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State of the Cattle Industry: Supply Shock Results in 61 Year Low in Beef Cow Herd and Record Price Forecast

Tue, 14 Feb 2023 03:23:38 GMT

USDA’s Semi-Annual Cattle Inventory report confirmed a 61-year low in the beef cow herd, and barring some major change in the weather, the cattle inventory may not be done shrinking yet. Industry experts predict that could push cattle prices for all classes to record levels yet this year and beyond.

The historic drought has been devasting for U.S. cattle producers who have lost years of equity in their operations and genetics in their herds. The liquidation was deepest in the Southern Plains. Tucker Brown, cattle producer of Throckmorton, Texas says, “This year there’s been massive liquidation all over Texas. A lot of the times the folks that farmers and ranchers that have to get rid of everything are the ones that maybe waited too long to lower their numbers ran out of grass ran out of water.” He says his operation has fared somewhat better, but there is still a scar from the drought. “We’re probably down to about half the number of cows from where we were a couple of years ago, which is hard on the wallet, but for sustainability. We have to do that.”

USDA’s semiannual cattle inventory report confirmed the supply shock. All cattle and calves were at 89.3 million head, the lowest in eight years. But the beef cow herd was at only 28.9 million near record low. Kevin Good, vice president of industry relations and analysis with CattleFax says that herd will continue to contract this year. “We’re forecasting about a 5% drop in production this year compared to last year, that would equate to about 800,000 that dropped that slaughter and about 800,000 had dropped and non-fed slaughter as well.”

As a result, CattleFax released some optimistic price projection for all classes of the cattle business in 2023, and even some record prices by year end based on an increase in retail prices that will trickle down to producers. Good says, “A 10% increase in fed prices via $158 average. On yearlings eight weights in particular, as we go through the year we see that moving higher as we get into the second half of year in particular into new crop corn that should be substantially cheaper than it has been this last two years. If that’s the case, $195 annual average for nine weight translates amounted to $225 annual average for five and half weight steer calf.”

Good says this cycle will have a long tail, with strong prices all the way out to 2026. That’s because there is no sign herd contraction has slowed as there is still no heifer retention. “Heifers, on a feed basis they’re close to 40%, which is highest percentage. It’s been since 2000 or 2001. So no, the die is cast on the heifer side that we are liquidating at least through the first half of this year.”

To stop that trend cow, calf producers need some help from Mother Nature, namely grass and Brown says water is the other key. “Water is a big, big issue in Texas, especially the further west you go.” The other key to encourage rebuilding will be getting profits down to the cow calf sector. Something outgoing NCBA President Don Schiefelbein knows firsthand, but he’s encouraged. “It looks like we’re going to hold our break evens together this year which is a positive thing given what we’ve been through. So, I’m very confident over the next couple of years it’ll kind of rebound, we’ll be back in the black where we need to be, and we’ll have that leverage we so desperately needed the last couple of years.”

There is already a shift in profits away from the record margins packers were seeing the last couple of years, but it will take a while for that to trickle through the entire supply chain.

Dean Black, cattle producer of Somers, Iowa says, “The packer margins came down quite a bit and so hopefully we’re evening out across the board. So that everybody can get a little bit of profit because that’s what we need.” With additional processing capacity being built it may exceed supply, just as the cattle herd reaches its lowest point, which is a double edge sword. Schiefelbein says, “It’s real but long term usually once these plants get build leverage goes to cow calf producers and to me given what we’ve gone through the last 10 years as cow calf producers it’s finally time they get their share.”

Another key for the industry is retaining beef demand in the face of possible higher prices. Todd Wilkinson, President, NCBA says it’s a concern for him. “When you drive down the cow herd too far, suddenly the cost of that American consumer can be astronomical. We don’t want that to happen.”

The hope is beef can continue to gain momentum on the market share it’s gained in the protein sector the last 20 years. Good says, “The dollar growth for beef was more than the dollar growth for both pork and chicken combined in that 20-year period. So, demand has been stout.”

And not just domestically….beef exports were also a record in 2022 totaling 3.54 billion lbs., up 3% from the previous year, with a value of $11.7 billion, up $1.2 billion.

Dan Halstrom, president and CEO of the U.S. Meat Export Federation says, “It’s going to be a record on volume and value, we’re going to be up 3 to 4% on volume and value’s going to come in just under $12 billion in sales which is easily a record over last year’s $10.5 billion.”

Exports making up 23% of the value of the beef carcass. And if this continues it just adds to the optimism of better days ahead for the cattle industry.

Ring of Glory: Pennsylvania Teen Chases Dairy Dreams After Surviving House Fire

Thu, 02 Feb 2023 21:48:03 GMT

It takes a lot of days in the barn to be ready for the ring at places such as the 2022 All-American Dairy Show in Harrisburg, Pa.

