Beef Cattle Field Day – Tomorrow, beginning at 9:00 a.m., MAFES will host a field day at the White Sands Experiment Station near Poplarville. Drs. John Anderson, Jason Roundtree, Rocky Lemus, and Justin Roundhart will present programs ranging from forages to heifer development. At 1:00 p.m., there will be a market group meeting to discuss feeder calf board sales. Lunch will be served and everyone is invited.

Cattlemen’s Company Store – Shop the Cattlemen’s Company Store for gifts for the cattlemen on your list.
Caps, jackets, windbreakers, shirts and much more - all with the MCA or “Beef, It’s What’s For Dinner” logo.  Stop by the MCA office on Monroe Street during regular business hours and check it out. 

Gift Ideas - Books

Dr. Don Ball’s Southern Forages - $32.00
Dr. Gordon’s Hazard’s Thoughts and Advice - $25.00
The Healthy Beef Cookbook - $21.95
Steak Lovers Cookbook - $12.00

  

Wanted: Ralgro Wheels for “Wheels for Bucks” Program - From now until February 1, please make an effort to collect empty Ralgro wheels from your friends, neighbors, and business associates.  For every 10 empty Ralgro wheels and for every 5 empty magnum strips, we will receive one wheel of Ralgro to be auctioned at the “Taste of Beef” event during the MCA Convention.  This is a wonderful fundraising opportunity and it goes to benefit the CattleWomen’s Association, Junior Cattlemen’s Association and Cattlemen’s Foundation.
Wheels and strips can be brought to the MCA office prior to convention or directly to the convention. The Wheels for Bucks program is sponsored by Schering-Plough. 

Don’t Spend Your Holidays With A Turkey – 'Tis the Season for celebration, and there's no better way to enjoy the holidays than with BEEF!  Create a holiday tradition with the Salt Encrusted Ribeye Roast or any of the mouth-watering recipes available from the Mississippi Beef Council, 601-353-4520 or visit www.beefitswhatsfordinner.com

Scholarship Applications Online – Forms for convention scholarships are now available online at www.mscattlemen.org . At this year's convention, $40,000 in college scholarships was presented to the children and grandchildren of MCA members.  The Wax Company, Mississippi CattleWomen’s Association, and Mississippi Cattlemen’s Foundation each sponsor scholarships.  

In Memoriam – 1983 MCA president John Howarth, Jr., 87, died last week. Mr. Johnny was a longtime Hereford breeder at his Circle H Farm near Cleveland and once served as president of the American Hereford Association.

Lott to Resign – Reports this morning indicate that Senator Trent Lott will resign his office before the end of the year. If Lott resigns, Governor Barbour must appoint a replacement for Lott within 10 days of his leaving office, and candidates will vie for the seat in next November's elections. Whoever wins would serve out the remainder of Lott's term, which ends in 2012.
A news conference is scheduled for later today. 

Japan Snubs U.S. Beef Again - Despite having in its hands the same scientific data that prompted the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) to classify the United States as a controlled-risk region for bovine spongiform encephalopathy, Japan continues to stonewall Washington on its repeated pleas for Tokyo to adhere to OIE guidelines.
The latest snub came in Rome, where acting Agriculture Secretary Chuck Conner prodded Japanese Senior Farm Vice Minister Masahiro Imamura during talks on the sidelines of a meeting of the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization.
Imamura told Conner that Japan's decision on revising its protocols for imports of U.S. beef will be "based on scientific evidence" and "on condition the safety of the food for the Japanese people is ensured," an anonymous official with the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries said, according to Kyodo News.
The same went for President Bush last Friday, when he pressed the issue with Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda during a summit in Washington. from meatingplace.com
 

American Foods Recalls Beef from Seven States - American Foods Group on Saturday announced a voluntary recall of nearly 96,000 pounds of ground beef due to possible E. coli contamination.
According to the USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Service, the recall was prompted by an investigation by the Illinois Department of Health, which was looking into two reports of illnesses.
The products from the Green Bay, Wisc., processor include 95,927 pounds of coarse and fine ground beef chuck, sirloin and chop beef. They were distributed to retailers and distributors in Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland, Ohio, Tennessee, Wisconsin and Virginia.
 

