Agriculture Secretary Announces Electric System Improvements in 23 States
Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack announced funding for rural electric utility system improvements Oct. 24 that will benefit residential and business customers in 23 states. The projects include more than $14.3 million to implement smart-grid technology and nearly $11 million to improve electric service for Native Americans. USDA Rural Utilities Service Administrator John Padalino made the announcement on the secretary’s behalf while addressing a regional meeting of the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association in San Antonio, Texas.
“These investments will ensure that rural electric infrastructure will continue to meet the electricity needs of rural residents, farmers, and commercial and industrial customers,” Padalino said. “This funding is part of the Obama administration’s vision for a new rural energy economy. It includes investments in smart-grid technologies that modernize our nation's electric system and improve its operation.” In Alabama, Covington Electric Cooperative will receive a $42.5 million loan guarantee to construct 539 miles of line and make other system improvements, including $8,000 for smart-grid applications. These funds will increase electric-system reliability for approximately 5,400 rural Alabama customers.
The $960 million in USDA loan guarantees announced Oct. 24 will help build 3,587 miles of line, benefit approximately 17,000 rural residential and business customers, and make other system improvements. Including today’s announcement, the Obama administration has invested $152 million in smart grid technologies nationwide during 2013. USDA funding is contingent upon the recipient meeting the terms of the loan agreement.
For more information, please view the full release here.
Montana Events Unite Cattle Producers in Support of COOL
National Farmers Union (NFU) and the U.S. Cattlemen’s Association (USCA) hosted events in Lewiston and Roberts, Mont., to bring cattle producers together to talk about the state of the livestock industry and country-of-origin labeling (COOL).
“Events like this are critical to the U.S. farming and ranching community,” said NFU Vice President of Government Relations Chandler Goule, who attended the events. “It is energizing to bring folks together who share a common goal — ensuring the future of their livelihoods. It was great to see so much support for the work both NFU and USCA have been doing in support of COOL.”
NFU, USCA, the American Sheep Industry Association, and the Consumer Federation of America, comprising the U.S. COOL Defense Fund, have intervened on behalf of the USDA in a lawsuit brought on by packer-producer and foreign-interest groups that seek to stop COOL. The events in Montana were designed to educate and continue to increase support in the ranching community for COOL.
“Consumers want to know where their food comes from,” said Goule. “The ranchers we met with in Montana agree, and are proud to label their products to show the fruits of their labor. NFU will continue to defend COOL on behalf of all family farmers, ranchers and consumers.”
For more information, please view the full release here.
Totusek Lectureship Slated at OSU
The Oklahoma State University (OSU) Department of Animal Science and the Animal Science Graduate Student Association will present the 17th Annual Totusek Lectureship Nov. 4-5.
The event begins the evening of Nov. 4 with a prime rib dinner and seminar, followed by a noon general seminar in animal science Nov. 5. The event is free, but those who are interested are asked to RSVP to Evin Sharman at evin.sharman@okstate.edu.
This year’s lectureship will feature speaker Mike Thoren who has served as the president and CEO of JBS Five Rivers Cattle Feeding LLC since the company’s inception. From 2003 until 2005, Thoren was the president and CEO of ContiBeef LLC, a former wholly owned subsidiary of Continental Grain Co.
He began his career with the Cattle Feeding Division of Continental Grain Co. in 1991 and worked his way up through the company as feedyard general manager, director of feedlot operations, vice president of operations, and CEO.
AgriLife Research Study Aimed at Aerial Mesquite Treatments
Because brush invasion can reduce forage availability by two-thirds on rangeland, finding an economical control is critical, according to a Texas A&M AgriLife Research range scientist at Vernon.
Jim Ansley, AgriLife Research rangeland ecologist, has been working on brush-management treatments for many years and has determined mechanical treatments to grub out mesquite are tremendously expensive, and fire can be used as a maintenance tool, but not to kill mesquite. “We estimate that forage or livestock production can be reduced by as much as 60%-70% because of brush invasion,” Ansley said. “It reduces forage production that much, and, in particular, it affects the best grasses that cattle use in our mixed-grass region of the Southern Great Plains — the warm-season mid-grasses. That’s because mesquite and those grasses are growing at the same time.”
Ansley is working with Dow AgroSciences to study their product, Sendero herbicide, and determine how the product will work in brush sculpting for wildlife habitat, preserving secondary shrubs favorable to wildlife, while controlling mature and regrowing mesquite.
“What tends to happen when we get mesquite invasion is we maintain some grass cover, but the grass community usually shifts to the cool-season Texas winter grass, because it is growing in the spring before mesquite trees leaf out,” Ansley said. “Once mesquite leafs out, winter grass goes dormant — the leaves roll up almost like strands of wire and it is very unpalatable.”
MU Extension Specialist Teaches Farm Financial Skills at Workshop
A two-day conference for women in agriculture will teach farm management and production concepts.
The University of Missouri (MU) conference, Pearls of Production, will take place Nov. 8-9 in Columbia.
“We like to joke that we keep our off-farm job to support our farming habit. Many small livestock farmers are classified as hobby farmers, so why should we treat a hobby as business?” asks Lynn Hambleton-Heins, MU Extension agricultural business specialist. She will teach Marketing, Leasing and Banking 101 at the conference.
“Farmers are so heavily invested in their operations, financially and emotionally, so it’s time to consider ourselves serious farm owners and partners,” she said.
She will discuss what a farm plan should outline and review critical management concepts like marketing, lease agreements and financial recordkeeping.
Hambleton-Heins grew up on an Illinois farm and received her degree in agriculture business from Southern Illinois University at Carbondale. She married her college sweetheart, a row crop farmer, and they have 1-year-old twins.
The MU College of Agriculture, Food and Natural Resources, Lincoln University Cooperative Extension, and MU Extension host the annual event.
Sign-in Nov. 8 starts at 8:30 a.m. at the MU Bradford Research Center, east of Columbia.
On the second day, breakout sessions will take place at MU farms in Boone County. The beef session is at the MU Beef Farm. Pork will be in the Swine Teaching Barn at MU South Farm. Small ruminants and forage sessions are at Bradford.
The $100 registration fee includes meals featuring new beef and pork products. Breaks and educational texts are also included.
For more information, please view the Angus Journal’s Virtual Library calendar of upcoming events here.
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