(Farm Journal)

For Reese Burdette and her family, each precious step along the way is quite literally a miracle.

“Showing and going to shows are some of my favorite memories,” Reese says.

The Burdette family lives and farms just outside of Mercersburg, Pa., at a dairy that’s just the right size to keep two teenagers busy.

“Reese will water and I’ll feed grain and then she’ll get milk and I’ll feed milk and then she’ll do bottles,” explains sister Brinkley Burdette. “We’ll usually get done fast, and then we walk our show calves.”

It is a step-by-step process their parents, Justin and Claire, are only too happy to watch.

“Oftentimes, it can bring tears to your eyes, when you look back to where we were,” Claire says. “I just know how hard it has been and still how hard it is for Reese.”

“She has some grit and determination,” echoes Justin. “She likes to prove to people that that she’s capable of doing it.”

What Reese is doing in the showring is nothing special in her eyes.

“I mean, it’s difficult but everybody has difficulties in the ring,” she says.

The challenges for Reese started Memorial Day weekend in 2014 during a visit to her grandparents’ house.

“It was a Sunday evening and what we now know is an electrical fire started in the room Reese was in,” Claire recalls.

Her mother quickly rushed into the room among the flames to pull Reese to safety while Claire’s stepdad went after sister Brinkley.

“I do remember getting out, sitting on the porch and waiting,” Reese remembers.

(Farm Journal)

Badly burned, Reese was flown to Johns Hopkins Hospital in Maryland.

“I was in a lot of pain, I was scared, and they were telling me all these different things I didn’t know,” Reese says.

Justin and Claire arrived at this hospital as quickly as they could.

“First, they told us we’d be there one to two weeks and then it turned to one to two months,” Claire says. “We thought: How are we going to do this? How are we going to continue to farm both of us being away? Then it turned into 662 days.”

Reese was in the hospital for 662 days of recovery, of setbacks and unknowns.

“Through this journey Reese has had five cardiac arrests and she lost her leg in the hospital in that first couple of weeks due to blood flow issues,” Claire says.

Reese’s lungs needed rest, so doctors used an extracorporeal membrane oxygenation machine to pump blood outside of her body, remove carbon dioxide and send oxygen-filled blood back. However, there were complications and Reese’s parents were forced to make a call about amputation.

“Our surgeon looked us right in the face and said if it was my child, I’d do it,” Justin says. “You now have to be willing to have bad days to make good days.”

The good days were often overshadowed by the difficult ones. From the amputation, to learning to stand and eventually walk again, the days were long. Reese’s parents recognized she needed a goal.

That’s when a favorite dairy cow Pantene -- named after the haircare products -- came back into the picture.

“She was actually the first calf I showed at our county fair,” Reese says.

That’s why Pantene has a little extra hold on Reese’s heart. After weeks in the hospital her friend from home was the right incentive to keep stepping forward.

“One of her doctors was an off-the-wall thinker,” Justin says. “He said, ‘Well, bring Pantene down here.’”

(Farm Journal)

So, through the streets of Baltimore they went with a trailer, right to the main entrance of John Hopkins. Reese remembers that day clearly.

“She came to visit me in the hospital when I first learned to stand up,” Reese says. “That really made me want to get home.”

“It was definitely a moment,” Claire says. “It also gave the nurses and doctors who were fighting along with us perspective on where Reese came from and what she loved.”

Just about two months shy of two years, Reese came home to a hero’s welcome.

“There were a lot of people and one of the first things we did was come down here to the barn to see Pantene,” remembers Reese.

For Claire, the return home reunited her family of four.

“I felt like it was okay to laugh again,” she says. “It was OK to go out to dinner again. It was OK to go to the movies because we weren’t slighting her in any way. We were all included as one.”

A family and a farm were together again, and they were ready to restart the life they’d put on pause.

“We know she has something in store for her and she’s meant to be here,” Claire says. “We don’t know how her story is going to unfold, but it will.”

Reese returned to the showring. The first year she needed a wheelchair to back her up. This year she will be stepping through the sawdust on her own.

“I was actually just telling my friend that most of my favorite memories have been made at the Harrisburg show,” Reese says.

Now she’s setting her sights on Madison and World Dairy Expo, if she can get her parents on board.

“I’m working on it,” Reese laughs.

Along with showing, she’s taken up dance and recently joined FFA. Those extracurriculars happen between follow-up trips to the hospital.

(Farm Journal)

“She had a tracheotomy in 2014 and that was taken out this last year,” Claire says. “The progress she’s made from that has been amazing.”

She also had a leg revision in 2022, which has helped improve her mobility and reduce pain when walking.

“It’s easier for her to feed hay and stuff,” Brinkley says. “It’s easier for her to water, although I still have to hook up the water for her sometimes.”

It’s all helping Reese find a future without limits.

“She has visions of going to college and I’ve given her a three-hour radius,” Claire says.

