(Photo courtesy Canada Beef Inc.)

U.S. livestock: CME live cattle close mixed

Chicago | Reuters — Chicago Mercantile Exchange live cattle futures settled mixed on Thursday after an up-and-down session, supported by futures’ discounts to preliminary cash prices but pressured by profit-taking, traders said. June closed up 0.175 cent/lb. at 131.375 cents, and August down 0.15 cent at 124.025 cents (all figures US$). On Thursday, a small […] Read more



(Gloria Solano-Aguilar photo courtesy ARS/USDA)

New Manitoba PED case pushes envelope

Southeastern Manitoba’s latest on-farm cases of porcine epidemic diarrhea (PED) include one outside the buffer zones in which earlier cases have been found. According to Manitoba Pork, the province’s chief veterinary officer (CVO) on Wednesday confirmed positive tests for PED on a hog nursery operation outside an existing five-kilometre buffer zone. That case — along […] Read more


Making dollars out of sense

Making dollars out of sense

Research on the Record with Reynold Bergen

Aside from price insurance (in provinces where it is available), cow-calf producers can’t do much to control the price they receive for their calves, so managing input costs is often the biggest opportunity to improve profitability. The Western Beef Development Centre has found that annual production costs differ by at least $100 per cow between […] Read more

(JBSsa.com)

JBS says Pilgrim’s Pride stake not for sale

Chicago | Reuters — Brazilian meat packer JBS SA’s core U.S. assets, including its majority stake in Pilgrim’s Pride Corp., are not for sale, the company said on Wednesday, a day after announcing a deal to sell Argentine operations. U.S. chicken company Pilgrim’s Pride is critical to JBS’ long-term strategy of pursuing business opportunities that […] Read more


(Photo courtesy Canada Beef Inc.)

U.S. livestock: Cattle tumble in technical selloff after contract highs

Chicago | Reuters — U.S. live cattle futures fell more than one per cent on Tuesday, reversing from earlier life-of-contract highs on pressure from investment fund and technical selling, traders and analysts said. Feeder cattle futures declined by their daily price limit of 4.5 cents/lb. while lean hog futures were mostly one per cent higher […] Read more

Bob Gordanier, shown here speaking at Queen’s Park in 2015 in his role as OASC chair, is now a provincial Liberal candidate. (OASC.ca)

Former BFO president turns to provincial politics

A former president of the Beef Farmers of Ontario will be running for the Liberals in the next provincial election. Bob Gordanier was nominated Monday as the Liberal candidate for the southwestern Ontario riding of Dufferin-Caledon, which has been held by Progressive Conservative MPP Sylvia Jones since 2007. During his farm organization service Gordanier served […] Read more


(JBSs.infoinvest.com.br)

JBS sells LatAm units to Minerva

Sao Paulo | Reuters — JBS SA has agreed to sell plants in Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay to rival Minerva SA for US$300 million, as the world’s largest meatpacker seeks cash to weather a corruption scandal that caused a spike in funding costs. JBS will use proceeds from the transaction to cut debt, according to […] Read more

Photo: Debbie Furber

Six ways to keep your cattle wormer working

Resistance among internal parasites to broad-spectrum cattle wormers is emerging in Canada and experience in other countries leaves no reason to believe the problem won’t worsen. On the brighter side, producers here still have a fighting chance to retain the efficacy of available cattle wormers by combining parasite control strategies, says epidemiologist Dr. Fabienne Uehlinger[...]
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