Senior Farm and Ranch Broadcaster Ron Hays spoke with Dr. Carlos Risco, the Oklahoma State University Dean of Veterinary Medicine, about the shortage of veterinarians seen across the country and beyond, but especially large animal veterinarians in rural communities.

Dr. Risco says that the shortage is due to a nearly crisis-level, worldwide, societal problem that will be complicated and challenging to fix.

OSU is not backing down from the challenge. Dr. Risco said, “I am very comfortable with our curriculum at OSU. I’ll match our curriculum with anyone in preparing graduates to be able to go forward with small animals, cattle, or horses. Our faculty is experienced, talented, and dedicated.”

Through USDA NIFA and Beef Quality Assurance grants earned by OSU’s College of Veterinary Medicine Beef Cattle Extension Specialist, Dr. Rosslyn Biggs, twenty veterinary practitioners from across the state may participate in OSU’s Integrated Beef Cattle Program which consists of three modules geared toward elevating the services that they are already providing to producers.

Dating back to 1891, Stillwater Milling Company has been supplying ranchers with the highest quality feeds made from the highest quality ingredients. Their full line of A & M Feeds can be delivered direct to your farm, found at their Agri-Center stores in Stillwater, Davis, Claremore and Perry or at more than 125 dealers in Oklahoma, Arkansas, Kansas and Texas. We appreciate Stillwater Milling Company’s long time support of the Radio Oklahoma Ag Network and we encourage you to click here to learn more about their products and services.

Farm Director KC Sheperd talked with United States Soybean Chairman Steve Reinhard about the status and outlook of this year’s soybean crop.

Farming in North Central Ohio, Reinhard said that his crop looks good despite moderate drought conditions in his area. He is beginning to see signs of stress in the plants that grow on hillsides but is looking forward to his rain chances early next week ahead of warming temperatures.

About the nationwide crop, he said, “In Indianapolis, parts of Illinois, and Iowa, stuff can look pretty decent, but I know our friends in the Dakotas have had excess water all spring and summer. But when we talk to our friends in Georgia and the Carolinas, they have been pretty dry in that region.”

Compared to last year’s crop, Reinhard expects this year to be average. “The good places seem to be really good, and the bad ones are, maybe a little bit worse than normal,” he said. “But the thing about soybeans is that we really need to get into August and September. We can really make a good crop if we get some rains late into the summer. We aren’t ready to write the crop off by any means, and I think we still have great potential out there.”

Mark Johnson on Birdshot in Beef: The Hidden Defect

Birdshot or shotgun shell pellets have been found and reported in the beef supply since the first National Beef Quality Audit in the early 1990s and the incidence of this foreign material in the beef we produce is not subsiding. In fact, the opposite may be true.

According to the 2022 National Beef Quality Audit, birdshot is a problem, with 100% of packing plants reporting Buckshot/Birdshot in beef from market cows and bulls. There are roughly 28 categories of items that are documented each year as foreign material in beef carcasses. Most of those items are found once to 15 times each on an annual basis and consist of large and easily identifiable objects. Birdshot, however, is found around 105 times a year and well over two times the rate of any other foreign object.

For context, if a ground beef processor makes 5 million ground beef patties each day, a defect rate of 1% would lead to 50,000 patties of wasted beef. A defect rate of 0.1% is 5,000 patties. A single incidence of birdshot found in the processing lines cost $10,000 in lost product and downtime. Why so much? If a pellet made it through the grinder, one pellet may have been sheared into numerous pieces that are barely detectable. 

On Tuesday Aug. 20, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency released its final Herbicide Strategy, an unprecedented step in protecting over 900 federally endangered and threatened (listed) species from the potential impacts of herbicide, which are chemicals used to control weeds. EPA will use the strategy to identify measures to reduce the amount of herbicide exposure to these species when it registers new herbicides and when it reevaluates registered herbicides under a process called registration review. The final strategy incorporates a wide range of stakeholder input, ensuring EPA not only protects species but also preserves a wide range of pesticides for farmers and growers.

“Finalizing our first major strategy for endangered species is a historic step in EPA meeting its Endangered Species Act obligations,” said Deputy Assistant Administrator for Pesticide Programs for the Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention Jake Li. “By identifying protections earlier in the pesticide review process, we are far more efficiently protecting listed species from the millions of pounds of herbicides applied each year and reducing burdensome uncertainty for the farmers that use them.”

The Biden-Harris Administration’s new approaches for protecting endangered species, which include the Herbicide Strategy, have resolved multiple lawsuits against EPA. For decades, EPA has tried to comply with the Endangered Species Act (ESA) on a pesticide-by-pesticide, species-by-species basis. However, because this approach is very slow and costly, it resulted in litigation against the agency and uncertainty for users about the continued availability of many pesticides. At the beginning of 2021, EPA faced almost two dozen lawsuits covering thousands of pesticide products due to its longstanding failure to meet ESA obligations for pesticides. Some of these lawsuits resulted in courts removing pesticides from the market until EPA ensured the pesticides complied with the ESA. Now, all but one of those lawsuits has been resolved.

The Agricultural Retailers Association and the American Soybeans Association released statements in response to the EPA's finalized Herbicide Strategy(as detailed in the story above).

ARA Senior Vice President of Public Policy & Counsel Richard Gupton said, “ARA plans to review the EPA’s final Herbicide Strategy issued today to gain a better understanding of the full impact it will have on America’s agricultural industry. We appreciate the EPA’s efforts to make continuous improvements to earlier drafts that would have been unworkable for agricultural retailers, pesticide applicators and farmers..."

The American Soybean Association was less positive in its response. Josh Gackle, ASA president and a soybean farmer from North Dakota, said, in part, “While there are clear improvements to the final Herbicide Strategy over what was first proposed, we are disappointed EPA chose to leave so many opportunities on the table to make this strategy workable for U.S. agriculture. We remain concerned with the complexity of this framework and whether growers and applicators will be able to clearly understand how to implement it..."

The Office of Communications and Marketing for Oklahoma State University Agriculture wrapped up an outstanding awards season with 35 honors and accolades from state and national professional organizations.

“Not only is this team highly creative, they truly care about making a difference in the lives of Oklahomans,” said Lyndall Stout, senior director of communications and marketing.

“Their videos, digital content, designs, photographs and written words tell the authentic story of OSU Agriculture day in and day out. And by making it accessible to everyone, they successfully underscore OSU’s educational mission on campus, statewide, and well beyond.