“Our reality for Reese is that Reese is normal,” Justin says. “She needs to get the childhood she missed back.”

These steps along life’s path, may seem so small for most but for Reese they’re the road back to a future nearly lost. Her future now is stacked high with possibilities.

“You can get so caught up in the little things and at the end of the day, the little things don’t matter,” Claire says. “It’s the big picture and as long as you have your health and your family that’s all that matters.”

Last month at the Harrisburg All-American show, Reese stood fifth in showmanship out of 140 kids.

Enjoy Other Grit with Grace Stories:

The Power of Love and Faith: How a Journey to Help Foster Kids Heal On the Farm Led One to Their Forever Home

Couple Takes Off On Trip From Nebraska To Alaska In A 1977 IH Tractor To Raise Money For Kids

How Social Media Sensation NY Farm Girls Defied Odds to Expose the Truth About Farming

DOT Denies Hours of Service Exemption for Livestock: Puts Burden on Cattle Producers

Wed, 30 Nov 2022 22:21:39 GMT

Farm groups have been working with the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration agency for months to allow additional time on the road for truckers transporting livestock, insects and aquatic animals and make them exempt from some Hours-of-Service rules. The livestock industry will retain the 150-mile air radius exemption on the front and back of a shipment, but the agency has denied the HOS request which puts producers at a real disadvantage. It also couldn’t come at a worse time with a trucker shortage and pending rail strike.

The agency rejected the exemption saying it wouldn’t meet an acceptable safety level for drivers. However, farm groups say it doesn’t take into consideration the well-being of the animals being transported and will put a burden on producers. Kent Bacus, Executive Director of Government Affairs, National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, says, “We’ve been operating with this extended relief for the last few years and being able to have that flexibility to determine how we want to ship cattle and what the best time is not only given the weather conditions and road conditions but also you know taking all that into consideration the livelihood of the livestock we’re in charge of.”

Rock Valley, Iowa, cattle producer Brad Kooima, agrees. “I am disappointed in the news. I think that there is a pretty strong group that’s going to try to get our waiver reinstated. Anybody that’s in this industry knows that this makes no sense for animal welfare.”

Bacus says NCBA will continue to look at any possible legal or Congressional recourse. “We have allies and people on Capitol Hill who understand our industry, who understand the significance of this. So, we may look at those options as well.” Plus, they’ll continue to petition the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration to reconsider or compromise.

From the Flames: A Lesson in Thanksgiving from a Man Who Survived a Raging Oklahoma Wildfire

Wed, 23 Nov 2022 21:20:43 GMT

Driving back to rural Dewey County, in western Oklahoma, floods Terry Burleson with memories and images from 3.5 years ago.

“How I escaped this wilderness on fire was by the grace of God,” Terry says.

Among the web of canyons and charred cedars, Terry survived. A miracle, left behind after nearly 300,000 acres burned in April of 2018. It started as a quick trip in the side-by-side to scout locations for a turkey hunt the following morning. Terry and two family members were rolling through the pasture when they saw the smoke.

“It seemed to be a long way off and we weren’t taking on any smoke,” he says. “So, it just felt like it was 10, 15 or 20 miles away.”

But in minutes, the fire was on top of them. It was being pushed by 50 mile per hour winds and now a wall of flames was racing across the landscape. Their road back was blocked and so they ran.

“From that point is where we, for whatever reason, decided to split up,” remembers Terry. “I don’t know why even to this day.”

Terry, not expecting to ever get out, was in loafers as he tried to sprint through the canyons. Somewhere during his sprint, Terry lost his phone. The other two men, via fence lines and dirt roads, found a way to safety. Terry ran for his life, up hillsides and down canyons. He ran until he couldn’t,

“My mind was telling me the fire was going to jump and at any moment I was going to be sandwiched,” Terry says. “I kind of gave up and I laid down to die.”

As he listened to the fire howling around him, he found peace.

(Farm Journal)

“I talked to my wife once, right when we got out of the Ranger,” remembers Terry. “I talked to her and told her we were out on foot; we were in it, and it doesn’t look good.”

He lay at the bottom of the canyon, as cedars exploded around him.

“I don’t know, I wasn’t scared and maybe that’s a God thing, too,” Terry says.

As the heat rolled over him, the burning drove Terry to his feet. He was gasping through the smoke as he climbed out of the canyon and eventually broke the tree line onto flat ground. A small road created the perfect fire line.

“The way that road angles and the way the wind was blowing the same direction, that’s the only thing that allowed that fire to backburn past me,” Terry says.

It wasn’t long before the flames came roaring back to life. This time it was on his side of the road.

“That grass was about waist high,” Terry says. “So, you can imagine the flames were probably 10 feet and created just a big wall.”

Terry worked his way from one safe spot to another, laying as flat to the ground as could, beneath the smoke. Eventually, he was forced back across the road and into the ashes. He was safe as the fire once again raged past him.

