Agricultural News
New Survey Coming Soon Expected to Reveal Details Never Available Before on Stocker Industry
Thu, 13 Apr 2017 10:32:45 CDT
Derrell S. Peel, Breedlove Professor of Agribusiness and Extension Livestock Marketing Specialist and Kellie Raper, Associate Professor and Extension Livestock Marketing Specialist of Oklahoma State University, authored the following article describing in detail the results of a recent survey they hope to acquire on the stocker industry upon its release.
"Researchers at Oklahoma State University hope that Oklahoma stocker producers will provide never-before-available information about the stocker industry in a new survey. The stocker industry is the least understood sector of the beef cattle industry. Stocker production takes place in many different locations using a wide variety of forage and feed resources. Stocker programs occur at all times of the year in production activities that typically vary from three to six months but may be shorter or longer. Since complete cattle inventory data is only available once per year from the USDA's National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS), on January 1, many stocker production activities are never captured in NASS data. Little data is available on when, where and how stocker production takes place.
"One of many stocker industry functions is the assembly of calves from dispersed cow-calf production into larger production groups. Cattle may be shipped across several states for stocker production. This has obvious implications for disease threats and spread and yet, we have little information about how stocker cattle move into and out of stocker production and the distances that cattle move. In some cases stocker production is limited to specific forages available seasonally and in other cases stockers are produced year around or across multiple seasons using combinations of warm and cool season forages. However, no data is available to quantify and contrast the many variations of stocker systems. Stocker production can be quite variable from producer to producer and over time and the survey will provide information on the motivations and flexibility that stocker producers use to adjust stocker production.
"Oklahoma is a major stocker production state. OSU developed the survey, in conjunction with USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, to provide a wide range of procurement, movement, production and marketing information about stocker production in Oklahoma. The survey will be mailed by USDA-NASS to several thousand Oklahoma producers in April. NASS developed the mailing list to ensure statistically representative coverage of producers across Oklahoma. However, producers are not identified in the survey and will remain anonymous to researchers who receive the completed surveys from NASS.
"If you happen to be one of the producers who receive the survey, your willingness to provide information on the survey is greatly appreciated. The survey includes many questions in order to cover widely varied stocker production programs. However, most producers will find that several sections of the survey do not apply to them and they will be able to skip those sections. The survey has been streamlined as much as possible to minimize the burden on you to complete the survey."
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