BEEF: What does your beef customer want?

 

What does your beef customer want? Understanding your beef customer starts with knowing your true buyer, then doing what it takes to meet their needs. 

 Do you know who your customer is? When I ask that question most people get this vision of the end consumer in mind, and possibly the thought of a foreign trade deal tries to slide into their mind as well. 

 The definition of the word customer is: a person or organization that buys goods and/or services from a business. To be direct the person who writes you a check for the cattle you sold is your customer. Unless you direct market the end consumer is not your customer. 

 The way to offer better service to your customer is know your market. What do the buyers willing to spend the most money there want? Figure that out and give it to them. In doing this you cannot cut corners, or pull up short.

 Understanding ‘reputation’ 

 This week I saw a few big strings of reputation cattle sell. The first bunch in this example were weaned thirty plus days. They were all black, vaccinated and on a feed program. These cattle were not the market toppers that day, as one might expect. Two buyers that could have bid them up chose not to. 

 The problem with this bunch is the feed program they are on. It is a good program, to a point. The cattle will eat the stuff, and they will gain. If you start them on it and leave them on it the feed program is awesome. 

The problem is when a customer buys them, and is trying to make money with them, that person will feed them more economically. To be direct, the two times I bought these cattle it was like my back grounding yard became rehab. Not all of them make it out of rehab.

#beef

Future Beef: Global Smart Commodity Group adds live cattle trading to platform

 

Global Smart Commodity Group adds live cattle trading to platform. 

I recently completed an MBA in International Agribusiness and Food Chain Management program where i presented a term paper on technological disruptions in the cattle business in Nigeria. It was an amazing surprise when i came across this article with similar lines of thought as my project. We are set to change the narrative in the cattle trading system in Nigeria, we are changing the paradigm from the farm to the store. 

Lets get into the article without giving out too much information about our project.

 Global Smart Commodity Group adds live cattle trading to platform.

 Global Smart Commodity Group, a multi-asset class commodities exchange, has announced that Salus, the commodities trading platform built on blockchain technology, will begin providing live cattle as a traded commodity. 

 Intended to speed up the commodity trading process, there will be two available types of live cattle offered on the platform: live cattle and feeder cattle. Salus will also provide producers the ability to list identifiers such as weight, sex classification, country of origin, age, breed, genetics and other environmental factors.

 Global Smart Commodity Group, a multi-asset class commodities exchange, has announced that Salus, the commodities trading platform built on blockchain technology, will begin providing live cattle as a traded commodity. Intended to speed up the commodity trading process, there will be two available types of live cattle offered on the platform: live cattle and feeder cattle. Salus will also provide producers the ability to list identifiers such as weight, sex classification, country of origin, age, breed, genetics and other environmental factors. 

"The addition of offering live cattle on Salus is a necessary transition of technology," said Bryce Everett, GSCG's Cattle SME. "People have been searching for this type of option for a while, and they have been looking for a more fair and efficient way to trade cattle. We're very excited about how the outcome will play out." 

 The goal of offering live cattle on the platform will benefit smaller processors, those beyond the big names, giving a global platform to a farmer and rancher, helping to increase profits. 

Each contract of live cattle will be equivalent to 40,000 pounds, or 40 head. Salus was created using blockchain technology. Its Growth Cycle Tracking technology provides users a real time seed-to-delivery monitoring feature which authenticates the commodities' origins and watches over the transaction in each stage of the supply chain.

#blockchain #agribusiness #farming #trading.

Purina fermentation product supports feed efficiency in feedlot cattle.

 

Purina fermentation product supports feed efficiency in feedlot cattle.Feed costs are a constant consideration for cattle feeders. Improving feed efficiency, even by a small margin, can pay big dividends in the long run. “If cattle eat less and gain the same, it’s a nice advantage because you save on the amount you’re feeding. 

5The cattle industry has continually focused on improving feed efficiency through nutrition and genetics,” said Ron Scott, Ph.D., director of beef technical innovation with Purina Animal Nutrition. “Purina EfficienZ fermentation product is designed to help take things a step further.” 

The use of fermented feed is an age-long method to achieve feed efficiency and promote animal health.read 

 The new EfficienZ fermentation product is a non-nutritive feed additive available in select Purina supplements to support feed efficiency and help improve feed conversion in finishing cattle rations by optimizing rumen function.

Read Beef magazine.on side bar.

Rancher sentenced for running $244m ‘ghost cattle’ scam.

 

Rancher sentenced for running $244m ‘ghost cattle’ scam. A cattle rancher in Washington has been sentenced to 11 years in prison for defrauding Tyson Foods and another company out of more than $244 million by charging the victim companies for the purported costs of purchasing and feeding hundreds of thousands of cattle that did not exist. 

 According to court documents, Cody Allen Easterday used his company, Easterday Ranches Inc., to enter into a series of agreements with the companies under which Easterday Ranches agreed to purchase and feed cattle for them. Per the agreements, Tyson and the other company would advance Easterday Ranches the costs of buying and raising the cattle. Once the cattle were slaughtered and sold at market price, Easterday Ranches would repay the costs advanced – plus interest and certain other costs – retaining the difference as profit.( READ BEEF MAGAZINE ON SIDE BAR.)