Several hours went by and as night began to settle in Terry got to his feet, disoriented, hurting and lost. By chance or by providence he turned left down that road.

“Something told me to go left,” Terry says. “I was very fortunate because when I turn the corner, I saw a water trough and a windmill.”

Water! Terry wet his face, but he didn’t drink. He says given his situation he was worried it might make him sick. Then he laid down, out of the smoke on the cool concrete ring. That’s where he stayed until daylight.

(Farm Journal)

Meanwhile, his family feared the worst. They were kept away from the area by authorities and the raging fire.

“Knowing what the wind was doing, seeing the fire and watching it on the news we were just holding out for hope, begging God that he survives and praying all through the night,” recalls Mark Price, a family member. “You can’t sleep, and everyone was worried, nervous, scared and frustrated.”

When daylight broke, Price rallied the others from the family.

“I said it’s time to go,” said Price. “We’ve got to go find him.”

That morning, a few hundred yards at a time, Terry followed the trail across the pasture to a dirt road and then started toward the western Oklahoma town of Camargo.

“When I got across this cattle guard that’s when I saw a pickup coming,” Terry says.

He sank to the ground, and the men offered him water. Five minutes later his family arrived.

(Farm Journal)

“When we pulled up to that cattle guard, I saw him sitting in the road and I threw it in park, jumped out, jumped up in the air and screamed, ‘He’s alive, he’s alive, thank God he’s alive,’” Price says. “Then I thought, I’ve got to call his wife. So I grabbed the phone and I called her. I said, we found him. He’s alive. Then I hung up.”

Price laughs he probably didn’t share enough information, which worried family at the time.

“I got in trouble for that, and they said, you know, you didn’t really give us a lot of information,” Price says.

Local ambulance director Katrina Bryant was the first to arrive.

(Farm Journal)

“Truthfully, [Terry] was in good shape,” Bryant remembers. “I was expecting to be doing a body recovery, and the way that fire was burning, we probably wouldn’t have found a body. We probably would have found ashes.”

She says the entire emergency team knew he was missing and seeing him alive lifted spirits.

“When they found him, the talk on the radio chatter was just renewed life,” Bryant says.

Terry spent 21 days in the hospital, suffering third-degree burns on his arms and parts of his torso. His head and face had first-degree burns.

Exactly how and why he survived is a question Terry has grown to live with.

“You’ll hear God’s in control and so either he is, or he isn’t. It’s one of the two. It can’t be both,” Terry says.

“I know if the same thing happened to me, he wouldn’t stop until he found me. And you know, that’s just it’s a story of brotherhood, a story of friendship,” said Price.

“I try not to get emotional about it,” Terry says, surveying the place once more. “To come back and see it is all still a little bit surreal.”

From fire and ashes to walking among the living, Terry counts it a miracle. He remains thankful for every step along the way.

EXCLUSIVE: Dr. Fauci on COVID Pandemic — "It Will End"

Fri, 21 Jan 2022 21:38:57 GMT

The omicron variant surge of COVID-19 might appear to be cresting in some big cities, but the latest wave is far from over, especially in many rural communities, says Dr. Anthony Fauci. The chief medical adviser to President Biden says smaller towns should expect omicron outbreaks to increase in the coming weeks.

“When you have an outbreak of a new variant, there’s a delay,” says Dr. Fauci regarding rural outbreak trends. “Rather than have the sharp peak and then come down, you sort of gradually go up and then come back down.”

In a one-on-one interview with Farm Journal Editor and AgDay TV host, Clinton Griffiths, Dr. Fauci says as vaccination numbers and unvaccinated COVID survivors increase the pandemic will end.

“It will end. I can guarantee you and your viewers it will end hopefully sooner rather than later,” Dr. Fauci says. “We will reach a point where the virus will be low enough in the community as to not have any impact on what we do, so we can get ourselves back to some form of normality and it doesn’t interrupt the economy or interrupt our way of life. That’s what we’re hoping we’re going to see within a reasonable period of time.”

(Watch Full Interview Above)

The highly transmissible omicron variant has helped to push COVID-19 positive rates higher since late fall. The weekly rolling average of COVID-19 deaths is now at 1,700. That’s about half what it was in January 2021.

“If you look at the devastation in this country thus far, we’ve had 850,000 deaths and about 66 million cases,” Dr. Fauci says.

New models from the COVID-19 Scenario Modeling Hub , created by university and health experts, which now factor in the omicron variant, expect up to 2.38 million hospitalizations and 304,000 deaths, at worst, and 409,000 hospitalizations and 54,000 deaths, at best, from mid-December through mid-March. Those models show the omicron peak sometime between February and March.

(Farm Journal)

“To be sure, there are breakthrough infections, namely, people get vaccinated and even boosted, and they may get infected,” says Dr. Fauci. “For the most part, though, those infections are either without symptoms or minimally symptomatic.”