Russia May Resume Brazilian Beef Imports - Russia's food safety watchdog is considering resuming beef imports from all Brazilian states that have been banned on foot-and-mouth disease fears.
"Rosselkhoznadzor is looking at lifting the foot-and-mouth disease quarantine from Brazil's main meat producing states, enabling the import of meat from virtually all regions in the country," Rosselkhoznadzor Chairman Sergei Dankvert told Interfax.
Dankvert said the list of approved states will be completed by the end of the week, but it will surely include Mato Grosso do Sul and Parana, whose latest FMD outbreaks occurred, respectively, in February 2006 and April 2006.
Companies supplying meat for industrial processing or to be sold freely must be re-certified by Russian veterinary services, according to Interfax.
Dankvert maintained that Brazil's veterinary service is not meeting all its obligations. "Because of this, we had to postpone the date for introducing a system whereby all Brazilian meat should be specially labeled to Jan. 1, 2008," he said.

Farm Bill Grinds to Halt in Senate - Senate Farm Bill action has come to a grinding halt. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nevada) filed a cloture motion, which would limit debate on the bill and encourage a quick, final vote on the Senate floor.  The cloture vote failed, on Nov. 16, by a vote of 55-42.  Cloture requires 60 affirmative votes, a long-shot considering growing frustrations in the debate of how many and what sorts of amendments could be offered on the Senate Floor.
Nearly 400 amendments have been drafted, a number that will clearly sink the legislation unless the Majority Leader and Minority Leader can somehow reach agreement on how to limit and structure the debate. In the 2002 Farm Bill Senate debate, cloture votes failed three times before such an agreement could be reached and debate could finally continue.
With failure of the cloture vote last Friday, there is likely to be little progress made on the Farm Bill until December of this year or perhaps even early 2008.

Clock Ticking on Peru Trade Agreement - With House passage of the Peru Trade Promotion Agreement (PTPA), the Senate has 15 legislative days to consider the agreement under fast-track authority, or the agreement will automatically move to the Senate floor.  This means the Peru trade agreement could be sent to the President's desk by mid-December, a fitting holiday gift for U.S. cattle producers.   For U.S. cattlemen, the PTPA is one of the best-negotiated free trade agreements to date, providing for immediate duty-free access for U.S. prime and choice beef.  Implementation of the PTPA will give U.S. cattle producers the ability to compete aggressively against Argentinean and Brazilian beef in the Peruvian market.

ITC Gets Straight Talk on Trade From NCBA's Truitt - In August, Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus asked the International Trade Commission (ITC) to look into the barriers to U.S. beef sales with major trading partners. Last week, NCBA Vice President of Government Affairs Jay Truitt gave the panel some straight talk about trade and BSE. The ITC will send its report to the committee by June 6, 2008. Truitt told the ITC that U.S. beef producers, feedlots and processors have lost nearly $12.5 billion in revenue alone to South Korea and Japan since the BSE bans were first put in place. Before mad cow disease, the United States annually exported $1.4 billion in beef to Japan and $519 million to South Korea, making them the first and third largest customers for U.S. beef. Closing markets to U.S. beef largely "was a protectionist opportunity that was exercised around the world," said Truitt. "They saw an opportunity for us to be locked out." He added that rather than using science to tackle the issue, the decision was made with politics in mind. Currently, Japan permits entry of beef from U.S. cattle 20 months or younger. South Korea allows only imports of boneless U.S. beef from cattle younger than 30 months.

Nov 27                   Nutrition Shortcourse, Distance Ed Sites
Nov 27                   White Sands Field Day
Dec 1                     Tanner Farms Sale, Shuqualak
Dec 6                     Lafayette CCA
Dec 6                     Lauderdale CCA

Mississippi Cattlemen's Association
680 Monroe Street, Suite A
Jackson, MS 39202
(601) 354-8951
missca1@bellsouth.net