NEWS

CHARITON, Iowa – Beef producers interested in hearing about the latest in fescue management and learning about forage-based diet supplementation will want to attend one of two grazing systems workshops in southern Iowa next month. The program brochure is available on the IBC website.

The National Farm-City Council, a nonprofit organization dedicated to enhancing links between farm families and urban residents, has launched a Facebook page supporting the mission of the organization. The Facebook page provides information and visuals from local Farm-City organizations and allows them to share these activities with other local units and urban viewers.

Cattle prices have had a remarkable run to the upside, with finished steers reaching the low $120s per hundredweight in early April. Now there are signs that those lofty prices will not be maintained into the spring and summer.

It is the strength of demand that has been the driver of higher cattle prices, not supply.

Jim Glassford, AgriLabs VP of Marketing, announced the availability of the newest in AgriLabs line of cattle biological products. "MpB Guard provides producers with a safe, efficacious, two-dose vaccine that aids in the prevention of respiratory disease and the potential loss caused by Mycolpasma bovis,” he said. "Vaccinating calves at 45 days of age with a mixture of M. bovis isolates, their soluble antigens and the Life-II adjuvant system, will help protect these young, susceptible calves early in life.”

Old crop corn prices declined sharply in the first half of March as it appeared that high prices had sufficiently slowed the rate of consumption.  However, a continued high rate of ethanol production, a resurgence of export sales, and larger livestock inventories provided evidence that consumption had not slowed.