USDA’s mid-year cattle count released on Friday and confirmed that the national herd is the smallest it’s been since 1951, drought is pushing cows onto the cull truck and heifers into the feedlot, and prices are at numbers that would have seemed like a typo 5 years ago.

Here’s the cruel irony. The most valuable thing most of us own is standing in the pasture on four legs, and it’s still one of the hardest things to borrow against. Banks lend easily on ground and equipment, but they lend nervously, if at all, on a live animal. In a year when ag credit is tight and every calf is worth a fortune, that gap is where a lot of good operations get squeezed.

This week’s stories run through that gap, and through the same piece of hardware: the collar around a cow’s neck. A deal in Brazil turned 10 dairy cows into exchange-listed collateral. Oklahoma State’s year-long independent virtual fencing trial revealed the first 96% containment figure that didn’t come from a company trying to sell you a collar.

First time reading? Sign up for free here