Betty Jo Gigot, Editor and Publisher

Driving back from Amarillo, we saw the devastation from wildfires that blazed across the Panhandle. Mile after mile of grassland was blackened as the fire rushed forward, jumping highways in a fury of orange flame. As one cattleman told me, “the whole world was black.”

Drought plus high winds made for conditions that took human lives as well as, it is feared, over 10,000 head of cattle and horses. As I write this, the winds are back and firefighters are hoping against hope that the whole scenario will not be played out again. I was reminded of stories Louisiana cattlemen recounted at the cattle industry convention about last year’s hurricanes. For those of us who make our living raising animals, there could not be anything worse than not being able to look after them. Makes the little glitches in day-to-day living seem a bit smaller.

They are predicting rain for the weekend. Let’s pray it is enough to help.

O O O

The 2006 Cattle Industry Annual Convention & Trade Show was classy, informative and calm. As a matter of fact, several of my fellow reporters were complaining that there was too little controversy … Just like a reporter. Gearing up for the next ten years, the Industry Long Range Plan was unveiled to a large audience.

In presentations at the convention and also at the Intervet Summit in Las Vegas, Nv., Cattle-Fax CEO Randy Blach warned that producer margins will narrow and will likely turn negative for growers and feeders during the next year. “Now is not the time to become complacent,” Blach said.

In his Long term trends, Blach believes that a coordinated production system is evolving and feedyards will be the collection point. Fewer cattle will trade in the cash market and more will trade on a beef value basis. Product branding will become the norm and more price differentiation will occur at all levels. Interestingly, as this issue went together, several stories have reported on the advancements the Beef Marketing Group are making in the branded-beef business. Glenn Mull at Mull Farms and Feeding as well as the entire Beef Marketing Group have put their money on the line, joining with Tyson and CAB to produce a “natural” product.

O O O

The media-training people are always preaching to us about perception being reality; boy can that be true. During Thanksgiving, I was amused with a friend, who is blond and bright, fussing about her Thanksgiving turkey (and yes, I did suggest that beef would be a better choice). She was concerned that she had not gotten the turkey thawed out and that, since she could not thaw it at room temperature, would not be able to cook it in time. I told her just to set it out on the kitchen counter for a few hours, being sure that it still had ice crystals in it. She just knew, since the instructions said not to thaw it that way, that she would endanger her family’s health. After all she said, “I don’t want them to get the bird flu.”