Dr. Fauci says in many, but not all, rural areas, vaccination rates are lower compared with the rest of the country. While strongly advocating for vaccines and boosters to prevent hospitalization or severe illness, Dr. Fauci recognizes all immunity will ultimately work together against the coronavirus.

“I think when you get a situation of more and more people getting vaccinated and boosted or unfortunately, people getting sick or getting infected, then recovering and having a degree of protection, if you combine those two, there will be enough protection in the country,” says Fauci in reference to an eventual end of the pandemic.

The federal government is now offering free coronavirus test kits to some Americans. Those with a valid residential address can go to COVIDTests.gov to get one set of four free at-home COVID tests starting in late January.

Rural Hospitals Face Staffing Shortages Amid Omicron Outbreak

Fri, 21 Jan 2022 21:06:39 GMT

Bare shelves, absent employees and virtual schooling, are all signs of the latest surge from the Omicron variant of COVID. While health officials say the peak may be passing in some of the nation’s biggest cities in rural America, the wave is just beginning.

“Looking at data this morning from the CDC, we’re seeing a lot of rural towns having a six percent to a 15 percent increase in COVID over the last forty-eight hours,” said Alan Morgan the CEO of the National Rural Health Association .

The highly transmissible, and in many cases the milder, omicron variant has been pushing COVID-19 positive rates higher since late fall. Now the wave is finding its way to rural America.

“The real impact is on these small rural hospitals and their workforce where the workforce has always been a problem for rural facilities,” said Morgan. “Now, after we’ve seen the pandemic really flatten the rural workforce and we’re seeing a lot of rural health care professionals become infected with COVID, they’re struggling, honestly, to have the staffing that they need at this moment.”

(Watch the full interview above)

He says getting help often means hiring traveling nurses and usually it’s at twice the cost.

“They’re not always available,” Morgan says. “In many cases, the urban facilities are utilizing this service as well, too.”

Staff or no staff, small rural hospitals often must transfer seriously ill patients but currently, options are limited. EMS services in rural areas are also short-staffed.

“These three things are combining to make a really unsafe situation in our rural hospitals,” Morgan says. “One thing we’ve been talking to the federal government about is assisting the states in coordinating the workforce when it comes to these surges.”

Morgan is also hoping for improved communication and coordination from state and federal officials to help transfer patients between hospitals if needed.

While money and finances have been a concern in the past, today it’s just about people.

“There are only so many bodies to be had to be able to work in these small hospitals,” said Morgan. “It doesn’t matter how many beds you have; you have to have the people to staff those, and that’s really the crisis we’re in right now.”

Related Links:

Dr. Fauci on COVID Pandemic — “It Will End”

Wisconsin Loses 818 Dairies in 2019, Largest Decline in State History

Wed, 03 Nov 2021 19:23:16 GMT

Wisconsin, known nationally as the nation’s dairy state, lost 818 dairy farms in 2019, a full 10% of its dairy herds, according to the latest numbers from the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection.

As of Jan. 1, 2020, Wisconsin had 7,292 licensed dairy farms. On Jan. 1, 2019, the number stood at 8,110. In the last decade, the state lost 5,637 dairy farms, a decrease of 44%. That also suggests the rate of dairy famer loss has more than doubled the last few years.

The number of Grade A dairies in Wisconsin is now 6,574; the number of Grade B dairies is 718 which includes 470 farms still shipping milk in cans.

Cow numbers have also declined slightly. In November of this year (the latest numbers available), the estimated number of dairy cows stood at 1,265,000, or 7,000 head less than a year ago. Cow numbers, however, had been fairly stable over the past decade. Ten years ago, Wisconsin reported cow numbers at 1,258,000.

In other words, Wisconsin farms have grown fewer but larger. Using these numbers, the average herd size in Wisconsin is about 170 cows per herd today. In 2009, it was roughly 100 cows per herd.

Total milk production has also soared some 20%. Numbers have not yet been totaled for 2019. In 2018, Wisconsin produced 30.6 billion pounds of milk. Ten years ago, the state produced just over 25 billion pounds of milk.

You can see the county-by-county breakdown of herd numbers here .

Telemedicine and African Swine Fever: 5 Reasons to Take a Closer Look

Tue, 19 Oct 2021 23:31:04 GMT

The COVID-19 pandemic and the shortage of food animal veterinarians have catapulted the concept of telemedicine forward. As the threat of African swine fever (ASF) inches closer to the U.S., experts say telemedicine could become an even more useful tool for the pork industry to utilize.

“In the event of an outbreak of ASF in the U.S., veterinary resources will become even more severely strained as biosecurity, distance and logistical barriers will necessitate the use of telemedicine to limit in-person contact with affected swine and ensure timely decision-making,” says Gil Patterson, VMD, chief medical officer at veterinary technology company, VetNOW .

