Zilmax Update: No Date Set Yet for Zilmax Return 

During the last 90 days, Merck Animal Health, with the input and oversight of its Advisory Board, has worked to implement its Five-Step Plan to Ensuring Responsible Beef and has made considerable progress. The findings that come as a result of the plan will add to the significant amount of data that already exists for Zilmax® (zilpaterol hydrochloride), including numerous animal safety and well-being trials. Zilmax is a feed supplement approved by the FDA and other regulatory authorities. While we have made considerable progress, it is too early to determine when Merck Animal Health will return Zilmax back to the market in the United States and Canada.

"At Merck Animal Health, we continually evaluate our processes and procedures across the entire company to ensure that we maintain the best science-based practices and procedures for the health and well-being of animals," says K.J. Varma, BVSc, Ph.D., Senior Vice President Global R&D, Merck Animal Health. "Our five-step plan is a direct reflection of that commitment to science. It also reflects our commitment to working with our industry partners to maintain the highest standards of care for the health and well-being of cattle. We are pleased to be able to tap into the vast knowledge and expertise of professionals from throughout the industry to help us carry out this significant undertaking."

As part of that plan, Merck convened an animal health advisory board comprised of representatives from packers, large, medium and small cattle feeder operations, cow-calf producers, veterinarians, academia and industry consultants. Among the boards objectives will be a review of animal safety and well-being research data and a review of the existing Zilmax quality assurance program.

The company has also developed a formal certification process. As part of the certification, every feedyard team member, nutritionist and veterinarian who uses Zilmax or provides consultative services on feeding Zilmax to cattle must be trained annually on the proper use of the product.

In addition to implementing the certification process, the company has also worked with its Advisory Board to develop and finalize the protocol for the field evaluations for Zilmax-fed and control cattle which are expected to begin in Q1 2014.

Click here to read more of this story.  

Noble Foundation CEO Sees Bright Future for Agricultural Drones 

Each passing day seems to bring potential new uses for unmanned aerial vehicles. Oklahoma is at the forefront of the development of those technologies and researchers at Ardmore's Samuel Roberts Noble Foundation hope to be at the forefront of using UAVs to advance precision agriculture.

Bill Buckner is the president and CEO of the Noble Foundation. He spoke recently at the 2013 Oklahoma Unmanned Aerial Systems Agriculture Summit in Midwest City. In an interview after his presentation, he told me that the foundation's namesake, if he were alive today, would have been very supportive of this new technology.

"Mr. Noble was very technologically advanced for the time. This was the turn of the century and he always felt like technology was going to put him out in front of his competitors. He could drill faster and tap into more oil. He was going to do a much better job. And he believed the same thing about agriculture and just technologies in general. So, if he was alive today he would be challenging us to do more from a technological standpoint to advance agriculture."

The Noble Foundation has already done a great deal to advance precision agriculture for both farmers and ranchers. The unmanned aerial vehicle concept opens up new frontiers in that endeavor, Buckner said.

Click here to listen to my interview with Bill Buckner or to read the rest of this story.  

High Current Cattle Market Prices Set Stage for 2014, Derrell Peel Says

Cattle numbers are down in the markets as December rapidly slips by and Oklahoma State University Livestock Market Economist Dr. Derrell Peel says he's not expecting any big moves any time soon.

"We're kind of in this holiday period now where we're sort of coasting out the rest of the year I think, so we're not likely to see any major moves particularly given the levels where we're at. I wouldn't expect this market, necessarily, to have a lot of potential to strengthen, but, at the same time, it's holding pretty well through this holiday period at the current levels in terms of both fed cattle prices and wholesale prices."

Peel says he thinks the market is well positioned at this time coming off of a strong fall.

"We've transitioned into this tighter supply situation that we've been looking for for quite awhile. Both cattle slaughter and feed production are falling sharply here at the end of the year and that really sets the tone for the markets, I think, as we move into next year."

Derrell joins me on the latest Beef Buzz.  You can listen in or read more by clicking here.
 

U.S. Soy Exports Hit Record for Value in 2013

The U.S. soy industry has done it again, exporting an eye-popping 1.7 billion bushels of U.S. soy to customers around the world in the 2012-13 marketing year, which ended Sept. 30. The value of these exports comes to a record of more than $28 billion, a 19 percent increase from 2011-2012.

The final figures show farmers continue to meet customer demand for a reliable supply of quality products. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, this total includes more than 1.3 billion bushels of whole U.S. soybeans, meal from 454 million bushels of U.S. soybeans and oil from 186 million bushels, which represents 56 percent of U.S. soybean production from last year.

"The reliability and quality of the U.S. soy supply are just a few reasons that customers keep buying U.S. soybeans, meal and oil," says Jared Hagert, soybean farmer from Emerado, N.D., and United Soybean Board (USB) farmer-leader. "Continuing to meet our customers' needs is very important to U.S. soybean farmers, and these numbers prove we are doing that."

Click here to read more. 

