This December the 15-time NFR qualifier and four-time NFR calf roping champion, Joe Beaver, will leave his ropes and horses home, forsaking the roping box for the announcer's booth. Beaver, of Huntsville, Texas, will join ESPN's Wrangler World of Rodeo team in its telecast of the 1999 NFR, the $4.42 million world championships Dec. 3-12 at the Thomas & Mack Center on the University of Nevada Las Vegas campus.

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Agriculture Commissioner Susan Combs is conducting a survey of Texas farm and ranch labor needs to provide state and federal policymakers with a better picture of the agricultural labor situation in Texas.

About 4500 farmers and ranchers have been randomly selected to participate in the survey. Questionnaires were mailed in late October. Individual responses remain confidential and will only be used to provide a statewide labor summary.

In addition, Combs is sending questionnaires to various commodity organizations, encouraging them to forward the forms to their membership. Combs is encouraging those selected for the survey to complete the questionnaire.

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Discussions on policy that will affect cattlemen are the focus of the Kansas Livestock Association annual convention. The meeting will take place December 2-3 at the Century II Convention Center in Wichita.

Current federal legislation aimed at curbing packer ownership of feeder cattle no more than 14 days prior to slaughter will be one of the panel discussions featured. KLA members will attempt to determine if such a law would limit marketing for producers.

Other panels will discuss extending crop insurance to cattle; Kansas efforts to limit total maximum daily loads (TMDLs) to impaired streams; and a proposal to split the Kansas Department of Health into two separate agencies.

More information is available from KLA at (785) 273-5115.

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Federal District Judge Walter Smith of Waco last week issued a temporary restraining order to prevent USDA from releasing the names of ranchers who have used the livestock protection collar.

The restraining order was requested by the American Farm Bureau Federation, the Texas Farm Bureau and two ranchers after an animal rights group filed a Freedom of Information Act request for the names. The activist group, calling itself the Animal Protection Institute of America, had previously sought and received names and addresses of New Mexico ranchers using USDA predator control services; they then published the information on an Internet website.

"Our experience with some animal rights groups is that they thrive on threats and intimidation," said TFB president Bob Stallman. "These ranchers have broken no laws, and we do not believe they should be subjected to that kind of treatment."

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A federal judge in Washington last week received a proposed $1.17 billion settlement of a long-running vitamin price-fixing case. The case involves price-fixing by seven companies that between them control 90 percent of the world vitamin market. The settlement involves food and animal feed companies and is reported to equal about 20 percent of what they spent on vitamins during the decade when the price-fixing cartel was active. The amount is said to be slightly more than the actual overcharges.