Gov. Sam Brownback sees animal agriculture being pushed out of other parts of the country and he has one message for those producers: Come on to Kansas. In remarks opening an Economic Summit on Animal Agriculture in Garden City, Brownback said that Kansas has unique advantages that will help animal agriculture already here succeed and attract more of it to the state. Brownback said Kansas beef is already a world-renowned success story and he'd like to see more hogs, more poultry and more…

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It is entirely possible that the annual KLA Convention brings together in one room the largest collection of men in Wrangler jeans, cowboy hats and boots that you will find anywhere. As an attendee at today's convention, I found myself trying to figure out why some cattlemen prefer white hats and others tend to go solid black. And why are Wranglers a cowboy icon? Why not Levis? In the movies, the good guys wear white hats and the bad guys wear black -- but at today's KLA convention I…

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There were a lot more smiles in the room at Thursday's opening day of the Kansas Livestock Association annual convention, as members celebrated 10 consecutive months of profitability for all segments of the cattle industry, from cow-calf producers to processors. And analyst Randy Blach from CattleFax told the group to expect more of the same in the coming months, as supplies continue to draw down and demnad is showing strong signs of a comeback. It was a major turnaround for the crowd…

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You might think R-Calf supporters would have learned something from the not-so-great consequences of their demand for Mandatory Price Reporting, which virtually wiped out any information on daily cattle buying a decade ago. Or maybe from their stubborn insistence that Country of Origin Labeling would boost sales of U.S. produced beef, but which in reality has done nothing but increase the share of the consumer dollar that goes to the packaging industry which has to produce the labels and…

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Kansas continues to bake under a broiling August sun that many folks find far more typical of past Kansas weather than the cool, wet August days of the last couple of years. As a result, the fall crops that flourished in the '08 and '09 are not doing so well this year. In Barton County, Extension Ag Agent Rick Snell, says farmers have probably already lost up to 20 bushels per acre of soybean yields and are losing another bushel a day for every day that it doesn't rain. And there's no…

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Wasn't it just a week or so ago that we were practically floating away? Not anymore. After two weeks of temperatures in triple digits, just about all the water around is water vapor now, triggering occasional pop-up thunderstorms that have spurred occasional hail and a few tornado warnings. And today, with the temperature right at 100 degrees and the dewpoint at 66, the official wind speed is "calm." That is not good news for cattle in the feedlots or the people who tend them. Just…

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All my life, everyone has told me that the older you get, the younger the kids you come in contact with look. I was thinking maybe I was escaping because my grandchildren (whom I have to admit I see almost every day) appear to be growing at a normal pace. I even find myself now and then saying "I'll be glad when he/she can....." But tonight I attended the annual Kansas Junior Livestock Show and I realized that these kids are so, well....young. The exhibitor of the Grand Champion Steer…

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If the blizzard outside were happening in November, Andrew Murphy at Barton County Feeding says his hair would be turning a lot grayer than it is now. But since it's late March, he says the 8 inches of snow is a welcome treat to the wheat crop and a bearable burden for the feedyard. Dry weather was becoming a threat to the survival of the wheat crop and this will help. "It's not as bad here as it is further to the west. Dodge and Garden City are getting the brunt of it," Murphy said…

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