What Exactly is Telemedicine?

When it comes to telemedicine, food animal veterinarians have been practicing the concept for some time even if they didn’t realize it, Patterson explains.

“Veterinarians have been haphazardly sharing pics and sending texts for a long time. Moving those client communications to a formalized telemedicine platform provides a degree of professionalism and robustness that wasn’t there before,” Patterson says.

Telemedicine services can offer a secure platform for veterinarians to conduct farm or pet visits with clients within an established Veterinarian-Client-Patient Relationship (VCPR), and allows for the sharing and storage of medical documents and multimedia (photos/live video) under one umbrella. It also allows the veterinarian to track time and effort, make notes about cases or communication history, and more.

Electronic monitoring of herds and electronic prescriptions are part of telemedicine, too, explains Abbey Canon, DVM, director of public health and communications for the American Association of Swine Veterinarians .

“No doubt we will continue to expand technology that can facilitate telemedicine,” she adds.

The American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA) has a policy on telemedicine, Canon points out. That policy states, “The AVMA believes that veterinary telemedicine should only be conducted within an existing VCPR, with the exception for advice given in an emergency until that patient can be seen by a veterinarian.”

COVID-19 brought telemedicine into the limelight, but what does the future of this service hold?

“Whether we like it or not, COVID-19 certainly pushed the industry along into the future. Everyone’s comfort level and acceptance of doing meetings on Zoom is forever changed. We’ve gotten savvier about meeting online. We’ve discovered ways to be present and connect with people like never before,” he says.

Telemedicine is not intended to replace in-person visits. Patterson believes it’s critically important for veterinarians to be on the farm. But in between those visits, there are things that might pop up. Telemedicine is a tool to supplement the accessibility and availability of veterinarians in between those on-farm visits, especially when some veterinarians and farms are hundreds of miles apart.

“I see a lot of advantages to telemedicine in terms of helping the animals,” he says. “Better veterinary care and easier access to veterinary care first and foremost is going to equal better animal health.”

So, What Holds Producers Back?

More and more people are seeing the value in telemedicine, Patterson says. Clients understand the advantages of having secure connections and keeping medical records in one place.

“But there is definitely a ‘breaking old habits’ factor that we have run into when vets are used to sending texts, doing FaceTime over the phone – that is a change in behavior which falls on the shoulders of vets to say they are switching over to a more formalized approach to telemedicine,” he says.

Determining the right balance between a quick text about the dose of a medicine versus the need for an online consultation will be an important step as more veterinarians consider including telemedicine services.

As barns get “smarter” with more cameras, monitoring systems, microphones to measure coughing frequency, Patterson says telemedicine is one more tool to bring the veterinarian’s eyes and ears into the barn. Combined with technologies such as these, the value of the virtual visit is enhanced by providing more material to make informed decisions.

“Telemedicine is an emerging industry that is getting better and better at helping veterinarians stay connected with their clients out in the field. It helps promote veterinarian accessibility and access. Especially in the food animal realm where we often deal with biosecurity, distance and weather, which may prevent us from actually getting out there in person,” Patterson says.

Five Ways Telemedicine Can Help in an ASF Outbreak

If an ASF outbreak takes place in the U.S. and is controlled and exports can return within two years, Dermot Hayes, an Iowa State University economist, says it will still result in $15 billion in lost revenue. If it isn’t controlled, he projects that number at $50 billion in lost revenue over 10 years.

To say an ASF outbreak would be devastating is an understatement.

Telemedicine could play an important role in an ASF response strategy. Patterson shares five valuable ways telemedicine can help.

1. A tool to rapidly get “eyes” into a farm when there is a suspected ASF case, while providing oversight and direction of diagnostic sample collection.
2. A platform to support regional business continuity as part of swine movement risk assessments.
3. A way to perform biosecurity auditing of farms to identify at-risk populations.
4. A secure medium to discuss potentially sensitive conversations where high-impact decisions need to be made.
5. An opportunity to share and synchronize information from state and federal diagnostic labs.

“I think telemedicine can be beneficial during a foreign animal disease outbreak,” Canon agrees. “With the additional downtime requirements that will be implemented during an FAD incursion, simply put, we do not have enough swine veterinarians to visit every farm to conduct routine herd health visits, address endemic disease challenges, evaluate animals for movement and collect samples. We might not know exactly how it will look, but telemedicine will likely play a role in an FAD response and recovery.”

Learn More:
AVMA offers additional resources for telemedicine to veterinarians practicing on all species.

Take a look at this interactive map describing the current VCPR laws and regulations surrounding telemedicine in every state provided by the Veterinary Virtual Care Association

Read More from Farm Journal’s PORK:

Telemedicine: Videochats with Veterinarians

Will COVID-19 Speed the Adoption of Technology in the Pork Industry?

