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SAN ANTONIO - The searing drought has forced members of the largest livestock association in Texas to reduce their herds by almost 40 percent, but it has not shaken their confidence in the future of the industry.

FORT WORTH - This week, rancher Donnell Brown will do something he never thought his family’s spread would consider.The 106-year-old R.A. Brown Ranch will ship hundreds of beefcows, bred heifers and bulls 1,300 miles to Montana.Like a latter-day version of the 19th-century cattle drives by Charles Goodnight and Jesse Chisholm, tens of thousands of dogies are moving north.

On this Ohio cattle farm, escaping the pasture is not just a challenge -- it’s a way of life.

During the seven-year drought of the 1950s, the old-timers of that era told tales about the drought of the 1930s being worse: “Why, it was so dry that jackrabbits west of the Pecos grazed at full gallop to keep from starving to death.”

They say the Environmental Protection Agency’s numeric nutrient criteria is flawed.

The Aberdeen-Angus Cattle Society said yesterday it had nothing to fear from a new US beef brand being sold in the UK.Black Angus is being stocked by Tesco at a small number of its UK stores.

This lightweight, compact 24-row planter and applicator leave no tracks—and they don’t hog the road.

Texas’ farmers and ranchers are coping with their eighth drought in the last 13 years, and this one, while still young, has a chance of slamming producers with their biggest losses ever, officials said.

The Agriculture Department would be barred, under language in a House appropriations bill, from proceeding with proposed marketing regulations opposed by major meatpackers and livestock trade groups.The House Agriculture Appropriations Subcommittee approved the draft fiscal 2012 spending bill, including the provision, by voice vote on Tuesday. The bill would provide $17.3 billion in discretionary funds to the Agriculture Department, Food and Drug Administration and related agencies, a $2.6 billion cut from fiscal 2011. The measure also includes $108 billion in mandatory funding, almost 3 percent more than in fiscal 2011.The policy rider would bar the Agriculture Department’s Grain Inspection Stockyard and Packers Administration (GIPSA) from producing a regulation requiring meatpackers to report and justify pricing agreements with livestock producers. The proposed rule, unveiled last year, was written in response to a 2008 farm law (PL 110-246) directive to review marketing and competition issues in the livestock industry.

New Mexico State University is partnering with Texas A&M and other universities across the country on a $9.75 million grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture to research bovine respiratory disease and how to reduce its prevalence in beef and dairy cattle.