The leather business summit and expo.

Leather
 #leather institute

The federal government plans to ban Ponmo to promote the leather industry.

THE Federal Government has said it was proposing a legislation to ban the consumption of animal skin, locally known as ponmo, in the country to revive tanneries. 

 Director-General, Nigerian Institute of Leather and Science Technology, NILEST, Zaria, Muhammad Yakubu said this in Abuja on Sunday. NILEST was set up to promote leather production as provided in the Agricultural Research Institute Act of 1975. 

        The leather business summit and expo.

The institute conducts research the production and products of leather and the utilisation of local tanning materials in the country. Yakubu, who said the litigation was necessary to revive the comatose leather industry in the country, said the habit of eating animal skin, which has no nutritional value, should be stopped to save the industry and boost the nation’s economy. 

 The Director-General added that the institute, in collaboration with stakeholders in the industry, would approach the national assembly and state governments to bring out legislation banning “ponmo” consumption. 

        The leather hub :Leather value chain 

 The tannery project was conceived by the Sanwo-Olu administration in 2020 for the production of leather products, such as shoes, belts, bags and upholsteries. The facility would also offer training opportunities for youths to learn skills in leather manufacturing and earn a living in the value chain. 

The Economic value of the hub is that the entire production process can start and end here in Lagos. Jobs will be generated and businesses will be developed He said that raw leather exported to China and Europe were brought back to Nigeria in finished goods and they were more expensive.

Researchers Are Now Tracking Monkey pox in Wastewater.

 

Researchers Are Now Tracking Monkey pox in Wastewater.The past two years have taught us anything, it’s that testing for viral diseases is complicated. Sometimes, the tests are difficult to get, like in the early days of COVID-19. And even if people have access to testing, they might not feel they need it. 

 People with COVID-19 often don’t have symptoms and may not always know to get tested. And now, with the availability of at-home self-tests, most people test themselves and don’t report the results. With other diseases—such as monkey pox—stigma surrounding the disease and the group most affected can deter access to testing. These limitations hinder health authorities’ ability to learn more about infectious diseases and control their spread. If you can’t detect a problem, you can’t direct resources to help fix it. Wastewater analysis can help skirt some of these issues. 

Scientists have tracked COVID-19 through wastewater since early in the pandemic, and now they’re doing the same for monkey pox. A new program led by researchers at Stanford University, Emory University, and Verily, an Alphabet Inc. company, is monitoring monkey pox cases by analyzing sewage from 41 communities in 10 states.

 So far, they have detected the monkey pox virus in 22 of those sites. As monkey pox case numbers around the country continue to climb, such information is proving valuable as doctors and patients wrestle with testing challenges. “We have now detected monkey pox DNA in sewersheds before any cases were reported in those counties,” says Bradley White, senior staff scientist at Verily. The group is planning to publish their first findings from their monkey pox work in a preprint soon.

HOW NIGERIA CAN PREVENT ITS ANNUAL N3.5 TRILLION POST-HARVEST LOSSES.

 

HOW NIGERIA CAN PREVENT ITS ANNUAL N3.5 TRILLION POST-HARVEST LOSSES.Nigeria has good agricultural potential but is not living up to expectations. The country houses an enormous human capital, most of whom are young, and arable land, with only 41 per cent cultivated yet. From one end, the country’s agricultural prowess and feats are laudable. 

Nigeria is a top global exporter of agricultural production, such as palm oil, sorghum, sesame, cocoa beans, oil, fruits, nuts, and seeds. The Federal Government recently disclosed that the total cost of post-harvest losses in Nigeria’s agriculture industry is N3.5 trillion. 

Yes, a whooping N3.5 trillion. Speaking on behalf of the FG, Mustapha Shehuri, Minister of State for Agriculture and Rural Development, “Post-harvest losses is a worrisome situation that threatens Nigeria’s Food Security … In fruits and vegetables, it could be as high as 50 – 60 per cent if poorly managed, unfortunately not much attention is paid to address this problem as it is done for production,” 

 This is too much loss for a country where agriculture is a core contributor to its GDP and has a projected population of 400 million. In that light, there is an urgent need to prevent people from going hungry, support farmers from losing monetary gains, and reduce our dependence on foreign products. 

 These can only be achieved through a couple of actions, the first being to make provisions for good storage facilities. While agricultural products are perishable, their production is usually seasonal, mainly because farmers in this part of the world rely on rain-fed agriculture. But, regardless of the perishable or seasonal nature of produce, the demand for food is not seasonal. In Nigeria, about 47 per cent of farmers have zero access to any storage facilities to shield them from post-harvest loss. The number could rise up to as high as 60 per cent for tubers, fruits and vegetables. 

The provision and revitalization of efficient storage facilities, whether on an industrial or small-scale, is essential in mitigating post-harvest loss.