Telemedicine Lowers Wait-Time for Rural Health Care

Help Cattle Beat the Heat with These Tips

Tue, 13 Jul 2021 20:37:54 GMT

Kansas is seeing hotter temperatures this week—in the upper 90’s. But the issue isn’t just in Kansas. Kansas State beef veterinarian A.J. Tarpoff explains some of the ways producers can help cattle be less stressed in high heat conditions.

“Heat stress on our cattle is a is a critically important aspect of our production that we have to control. Heat stress accounts for about $370 million worth of losses to our beef cattle industry every year, just due to the decreases in performance, decreases in fertility and the potential of mortality,” Tarpoff says.

It’s critically important to have a plan in place and to plan ahead to make sure when there are heat stress events that there’s a readily made plan to put into action.

Here are Tarpoff’s top tips to help cattle beat the heat.

Make plenty of water available. Water consumption is critical during the summer months. “Once the temperature rises to about 90 degrees and during the hot summer, animals consume water at five times their dry matter intake defeat. So, it’s critically important that that we have a good quality and quantity water source that’s available to them at all times,” he says.

Utilize shade. When utilizing sunshades, the animals should have about 20 square feet per head of shade access at any given time of the day.

Modify the pen surface. If you don’t have the opportunity to have sunshade, you can modify the pen surface. “Keep in mind that just a dirt floor during the hot summer months due to the solar radiation, it can get up to about 140 degrees,” Tarpoff explains. “Things like dry bedding, whether it’s corn stalks or wheat stubble that that’s been bailed, or we can put out some straw and we can actually drop the surface temperature of that pen floor by about 25 degrees.”

Maximize nighttime cooling. Cattle are a robust species he says. They accumulate heat during the day, and they dissipate it during the nighttime cooling hours. Anything that can be done to maximize the nighttime cooling really helps the animals in the long run. “It takes about six hours of nighttime cooling to be able to dissipate the cumulative heat load that they picked up during the day,” he says.

Do Imported Rescue Dogs Pose Threat to Livestock Industry?

Wed, 31 Mar 2021 21:12:48 GMT

Each year, several thousand dogs enter the U.S. for resale or adoption. In a recent Hogs on the Hill article, National Pork Producers Council (NPPC) chief veterinarian Liz Wagstrom wrote that it’s time to sound the alarm on importing rescue dogs.

Why? Increasingly rescue dogs are being imported from countries where foreign animal diseases (FADs) such as African swine fever (ASF) are present. As the U.S. devotes funding and increases efforts to protect U.S. borders from possible threats that could harm our country, she explained this largely unknown FAD risk must be addressed to protect U.S. livestock and agriculture from FADs.

“While the dogs are not known to be susceptible to or carry FADs, there is the potential for bedding, crates or contamination of the dogs’ coats to serve as disease carriers. As a veterinarian, and a dog owner, this potential is alarming,” Wagstrom wrote.

Some of these dogs entering the U.S. may have been rescued from wet markets, while others from operations which raise dogs expressly for export. All it takes is one of these animals carrying an FAD into the country to put the U.S. swine herd and other livestock in jeopardy. Wagstrom wrote this could have disastrous consequences for our nation’s agriculture sector.

This risk is compounded because although both the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the USDA have separate and distinct responsibilities over the importation of dogs, there is no single federal agency with comprehensive oversight of the issue, she added. There is also not a central federal website to apply for an import permit to bring dogs for sale or adoption into the country.

“A solution is within our grasp,” Wagstrom wrote. “USDA, under the Animal Health Protection Act, has the authority to develop rules for the safe importation of dogs from FAD-positive countries to protect the livestock industry. NPPC looks forward to continuing to work with the agency to ensure U.S. pork producers and our nation remains safe and protected from devastating FAD outbreaks.”

More from Farm Journal’s PORK:

It’s Time for a Better Approach for Disease Surveillance

African Swine Fever in China: A Truth Somewhere in Between, Vilsack Says

Will TADD Process Inactivate ASF Virus in Transport Trailers?

Meat Packers Accelerated Spread of COVID-19, Study Says

Wed, 25 Nov 2020 20:52:03 GMT

New research published by the National Academy of Sciences ties livestock meat packing plants to 6% to 8% of U.S. COVID-19 cases, and 3% to 4% of the deaths through late July.

The authors said the data show “a strong positive relationship” between meatpacking plants and “local community transmission,” suggesting the plants act as “transmission vectors” and “accelerate the spread of the virus.”

Researchers at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs and the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business found that the risk of excess death primarily came from large meatpacking plants operated by industry giants. Communities that acted to shut down slaughterhouses reduced spread, according to the researchers.

