President Donald J. Trump announced the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) will make billion available in one time bridge payments to American farmers in response to temporary trade market disruptions and increased production costs that are still impacting farmers following four years of disastrous Biden Administration policies that resulted in record high input prices and zero new trade deals. These bridge payments are intended in part to aid farmers until historic investments from the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA), including reference prices which are set to increase between 10-21% for major covered commodities such as soybeans, corn, and...

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    When cattleman Tom McCormick first experimented with fall calving, he wasn’t expecting a major shift in his operation. It began simply as a way to ease the workload. “We wanted to lighten that spring load,” McCormick says. “At the time it was just me and my dad, so it helped to divide things up. After a year or two, we realized there were more benefits in fall versus spring.” Today, McCormick operates a diversified farm near Salem, S.D. with a system that is roughly 50 percent spring calving and 50 percent fall calving. The more defined structure, two...

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Recently, there were two developments in the spread of the New World Screwworm in Mexico. First, a new case was confirmed in the northern state of Nuevo León, Mexico, about 120 miles from the Texas border on Dec. 2. The animal was part of a group of cattle being taken from southern Mexico to a feedlot in Nuevo León. Mexico’s recorded animal infestations (mainly cattle, horses, and pigs) of New World Screwworm since the start of the outbreak in November 2024 is now over 11,000. The second piece of news regarding New World Screwworm (NWS), is the U.S. Food and Drug...

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  Kent Bamford with Bamford Feedyard in Haxtun, Colo., and Bob Foote with Foote Cattle Company in Bucyrus, Kan., are the 2026 inductees in the Cattle Feeders Hall of Fame. Honorees will be recognized at the 17th annual banquet on Feb. 4 during CattleCon 2026 in Nashville, Tenn. “The cattle-feeding industry has been built by leaders such as Bob Foote and Kent Bamford,” said Dustin Johansen, senior vice president at Farm Journal and Cattle Feeders Hall of Fame board member. “Their legacy is the ongoing success of our industry.” Bamford Feedyard started as a small yard, growing to 15,000 head...

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With a commitment to high quality and superior service, DemKota Ranch Beef in Aberdeen, S.D. has grown from its initial startup 10 years ago to currently providing a payroll of over one million dollars a week to workers and purchasing a billion dollars’ worth of cattle annually from area cattle producers. The meat-packing company sells locally grown beef locally and around the world. “We compete in an industry of giants, however, we have developed a successful business in that landscape,” Adam Bode, Chief Executive Officer, for the company, says. “The Big Four competitive meatpackers control 85 percent of this industry....

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  In the cattle industry, AI usually means artificial insemination. But, for one groundbreaking UW scientist, AI in beef production also refers to artificial intelligence. A native of Wheatland, Wyo., PhD student Chase Markel has been involved in cattle production for as long as he can remember. It’s his heritage, his passion, and his primary area of study as a university researcher. Congestive heart failure in cattle Markel completed both his undergraduate and graduate degrees in the UW Department of Animal Science. As a master’s student, he studied pulmonary hypertension, also known as high-altitude disease or brisket disease, in cattle....

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Tina Barrett  Executive Director of Nebraska Farm Business Inc. The past several years have been profitable for cattle producers. Cow/calf operations are amid a period of unprecedented high incomes—something that crop farmers experienced back in 2012 and again in 2022. Strong income years are a blessing, but they also bring challenges: larger tax bills, pressure to spend on prepaid expenses, and the temptation to push income forward or load up on depreciable purchases. There are some lessons that we can learn from the peaks of crop profitability that will hopefully avoid some of the pitfalls that come with a downturn...

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Cindy Gonzalez Nebraska Examiner In a blow to the local economy of Lexington, Neb., Tyson Foods announced that it is closing the town’s longtime Tyson beef plant that employed about 3,200 people.  The Arkansas-based Tyson said in a statement that changes were designed to “right-size” its beef business and position it for long-term success. The Lexington plant is to close on or around Jan. 20. The statement did not elaborate on why the plant in the town of  about 11,500 people was targeted. The company said it also will convert an Amarillo, Texas, beef facility to a single, full-capacity shift...

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Weather and markets are the two things agriculture revolves around. While he can’t speak to what is happening in the cattle markets, Colorado meteorologist Brian Bledsoe, who also happens to be a rancher, can speak to a weather outlook for the region this winter and coming spring. Presenting at the recent Range Beef Cow Symposium in Cheyenne, Wyo. Bledsoe walked those in attendance through the past 6 months of weather and what could lie ahead. Bledsoe says a lot of the seasonal forecast starts and stops with what the oceans are doing. East trade winds generally mean a La Niña....

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Over the last several weeks, we have seen a lot of mayhem in our cattle market. The recent announcement that Tyson Foods will be closing the processing plant in Lexington, Neb., sent traders into a frenzy, pushing the futures market down, down, and further down. Adding fuel to the fire, on Nov. 13, our government lifted the 40 percent tariff on Brazilian beef.  This goes to show how volatile our current market is.  We have reached new record cattle prices, and any slight negative news shifts the markets drastically. The downturn in the market did not reflect the current USDA...

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