Thursday, May 22, 1997

Rehab lamb and meat goat sale to be held at Wylie FFA barn

The 8th annual Rehab Club Lamb and Meat Goat Sale is 7:30 p.m. June 14 in Abilene.

This key fund-raiser will be held in the Wylie FFA Showbarn. The barn is just behind the Wylie High School football field on Antilley Ro-ad.

The sale benefits the West Texas Rehabilitation Center.

Only lambs and goats purchased during this sale will be eligible for the WTRC Jackpot Show on Dec. 6 at the Dorthea C. Griffin Arena at the Taylor County Expo Center.

Lamb chairmen are John Helmer of Merkel; Wade Stephens, Cross Plains; Gaines Price, Roscoe; and Charlie Palmer, Clyde.

Tacy Ellis of Roscoe is meat goat chairman, and she will be assisted by Jennifer Morris of Colorado City.

These chairmen expect 150 lambs and 50 goats to be donated for the sale.

Breeders from Texas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Colorado, Missouri, and Illinois already have donated animals for this big sale.

There's still plenty of time to donate animals. To donate a lamb or a meat goat, call the WTRC at (915) 691-7290, or in San Angelo call (915) 949-9535.

Deli beef sales important to cattle industry

Sales of deli beef are one of the more overlooked areas of beef consumption.

A study by the National Cattlemen's Beef Association showed that American consumers spent about $1.4 billion for more than 460 million pounds of processed beef items such as lunch meat, hot dogs, sausage, and sliced beef.

"The sheer size of this segment is unbelievable," says Dean Conklin, NCBA executive director for deli beef programs. "When we see that 72 percent of households purchase a processed meat product every month - (our) influencing consumers to choose a processed beef product could add up to another pound of beef sold to each household each month."

Speaking of beef

Exports are the fastest growing demand sector for U.S. beef.

But for this market to grow, the U.S. must to continue to challenge non-tariff trade barriers.

That's what Mark Armentrout, chairman of the NCBA International Markets Committee, said in testimony before the U.S. House Subcommittee on Livestock, Dairy, and Poultry. Armentrout hailed recent victories in gaining access to the EU market, but said that's only the first step to expanding export demand.

The Market Access Program (MAP) is an essential element of the nation's overall agricultural trade policy. Every billion dollars in U.S. ag exports creates as many as 17,000 new jobs.

"Maintaining MAP funding at $90 million is crtical to maintaining U.S. competitiveness in the expanding global market," he said.

Brush control demonstration

A Brush Control Demonstration is 5:30 p.m. May 29 at Loop 322 and Maple Street on the Ben Richey Boys Ranch in Abilene.

Mesquite, cedar, and prickly pear control will be dicsussed, plus Texas Department of Agriculture laws. The session is worth two continuing education units. For more, call the Extension Service office at (915) 674-1321.

Texas milk production drops

Milk production in Texas totaled 540 million pounds during April, down 7 percent from a year earlier.

The number of milk cows during April averaged 390,000 - down by 10,000 head from the same month in 1996.