SwineCast update for July 23, 2009, The New Wedge Between Crops and Livestock: Government Policy

John Blue — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 08:49:55 +0000

SwineCast^®
Update for July 23, 2009

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The National Pork Board hits to road to hear directly from producers in the Omaha area July 23rd, Indianapolis on July 24th, and Clinton, North Carolina on the 27th. These meetings will focus on Pork Check-off strategy and program direction with much discussion on setting a course for the future of the industry.

These conversations dovetail with recent economic reports calling for continued industry cutbacks for an eventual return to profitability. Lower grain prices in the past month have not yet pulled black ink to most producers’ bottom lines. Join in these conversations on site or let the Pork Board know what you think by commenting via phone or online. The toll-free phone number to call to comment is (800) 456-7675 or email to pork@pork.org.

Stay connected to keep in touch with the front-burner issues, feedback@swinecast.com.

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Updates and information on the industry.

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SwineCast^® Headliners

Get the latest thoughts and commentary on the industry.

Blog: Don Tyler, Being "Fair". "I grew up with three brothers and three sisters, so my Mom had to have the wisdom of Solomon, and the ESP of The Amazing Kreskin. We rarely got away with anything. She was a substitute teacher for awhile at our local Jr. High School, and after the first class that she taught on her first day our friends were telling us, 'She really does have eyes in the back of her head! We tried every stunt that we play on new subs, and she just laughed! She had her back to us, writing on the chalk board, and she knew who threw the spit wad without even turning around! She called them by name!' Mom also developed a great way of making decisions as fair as possible." Read more.
Blog: Jeremy Knutson Commodity commentary on markets. Read more.
Blog: The New Wedge Between Crops and Livestock: Government Policy, By Dennis DiPietre. "In one sense, there has always been a certain conflict between crops and livestock since they tend to benefit from each other when the one is not doing so well at least price-wise. When crop prices are low, at least temporarily, livestock producers gain profits through lower cost of production. When crop prices skyrocket, livestock producers tend to struggle until a passthrough occurs or some adjustments take place. In the past however, there were good reasons for the two major arms of U.S. Ag to talk about their symbiosis and protect each other's interests. That's when the vast majority of U.S. produced corn, for instance, was destined to be livestock feed. That dynamic is changing largely due to government policy changes. " Read more.

SwineCast^® Ag Job Tools

Job lists are good leading sources of what might happen in the world. In the agricultural industry, there are several job listing sources on which to keep an eye.

AgCareers.com , PigCareers.com , AgJobNetwork , Hansen Agri-Placement , and Ag1Source all have useful tools to search for jobs. But the real power monitoring comes from the RSS feeds (see RSS in plain English video for background). With an RSS feed you can quickly scan job listings.

Some good examples include RSS feeds from AgCareers.com (RSS page) and Indeed.com. Remember, these RSS information feeds only give you information about a listed position, it wouldn't get you the job... You still need to do the hard work to get it.

One interesting use of RSS feeds is monitoring competitors. Using Indeed.com you can filter by company, key words, or job title. Who is Tyson Foods (NYSE: TSN) looking for? Use this feed. What is Smithfield Foods (NYSE: SFD) up to? Do a search!

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Thanks, again, for listening!

Ned Arthur
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Ag job monitor tools

Truffle Media Networks — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 14:21:06 +0000