Price Protection to Be Featured at Feedlot Forum 2025

Dec 12, 2024

There is a lot of financial risk in feeding cattle – high-priced feeder cattle, variable interest rates, and volatility in market animal price. Iowa State University extension beef specialist Beth Doran said it's important for producers to understand how they can protect their investment.

“Producers have $2000 invested in the purchase of the feeder animal. When you add the cost of feed, bedding, labor, and interest, the total cost of production is hovering around $2700 per animal,” she said.

Hence, this year’s Feedlot Forum 2025 features Zach Tindall discussing the usability and basics of two USDA risk management tools: Livestock Risk Protection (LRP) and Livestock Gross Margin (LGM). As vice president of commodities with Producers Livestock, he's been instrumental in protecting producer profitability through his trading and hedging expertise and risk management consulting.

The two programs are different. LRP is a USDA price insurance policy that protects cattle producers from catastrophic declines in market price, and LGM is a federal insurance policy that protects against losses in gross margin for cattle. Tindall will discuss changes in both programs that have increased their usability.

Feedlot Forum 2025, which is Jan. 14 in Sioux Center, includes four other presentations centered around cattle feeding and a trade show with more than 20 agricultural industry professionals.

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Video: Swine Industry Advances: Biodigesters Lower Emissions and Increase Profits

Analysis of greenhouse gas (GHG emissions) in the Canadian swine sector found that CH4 emissions from manure were the largest contributor to the overall emissions, followed by emissions from energy use and crop production.

This innovative project, "Improving Swine Manure-Digestate Management Practices Towards Carbon Neutrality With Net Zero Emission Concepts," from Dr. Rajinikanth Rajagopal, under Swine Cluster 4, seeks to develop strategies to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions.

While the management of manure can be very demanding and expensive for swine operations, it can also be viewed as an opportunity for GHG mitigation, as manure storage is an emission source built and managed by swine producers. Moreover, the majority of CH4 emissions from manure occur during a short period of time in the summer, which can potentially be mitigated with targeted intervention.

In tandem with understanding baseline emissions, Dr. Rajagopal's work focuses on evaluating emission mitigation options. Manure additives have the potential of reducing manure methane emissions. Additives can be deployed relatively quickly, enabling near-term emission reductions while biodigesters are being built. Furthermore, additives can be a long-term solution at farms where biogas is not feasible (e.g., when it’s too far from a central digester). Similarly, after biodigestion, additives can also be used to further reduce emissions from storage to minimize the carbon intensity of the bioenergy.