No one knows the future, but one thing is certain: love for producing beef transcends time. That and more awaits you in this week’s Trending Headlines.
Nothing could stop her love of ranching
When Kalyn McKibben was 11 years old, she went out to check calves like she had many times before. But this time, when she stepped down from her horse, Angel, to shut a gate, something spooked the horse. The horse ran and dragged McKibben behind until her face hit a tree stump.
Her older brother, Thomas, found her, and the family rushed to the hospital in Joplin, Mo., about 40 minutes away. From there, she was flown to Springfield, Mo., where she underwent hours of surgery to reconstruct her crushed face and torn ear. The doctors didn’t know if she would ever walk, talk or even live after the surgery, according to the Noble Foundation.
Today, she’s 20 years old and back on the ranch and on a horse. There’s nowhere she’d rather be.
Beef demand remains strong despite headwinds
"Are we going to see lower retail prices for beef in 2017? Absolutely," says Derrell Peel, Extension livestock marketing economist at Oklahoma State University. "Because there's going to be more beef in the market and it will take lower prices to move that meat through the market."
Peel says that in and of itself is not an indication of weaker demand, but at the same time he says per capita consumption will be up in 2017 - also not an indicator for strong demand, according to the Oklahoma Farm Report.
"It's the combination of the two that's really important here and what we've seen so far is that we've been able to move significant quantities of beef again," Peel explains, "especially in the fourth quarter of 2016."