Ag News for America
The Indiana State Board of Animal Health (BOAH) has confirmed that a cow from a beef cattle herd in Southeastern Indiana has tested positive with bovine tuberculosis.
BOAH veterinarians are in the process of conducting a thorough investigation of the herd, including tracing sources of the TB-positive cows, as well as any animals that may have been sold from the farm.
Indiana has held a bovine tuberculosis-free status since 1984, under federal guidelines, that status remains.
Carroll County farmers led Illinois in corn yields with an average of 189.8 bushels per acre. It’s more than 32 bushels above the disappointing state average of 157 bushels per acre. For soybeans, Piatt county farmers had the highest yield, at 63.3 bushels per acre, almost 12 bushels above the record high state average of 51.5.
However, the nod for total production goes to McLean County, which had largest corn and soybean production. McLean County farmers harvested 357,000 acres of corn for a total of 60.522 million bushels. They harvested 270,000 acres of soybeans for a total of just over 15.805 million bushels.
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation announced Sunday it will donate $70 million to a new collaboration that will focus on addressing threats to food production in the developing world, including crop diseases, pests, poor soils and harsh weather. The United Kingdom Department for International Development (DFID) is also contributing $32 million to the effort. Gates officials said the money will go toward scientific research that helps farmers produce more and better food.
Cornell University is receiving $40 million to continue its work to develop wheat varieties that are resistant to emerging strains of stem rust disease, such as Ug99, which started in Uganda in 1998 and now threatens the world’s wheat supply. The disease is particularly deadly to many popular varieties of wheat.
It was a record year for ethanol production last year; the U.S. Energy Information Administration says total ethanol production for calendar year 2010 was 13.23 billion gallons, compared to 10.75 billion in 2009.
As reported last week, ethanol exports last year were a record 397 million gallons while imports declined substantially to 9.7 million gallons. Distillers grains exports also a record last year at 9 million metric tons.
Ethanol production in December was 918,000 barrels per day; stocks fell slightly to 17.94 million barrels or 19.5 days of supply on hand based on current use.
For the past 4 years, the National Association of Wheat Growers (NAWG) has been a part of Commodity Classic, and Jerry McReynolds, NAWG President from Kansas says it’s important they be there. The Kansas what producer says too, that in addition to learning sessions sponsored by the NAWG Foundation and a booth in the trade show, the National Association of Wheat Growers will have a number of policy issues that will be discussed during the organization’s annual meeting on Saturday, March 5.
The number of cattle in Wisconsin increased 50,000 head last year. The National Ag Statistics Service says as of January 1 there were 3.45 million cattle and calves in the Badger State, 50,000 more than January 1, 2010 and 100,000 more than at the start of 2009.
In 2010 the state added 5,000 beef cows taking the herd to 265,000 and added 5,000 dairy cows to 1.265 million head and 20,000 calves joined the herd. There were 65,000 replacement beef animals an increase of 5,000 and 700,000 replacement dairy animals an increase of 30,000 from a year ago.
Wisconsin set a new milk production record in 2010, with 26.0 billion pounds. Milk per cow rose to 20,630 lbs. As of January 1, 2011 there were 12,431 licensed milk cow operations in Wisconsin, down 498 from a year ago.
The February Index of Prices Received by Farmers up 2.4 percent from January. The crop index increased 6.5 percent, the average all wheat price gained $1.85 from January to $8.56 per bushel, corn increased 72 cents to $5.66, soybeans up 50 cents to average $12.10 per bushel. Grain prices are 34 percent higher compared to a year ago.
Livestock prices gained 2.9 percent in February, hogs averaged $61.50 per hundredweight up $5.70 from January. Cattle were down $1.00 for the month to average $106 per hundredweight while the all milk price increased $1.70 to $18.40 per hundredweight. The Livestock Index is up 15 percent from a year ago.
So the cost of feed needed to produce 100 pounds of milk is $9.39 while the February all milk price ends up at $18.40 creating an income-over-feed-cost at $9.01 up 83 cents from January.
The Index of Prices Paid by Farmers increased 1.5 percent in February. Prices were higher for feeder pigs, feeder cattle, fertilizer, chemicals and fuels, unchanged for machinery. February feeder pigs averaged $200.00 per hundredweight up $17.00 from January, feeder cattle were $1.20 higher averaging $127.50 per hundredweight. Fertilizers are up 3.6 percent, chemicals gained 0.7 per cent and fuel increased 2.8 percent from January. The prices paid index is up 9.4 percent from a year ago.
Read the full NASS report here
For the past 4 years, the National Association of Wheat Growers (NAWG) has been a part of Commodity Classic, and Jerry McReynolds, NAWG President from Kansas says it’s important they be there.
“It’s important that all of our commodity groups get together and just talk about the issues we all face,” McReynolds said.
In addition to learning sessions sponsored by the NAWG Foundation and a booth in the trade show, the National Association of Wheat Growers will have a number of policy issues that will be discussed during the organization’s annual meeting on Saturday, March 5.
Commodity Classic will be held March 3 thru 5 in Tampa, Florida.
USDA’s Agriculture Statistics Service says Missouri corn and soybean yields were excellent this past season. St. Louis County produced the largest average county corn yield at 159.5 bushels per acre on only 4,000 harvested acres, followed by New Madrid County at 157.2 bushels per acre. Atchison County produced the most corn with 18.8 million bushels, followed by Saline County with 18.5 million bushels.
Lafayette County led the state with an average soybean yield of 50.0 bushels per acre, while Audrain County led in total production of 7.45 million bushels from nearly 165,000 harvested acres of soybeans.
Mississippi County produced the largest county wheat yield of 62.2 bushels per acre. It’s also the largest wheat producing county in Missouri with 1.64 million bushels produced. Scott County had the second largest production at 1.53 million bushels. Mississippi and Scott counties produced over 25 percent of the states production. A little more than half the state’s wheat is grown in The Bootheel.
The past few months have been good for all segments of the cattle industry, including backgrounding. Sparky Wellman and her husband background calves near Bonaparte in southeast Iowa.
“Right now, all facets of the industry are thriving pretty well,” Wellman says, “and as you well know, part of that is supply of demand—and demand is still going up and actually numbers are back a little bit so that helps our profitability.
“Other things—our corn and our feed and stuff like that—kind of reduces that a little bit. But yeah, times are good right now.”
Wellman was one of those who attended last week’s joint meeting of the Iowa Cattlemen’s Association and the Cornbelt Cow-Calf Conference in Ottumwa, Iowa.
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