Apparently, I gave up selling corn for lent. -- Justin Copus (@justincopus)
Wednesday, February 13, 2013
Market Advice
Buy corn today, it is going to close today in the green. No clue if it stays there tomorrow, but for today, we go higher. Your welcome. -- Jerod McDaniel (@jerodmcdaniel)
Monday, February 11, 2013
Farm Income Projection
FARM INCOME WILL DECLINE NEXT YEAR, AFTER 2013 PEAK, BUT WILL REMAIN "WELL ABOVE THE AVERAGE OF THE PREVIOUS DECADE," USDA SAYS. -- Max Armstrong (@maxarmstrong)
Independence, IA Ag Teacher Position
This is a little late getting posted, but it is still a great story!
Pete,
Pete,
Hope things are going great. The job description for the Independence Ag/FFA teacher is posted, and it is finally starting to make its way around. I talked to some of the guys in the State FFA Office today, and they are really excited about what is going on in Independence. Here is a link to the description and an interview with the principal if you can help out. Hope to see you guys soon.
Crystal Blin
Mittag Show Cattle: Iowa Beef Expo BLAST FROM THE PAST
Mittag Show Cattle: Iowa Beef Expo BLAST FROM THE PAST: BLAST FROM THE PAST 1986 Iowa Beef Expo Grand Champion Steer (Top) Shown by Jerry Frasher Reserve Champion Steer (Bottom)...
THIS IS A VERY GOOD READ- If you are going to judge a Texas major....
THIS IS A VERY GOOD READ
There are enough people carrying the pitchforks over Ft Worth, that's not what this is. Relative to much of what’s being said, I’m taking the nice approach on this.
Newsflash: I highly doubt he really cares what you guys think.
So, if YOU are going to judge a Texas major…
The process began several years ago when the breeder bought the cows to breed. It continued through the purchase of a bull or semen. When that calf was born, he was dolled up and marketed. The family that showed the steer likely chose him out of quite a few choices and spent several thousand on him. The kid broke him in the school’s pens or the pens his family built. He worked the calf’s hair daily. She fed the calf on a regular schedule and once supplements were taken into account, the family easily put $2,000 in feed into the calf. The family drove to Ft Worth and got hotel rooms for the week. The day of the show, several people spent several hours getting the calf ready for your evaluation of him.
That's not a story about the grand champion or class winners, it's every single calf in the show.
That breeder, that kid, that family, and those ag teachers deserve at least two seconds of your time to look at their hard work.
If you don't have both the physical and mental endurance to give 1,400+ steers at least two seconds of your time over the course of two or three days, you are an absolutely horrible human being for agreeing to do so.
If you are a show manager and you make the choice to use a judge that doesn’t think giving every calf through the ring a fair evaluation is what he's there for, you’re just as bad.
If you are a show manager and decide that your loyalty to a certain weight break format that your facilities are not capable of handling is more important than your responsibility to the kids that enter your show, go jump in that same lake.
In a year when there has been more complaining about a show than I’ve personally ever heard, complaints about the cattle Mark Johnson used have been oddly absent. Nobody (well, almost nobody) is running around yelling that he played politics or that they should have placed higher.
What the complaints HAVE been about are they didn’t even get a look because his attention was elsewhere on the way in. They didn’t run over other kids so they ended up in the back half of the class and were therefore irrelevant. They were never examined while lined up on the wall. They cooked corn for weeks to get a calf just right to the touch only to never actually be touched by the judge. The walk out of the ring was nothing more than a formality.
If you weren't pulled on the initial walk in, whether Johnson saw you or not, you were done.
I don’t care who you are or what your judging team did in Louisville; you owe it to those kids to evaluate every last calf that is put in front of you.
If you cannot do that, do not agree to judge a major.
There are a lot of steers at those big Texas shows. You have to be able to look at one walking into the ring and then turn your attention to the next one without missing 3-4 steers while you turn your back on the line.
If you cannot do that, do not agree to judge a major. If it's the ring managers that keep the pace too fast, it's your job to tell them to slow down.
You are going to miss some on the initial walk because just like everyone else, you are human. If the kids are supposed to keep showing until they leave the ring, you have a responsibility to keep judging until they leave the ring.
If you cannot do that, do not agree to judge a major.
No, this isn’t about us getting snubbed; we don't really raise Ft Worth cattle (you think structure matters to heifer mates? try calving those shaggy monsters in July/August where we live) and didn't even have a calf there. I have no bone to pick about any calf that placed highly or vice versa. Frankly, I’m actually being quite polite and respectful relative to what’s generally being said about the situation after last Thursday and Friday.
Please don’t think this is about a person or the gripe fest that’s currently happening on social media and in barns.
It’s about grown men showing those "God raised a farmer" kids at least the absolute minimum level of respect they deserve for a year of hard work.
If you cannot do that, do not agree to judge a major.
- By Jeff
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