In this episode of Beef Buzz, I am featuring Farm Director KC Sheperd’s chat with Vice President of Operations at Farm Data Services and Oklahoma cattle producer Clay Burtrum talking about an upcoming Trust In Beef Sustainable Ranchers Tour held June 19-20 on his ranch in Stillwater, Oklahoma.

Trust In Beef is an organization that provides technical resources for producers to support the management of their ranches and natural resources. Part of this mission includes a 5-state tour, where attendees can hear from ranchers and farmers who are implementing regenerative practices while managing challenges of farming today. For registration info and more, click here!

“We all know that everybody has a different definition of what sustainability is as we talk about building a better beef system in this beef production system that we talk about, and what does it mean on your ranch,” Clay Burtrum.

Beef production systems are now doing more with less, Burtrum said, as the industry evolves and changes. Part of Farm Journal’s initiative, the tour will talk about the “ins and outs” of sustainability and what that may look like on different operations.

“They have put this all together in a one-stop area where you can have these resources as a farmer and rancher as you come about these tours,” Burtrum said.

Invenergy is committed to Oklahoma, having completed its first project in the state in 2006. Today, Invenergy operates three wind energy centers in our state, employs over 60 Oklahomans and continues investing in our project communities. We believe building relationships is the key to being good community partners and we work to develop relationships to benefit our landowners, our employees, and our communities.

We invest in Oklahomans, and we take pride in their success. Our energy facilities provide jobs, tax revenues, landowner payments and other sources of local economic development.

For more information, visit www.InvenergyOklahoma.com

Make Plans to Attend this Year’s Cattlewoman’s Boot Camp

Farm Director KC Sheperd is talking with the Oklahoma State University Area Agricultural Economics Specialist, JJ Jones, about the upcoming OSU Cattlewomen’s Bootcamp set for June 10-12. Jones said the workshop is open to everyone who is interested in learning more about cattle production.

“This is a three-day camp where we basically talk about anything cattle-related, but we teach it from the Cattlewomen’s perspective,” Jones said. “Not that it is much different from anyone else’s perspective, but there is a project we used to do called Annie’s project that basically was kind of focused around female producers and female owners. It was taught from the female perspective. We took that concept and applied it to the cow-calf bootcamp.”

The OSU Cattlewomen’s Boot Camp is a project that combines elements of two successful programs, Annie’s Project and the Oklahoma Livestock Boot Camps. Using previous agendas from the boot camps and the teaching model of Annie’s Project, the program intends to create an informative and engaging learning experience for female producers covering various methods on how to manage the production, financial, and market risks when operating a beef cow/calf operation.

USDA Announces $824 Million in New Funding to Protect Livestock Health; Launches Voluntary H5N1 Dairy Herd Status Pilot Program

The U.S. Department of Agriculture announced it is taking several additional actions to ensure the health and viability of the nation’s livestock and poultry. In the two months since the initial detection of H5N1 in dairy cattle, USDA has worked quickly and in concert with its federal and state partners to better understand the virus and contain the disease and remains committed to seeking additional ways to collect the data needed to better understand and mitigate the risk created by this outbreak. USDA is adding an additional $824 million in emergency funding from the Commodity Credit Corporation (CCC) to bolster these efforts and is launching a new Voluntary H5N1 Dairy Herd Status Pilot Program to give dairy producers more options to monitor the health of their herds and move cows more quickly while providing on-going testing and expanding USDA’s understanding of the disease. 

Emergency Funding to Build on Response Efforts: 

To help ensure the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) can continue to provide critical rapid response activities, Secretary Vilsack approved the transfer of $824 million from the CCC to APHIS to directly support the response efforts. This funding allows APHIS to continue its critical work with state and local partners to quickly identify and address cases of HPAI/H5N1 in poultry and livestock. The funding will support anticipated diagnostics, field response activities, pre-movement testing requirements, other necessary surveillance and control activities, surveillance in wildlife for APHIS, the Agricultural Research Service’s (ARS) work in developing vaccines for HPAI in cattle, turkeys, pigs, and goats, and ARS and the Food Safety and Inspection Service’s food safety studies. 

Two weeks ago, total cattle harvest was moderate at 607,000 head with last week’s holiday-shortened harvest schedule to follow. Fed cattle values have advanced in a moderate fashion over the past few weeks with the two-week ago six-state fed steer price at $189.92/cwt., up $2/cwt. over the prior week. Fed steers in Nebraska, Iowa and Minnesota traded for $192/cwt. while Kansas and Texas prices were at $187/cwt. late in the week. (Editor's Note- the latest Cash cattle trade in Texas, Oklahoma and New Mexico was down a dollar from a week ago at $186- according to TCFA)

The most recent Cattle on Feed Report, published last Friday, was very friendly to the cattle market. Cattle placed on feed during April were just 94% of a year ago following the 88% placement rate in March.

The number of cattle marketed in April was 110% of the number sold in April 2023. This large disparity needs qualified with the fact that April 2023 was the second smallest marketing month of 2023 behind September.

The total “on feed” number for May 1 was 11.6 million head, just 99% of a year ago. This marks the first monthly report in 2024 where feedlot inventories slipped below 2023 levels. With the last two months of placements significantly lower than a year ago on a sharp downward trend it’s becoming clear that projections for notably smaller fed cattle supplies late in the third quarter through the fourth quarter of this year are accurate.

Tyler Mason offers urban ag expertise as new Extension specialist

Tyler Mason joined the Oklahoma State University Extension team as the small farms and urban horticultural food crop production systems specialist in August 2023. He also serves as an assistant professor in the OSU Department of Horticulture and Landscape Architecture.

A native of Indiana, Mason was exposed to horticulture as an urban resident and chose to focus on agriculture education during his undergraduate degree at Purdue University. While there, he also received an associate degree in horticulture. He moved to Cheyenne, Wyoming, and worked as the assistant education director for the Cheyenne Botanic Gardens.

“That’s where I fell in love with urban agriculture,” Mason said. “I knew I wanted to spend my professional time working on vegetables and crops and teaching people sustainable practices.”

He received a master’s degree in Extension education and a doctorate in horticulture with an emphasis on vegetable crops from Colorado State University. He later served one year in the Alabama Cooperative Extension System as a county educator, specializing in urban ag and natural resources.

The total value of U.S. ag exports is plummeting- and that’s largely because China has recently pumped the breaks on buying a lot of our ag products.

“Generally speaking, our exports are struggling,” said USDA’s chief economist Seth Meyer following the release of the agency’s U.S. Ag Trade Outlook issued on May 29.

Exports are down $8.2 billion from last year at $170.5 billion this year, leading to an overall ag trade deficit of $32 billion.

As for the decline in our ag exports, Meyer says China played a big role. It’s now buying less corn and soybeans from the U.S. and more from Brazil. “I think the interesting headline story from this is China falls to our number three trading partner and we’re seeing a lot of competition with Brazil into that Chinese market and that is what is driving our bulk export values,” he said, as U.S. food and ag exports to China will fall by $6 billion this fiscal year.

Mexico and Canada will surpass China as the top U.S. export markets for ag products, according to USDA. Exports to Mexico are forecast to rise by $300 million to $28.7 billion, whereas exports to Canada are forecast up $400 million to $28.4 billion, both record highs.

“So, unchanged for the new forecast for 2024. But we’re still down pretty sharply from the prior year. On the import side, there actually was an upward revision of imports of 1.5 billion dollars. And that’s up from 195.4 billion the prior year,” he said. “So, you’re talking about a $7.1 billion increase in imports year over year and a $8.2 billion decline in exports.”