides explaining the abundant numbers that accompany each registered Angus animal. We have made the point that each of those numbers is a decision-making tool. Furthermore, as I have traveled Region 12, I have heard repeatedly from academia, government and industry personnel that the data released by breed associations are tools to help producers make profit-driven decisions.

With all the numbers that the Association can provide to producers, we are reaching a point that the "toolbox" has become a "tool chest." To complete an analogy, I often compare Angus breeders to mechanics. A mechanic will have an entire set of tools for a specific job. No one tool fixes the entire vehicle, and many tools are model-specific. Read more.


Established Icon Grows Like a Startup

Certified Angus BeefCertified Angus Beef® brand posts 17.2% sales increase.

Start-up companies often report double-digit sales growth, but 32-year-old iconic brands without new-product launches or acquisitions? Not so much. Yet Certified Angus Beef LLC (CAB) recently closed the books on fiscal year 2010 with 17.2% growth.

Also going against the conventional wisdom that premium brands struggle during a recession, the Certified Angus Beef® (CAB®) brand provided assurance of consistent value for dollars spent and grew its business across all sectors in a fourth consecutive year of record gains.

Product sales from Oct. 1, 2009, to Sept. 30, 2010, topped 777 million pounds (lb.), shattering last year's mark by 114 million lb. Read more.


Evaluating Animal Welfare

Animal welfare judging contest trains students with the hope of making a long-term impact on animal care.

When Camie Heleski was looking for a project for her graduate program at Michigan State University (MSU) that focused on animal welfare, she never imagined she would still be involved with it a decade later.

"Working with my major professor, Adroaldo Zanella, we were trying to come up with something," she said. "We saw the energy and hard work being put forth in the dairy, livestock and horse judging teams and thought to ourselves, 'We could do this with animal welfare.' "

Ten years later, Heleski is working with undergraduate students, preparing for the 10th annual Intercollegiate Animal Welfare Judging and Assessment Competition (AWJAC) and Educational Seminar, the event that grew out of her project. Read more.


What’s Inside …

In this November edition of the Angus Beef Bulletin EXTRA, you'll find valuable articles devoted to the management, marketing, and health and nutrition of your beef enterprise. Select from the tabs at the top of the page to access this month's entire offering by category. A few select features include:

Prescribed Burns May Need to Include Both Summer and Winter Fires

Time to Inventory, Purchase Hay

Manure Consistency

Trace Minerals in Feedlot Cattle

Three Quick Questions with Clint Walenciak

Another Voice Connecting Chefs, Agriculture

Long-term Demand Will Drive Beef Prices Higher


News Briefs …

The American Angus Association and its subsidiaries generate a wealth of information to keep members and affiliates informed of what's happening within the industry as well as with the programs and services they offer. Click here for easy access to a summary of recent news and links to the newsrooms of the American Angus Association and Certified Angus Beef LLC and the Angus e-List archive.


Your Health

Walking the Brain

Taking up walking or other moderate activity can help an older person's body — and a study indicates it also could help the brain. A researcher at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign saw that in brain scans of 65 people ages 59 to 80 who took up walking 40 minutes, three times a week.

Art Kramer looked at more than coherence among signals in individual parts of the brain. He looked at coordination among networks of the brain — the connectivity that links different parts in thinking. He found people who exercised also had better brain coordination.

"Fitness makes it more correlated, so it's not just the coherence in the networks but the coordination among the networks," he says.

The study in Frontiers in Aging Neuroscience was supported by the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Learn more at www.hhs.gov.

HHS HealthBeat is a production of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).


Medicare Open Enrollment

Beginning Nov. 15, 2010, all people with Medicare can review their current coverage or choose a new Medicare plan that works for them. The Affordable Care Act provides important new benefits to most people with Medicare, starting in January 2011, including a 50% discount on brand-name drugs for people who fall into the coverage gap; free annual wellness visits; and free mammograms, colonoscopies and other screenings.

Learn more and find resources at www.medicare.gov/navigation/medicare-basics/open-enrollment.aspx to help you with choices during this Open Enrollment.

Learn more about the Affordable Care Act at www.healthcare.gov/foryou/seniors/strengthening/index.html.

For more information, visit HHS.gov at www.hhs.gov/.


 

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