In a statement, the North American Meat Institute said, “Meat and poultry companies continue to invest, more than $1 billion so far, in significant changes and improvements regarding COVID-19 prevention and control practices to protect the men and women who work in their facilities. By limiting the data examined to July 21, 2020, the article does not evaluate the complete timeline of information. The authors fail to capture the downward trend of positive cases associated with the meat and poultry industry into the summer and fall, especially in contrast to the positive cases reaching new highs around the nation.

“Significantly, even the authors suggest caution, saying ‘The best we can do here is provide an unusually broad array of observational evidence’ and that they do not want to ‘overstate the hardness of our method.’ The timeline limitations, coupled with those cautions, should give pause to drawing any conclusions.”

The peer-reviewed study was published last week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the U.S.

The researchers called the COVID-19 pandemic a public health and economic crisis in which policymakers face tradeoffs between maintaining essential economic activities and mitigating disease spread. President Trump issued an executive order on April 28 directing meatpackers to reopen closed facilities.

“Our study suggests that, among essential industries, livestock processing poses a particular public health risk extending far beyond meatpacking companies and their employees,” the authors wrote.

The study estimated packing plants were associated with 236,000 to 310,000 COVID-19 cases and 4,300 to 5,200 deaths by July 21.

“The vast majority” of those cases were “likely related to community spread outside these plants,” the researchers wrote. The authors suggested an investigation into supply chains, operating procedures and labor relations within the meatpacking industry.

The researchers also found plants that received waivers from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to increase their production-line speeds had relatively more county-wide cases.

“Ensuring both public health and robust essential supply chains may require an increase in meatpacking oversight and potentially a shift toward more decentralized, smaller-scale meat production,” the study concluded.

Packer Antitrust Lawsuit Dismissed

Fri, 20 Nov 2020 05:57:13 GMT

The antitrust class-action lawsuit alleging America’s largest beef packers conspired to fix cattle prices has been dismissed. Federal Judge John R. Tunheim of Minnesota’s U.S. District Court issued his ruling Monday and gave plaintiff’s 90 days to file an amended complaint.

“Because plaintiffs have not pleaded their direct evidence with sufficient detail and because they have not pleaded parallel conduct sufficient to support an inference of a price-fixing conspiracy, the court will grant defendants’ motions to dismiss,” Judge Tunheim said in the order.

The ranchers and consumers who brought the case “do little to allege how the individual defendants acted,” instead “arguing that the market did this or that,” Judge Tunheim wrote. That made it impossible to evaluate the “alternative economic explanations” offered by the meatpackers, he said.

Multiple lawsuits were filed in 2019 against the beef packers alleging price fixing between 2015 and the present. The original suit was filed by R-CALF USA and four ranchers in April of 2019 against Tyson Foods, Inc., JBS S.A., National Beef Packing Company, LLC, and Cargill Inc., alleging the companies conspired to depress the price of fed cattle they purchased, thereby inflating their own margins and profits.

Three days later in a Minneapolis court the same packing companies were accused in a consumer class action lawsuit of a similar price-fixing scheme. That suit claimed the packers forced consumers to pay inflated prices for beef products. In May a third lawsuit was filed by a cattle futures trader who claimed he “suffered damages from a manipulated live cattle futures and options market.” The suit alleged, “Plaintiff suffered monetary losses by transacting in live cattle futures and options at artificial prices directly resulting from packing defendants’ conduct, including their suppression of fed cattle prices.”

In July 2019, a judge ruled the three lawsuits could be consolidated into one.

The lawsuits alleged beef packers colluded to suppress beef prices in part by agreeing to reduce slaughter volumes and curtailing purchases. The plaintiffs said the collusion caused an unprecedented drop in fed cattle prices in 2015.

Other price suppression tactics the meatpackers allegedly have deployed include importing large numbers of foreign cattle, purchasing cattle during a narrow 30- to 60-minute window on Fridays and slashing slaughter volumes.

Plaintiffs’ lawsuit provided testimony of two confidential witnesses – one a packing company employee and the other a feedlot manager. But in dismissing the case, Judge Tunheim said the confidential witnesses and their claims were not sufficiently detailed.

“Because of the lack of detail regarding the firms by which the confidential witnesses were employed, plaintiffs do not adequately explain their jobs and how their interactions in those jobs would lead to them acquiring the knowledge they allegedly possess,” Tunheim wrote. “In all, the lack of detail about the confidential witnesses, combined with the mismatched nature of what they allege, lead the court to conclude their claims are not sufficiently detailed to survive defendants’ motion to dismiss.”

Related stories:

R-CALF Sues Tyson, Cargill, JBS and National

Packer Lawsuits Will Be Consolidated Into One

Beef Packers Face Another Antitrust Lawsuit

Drought Conditions Continue to Worsen

Fri, 13 Nov 2020 15:36:25 GMT

Drought conditions are continuing to grow and frozen precipitation this weekend won’t help matters. Meterologist Matt Yarosewick has the latest. Just click on the video link to watch his forecast.