Fed cattle processors enjoyed their best August operating margins since 2003. The real story, though, is that they achieved this not at the expense of cattle feeders. In fact, the opposite occurred. Cattle feeders enjoyed a strong and much-needed rally in prices.

Go into any supermarket and youll find that most poultry items are branded with a company name. These include Tyson, Perdue and Pilgrims, which is soon to be majority-owned by JBS. Branded beef is much harder to find. There are niche brands such as Harris, Maverick, Lauras Lean and Coleman.

Memo to federal food safety officials: Want to protect consumers by eliminating E.coli O157:H7 from the food supply? Then invest in the commercial use of a vaccine for cattle. Then make its use mandatory, but pay most of the vaccines cost to cattle producers for the first few years.

Paris is a long way culturally and geographically from Amarillo or Omaha. But a meeting in the French capital last week could have an important bearing on the profitability of the U.S. beef industry for the next year or so. Paris played host to the annual meeting of the World Organization for Animal Health (commonly known as OIE).

Supporters of mandator y Country of Origin Labeling (mCOOL) and opponents of further consolidation of the beef processing sector sure have a lot to cheer about. The mCOOL boosters now have the ear of our new Agriculture secretary, who has asked the meat industry to voluntarily adopt three practices stricter than those laid out in USDAs final rule.

After weeks of speculation surrounding who would be President-elect Barack Obamas choice for secretary of the Interior, Sen. Ken Salazar, D-CO, has been confirmed as the next leader of the department. It was announced on Monday, Dec. 15 that Salazar was Obamas pick, followed by Salazars acceptance of the position on Dec.