NASS Harvested Cotton Acres Projection for Oklahoma Could be Too High

Randy Boman and Shane Osborne of the Oklahoma State University cotton extension program write in the latest Cotton Comments newsletter:

The December 10 USDA-NASS Crop Production report indicated that 2013 US upland cotton production will be 12.4 million bales, down about 25 percent from 2012. About 10.1 million acres were planted across the Belt, and harvested acres are expected to be just under 7.8 million. Average yield across all harvested acres is expected to be 806 pounds per acre, down 81 pounds from 2012. The report also noted that Oklahoma planted about 185,000 acres in 2013, and will harvest 170,000 acres. From this harvested acreage, 200,000 bales will be produced. Average yield is expected to be 565 pounds per acre, up 34 pounds from 2012.

I believe there is a notable discrepancy with respect to harvested acres. NASS has Oklahoma at 170,000 harvested acres. We believe that we will fail most acres in Jackson County due to drought. This is because there was no irrigation water available to the Lugert-Altus Irrigation District in 2013. This would indicate that somewhere around 40,000 acres in Jackson County have failed. Tillman County has failed a large number of dryland acres. This number is perhaps 10,000 acres. Harmon County has also failed some dryland cotton acres. Therefore, we submit that the failed acres in these three counties totals about 50,000-60,000. If we go with the 60,000 failed acres, then based on 185,000 planted, we should be looking at about 125,000 acres standing for harvest. After informal discussions with our 14 operational gins in 2013, it is apparent that they are expecting a combined total of about 120,000 bales. This number is substantially lower than what USDA-NASS reported in the December 10 report (200,000 bales). Only time will tell how this plays out. 

Click here for more from Randy Boman and Shane Osborne. 

Beef Cattle Industry Supportive of Judicious Use of Antibiotics in Cattle

Last week, the Food and Drug Administation announced that they were moving forward with their efforts to limit the use of antibiotics in animals- particularly the classes of drugs that are also utilized to fight infection in humans. On Wednesday, FDA published its Final Guidance 213 and proposed Veterinary Feed Directive (VFD) rule. FDA's Guidance 213 implements a plan to phase out over a three year period the subtherapeutic use of medically important antibiotics in food producing animals. The proposed VFD will ensure that all antibiotics that are administered to food producing animals will be done so under the supervision of a veterinarian.

Earlier this year, we talked with Dr. Kathy Simmons, Chief Veterinary Officer of the National Cattlemen's Beef Association, about the VFD and Guidance Document 213. As FDA was seeking public and industry input at that time- Dr. Simmons indicated that NCBA felt that in general, this cooperative approach with industry was the right thing to do.

"We at NCBA have long supported the judicious use of antimicrobials in cattle. Since 1987 our Beef Quality Assurance program has had guidelines for the judicious use of antimicrobials. We stress the importance to all our producers of having a strong veterinarian-client patient relationship.

"We found on our most recent national 2012 national beef audit that it was stated that our producers, 90 percent of them, reported having a veterinarian-client patient relationship. And I think that places us in position to move forward with FDA to try to prevent antimicrobial resistance from occurring."

You can hear my conversation with Dr. Simmons or read more of this article by clicking here. 

This N That- Farm Bill into the Home Stretch, Tulsa Farm Show Livestock Handling Skills Contest and Beef Battalion Benefit Today at Oklahoma City Stockyards

Keith Good with FarmPolicy.Com offers an excellent Monday morning summary from several sources of what happened on Friday morning in a meeting consisting of the Big Four and staff as the race to a framework for a 2014 Farm Bill heads into the final turn for the 2013 work on a new five year farm bill.  

Both Chairman Frank Lucas and Chairlady Debbie Stabenow were almost gushing after the Friday morning hour long meeting- at least that is what David Rogers of Politico indicated. Rogers reports that his sources say there will be a choice for crop producers to make on the type of safety net program they want to participate in- and that the CBO Budget Scores are helping fine tune exactly what Title One will look like.

House Ag Committee top Democrat Collin Peterson apparently got some weekend homework, according to a Minnesota newspaper that Keith Good points us to- Peterson saying that the four leaders are now down to one or two issues- and that he was assigned one of them to offer a compromise solution on.  

Click here for the full summary as found on Farm Policy.

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Congrats to the two teams from the Pawnee FFA Chapter that won first and second place at this year's Tulsa Farm Show Livestock Handling Skills Contest this past Friday at the 20th annual Tulsa Farm Show.

The first place Senior Pawnee team included Morgan Vance, Hayden Skidgel and Chrisse Collins.

We have a picture of the winning team on the story that we have posted in the Blue Green Gazette as found on OklahomaFarmReport.Com. We also have a link there to our FLICKR page of 2013 Tulsa Farm Show photos. Click here for our listing of the ten teams that competed in the Friday event and how they placed.

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For the fourth year, National Livestock Credit Corporation and affiliated companies announce their support for the All American Beef Battalion.


Late this morning during the regular Monday feeder cattle auction, the Oklahoma National Stockyards will auction a calf for the benefit of the All American Beef Battalion. The sale will take place at approximately 11:00 a.m. TODAY in the sale arena of the Stockyards. 

The calf to be auctioned is being donated by 3C Cattle Feeders and the Clyde Runyan family of Mill Creek, Oklahoma. National Livestock Credit Corporation will invoice buyers and collect checks.

Click here to learn more- if you can't be there, they do stream the regular Monday auction on the LMA website- click here and select "View Live Auctions."  You can also call National Livestock to make a donation at 800-310-0220 and speaking with June Malonee