Colorado U.S. Senator Michael Bennet announced last week that the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has designated five Colorado counties in southern Colorado as primary disaster areas due to recent drought conditions. The designations make farmers and ranchers eligible for assistance from the Farm Service Agency.

Ranch managers and owners should remember they are managing production, marketing, management and financial sectors including the people that make it all work on the ranch.

The cash trade developed relatively early given the recent trend. By Wednesday, trade had begun at $128-129 live in the South Plains and $207 dressed in Colorado. The activity continued Thursday morning with dressed trade going for $205 in Nebraska and $207 in the Corn Belt on active trade.

As a result, only 1 percent of Indiana’s corn crop was planted by the week ending April 28, compared with 67 percent last year, an even-numbered year when some farmers planted as early as March, and the five-year average of 30 percent, according to US- DA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service.

“Thus, a producer can still benefit if calf prices are higher this fall than currently expected,” he said. “The risk covered by LRP has been significant in recent years. Even with deductibles, LRP had a loss ratio above 1.0 in 2008, 2009 and 2012. Thus,.

The Commodity Challenge game (www.commoditychallenge.com) features real-time cash, futures and options quotes for corn, soybeans and wheat. It offers a one-of-a-kind approach to learning about commodity markets and price risk management. It is used in high school and college classrooms, and by farmers to learn about marketing strategies.

The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is preparing a Draft Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement (Draft SEIS) for the Ruby Pipeline Project.

The survey included 190 full-time ranch employees and 14 general managers from 14 ranch operations in Texas, Missouri, Florida, Hawaii, Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico and Oregon. These ranches ranged in size from seven to 100 employees and from 4,000 to 44,000 beef cows.

Total beef production for the year to date is down 1.3 percent and total slaughter is down 2.1 percent compared to the same period last year. Both beef production and slaughter have been larger in recent weeks and the yearto-date total is down less than expected.

Millennials; they’re the consumers of the future, a generation of 80 million that, as it moves through society, is changing all the rules—perhaps especially the way products are marketed. Recent research helps the beef industry learn what makes them tick.