The Missouri Cattlemen’s Convention kicked off the morning with the popular Cattlemen’s College. NCBA’s Executive Director of Communications, Daren Williams, presented to the group on defending animal agriculture.
We seem to always be fighting an up hill battle in the agriculture industry, so defending our passion and livelihood is vitally important. Beef has recently been under the spotlight and it was interesting to hear what Daren had to say about what the Kansas City Star.
What can everyone in the beef community do to promote their passion? Complete the Master’s of Beef Advocacy program and help share your story. Give presentations in your local community. Get online, comment and share. Maybe even participate in media interviews.
Listen to Daren’s compete presentation here: Daren Williams - NCBA
I also took the opportunity to talk with Kaity Holtman, Director of Communications for the Missouri Beef Industry Council, about what Missouri is doing to promote the Master’s of Beef Advocacy program. I can’t wait to get my MBA and join the other 3,600 graduates from across the country advocating for the beef community.
Listen to my interview with Kaity here: Kaity Holtman - Missouri Beef Industry Council
Check out all the photos from the Missouri Cattlemen’s Association here: 2012 Missouri Cattlemen’s Convention Photo Album
The new chairman of the 
In less than 24 hours yesterday, the 
Cindy interviewed the Missouri Beef Industry Council’s (MBIC) representative on the MO Ag Team, John Ridder, who is now going by the name “Mr. Baseball” in the Missouri beef community. John kind of likes the name and is really excited about the promotion and working with all the state commodity groups. “We all kind of got together and shared some advertising dollars to help put a positive spin on agriculture with all the negative reports that are in the media,” John says. “We just want to have a good image in the public.”
There is a rare treasure nestled in the heart of the Ozarks in Southern Missouri – a college that offers students a degree in hard work. 
The college offers 48 different degrees, including culinary arts, hotel and restaurant management, agribusiness, animal science, and ag education. There are about 125 students majoring in some area of agriculture there, but the school offers amazing hands-on experience for them, including hog, dairy and beef operations, a meat processing facility and a feed mill. They also have a beautiful center that is open to the public which features fine dining, historic lodging, meeting rooms, and more. During the 2008 presidential campaign, candidate Sarah Palin chose to visit the college as one of her stops in Missouri. 
Missouri Director of Agriculture Dr. Jon Hagler (right) visited Forck Farms near Jefferson City to present the official proclamation to Kelly Forck, a diversified crop and livestock producer who is president of the Missouri Soybean Association. 
Some classes are now requiring students to read books like 
Kendal Frazier with the 
Kendal says there are two ways the industry can use new media tools such as blogging, podcasting, Twitter, YouTube and Facebook. “Number one is to deliver a proactive message through a different channel. The other way is to correct misinformation that is out there. We have to be participating on the Internet and we can do that on both a proactive and a reactive basis,” Kendal said.
Yesterday I had lunch with 5000 head of cattle – and about 60 people.
What was especially unique about this event was that it was held in the middle of a covered feedlot – one of only three feedlots in the state of Missouri. You’d think it would be a little, well – smelly – to say the least. But, it was not at all. And there were NO FLIES! It was just as pleasant as having lunch in a park pavilion – just a really huge one with a bunch of cattle in it.
I am not ashamed to publicly pronounce my belief that beef is good. That’s why I was so happy to get to work with the Missouri Beef Industry Council on their new “Speaking of Beef” program. Basically we helped the staff at the MBIC prepare materials for a group of initial volunteers to help them conduct public speaking engagements about Missouri’s beef industry to local civic groups. Additionally, we’re going to assist with scheduling them to speak to these groups. We hope to have the first ones set up soon after the first of the year.
The 
To help the program participants we worked with the MBIC staff to develop a resource notebook which includes: pre-written speeches on 6 key issues (printed and saved electronically on CD), notecards for each speech, basic information about public speaking and media interviewing, a list of potential questions they will be asked and suggested answers. The volunteers will personalize each talk with anecdotes about their life and farm. They will also receive a supply of handout materials for their presentation as well as items to be used for a drawing after their talk. We’re contacting Rotary, Optimist and Kiwanis clubs as well as local Chambers of Commerce to see if they’d like to schedule in one of our speakers.
Cindy and I had a nice trip to Springfield today to conduct the first training session for the 
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As you may know we built a 
Andrew McCrea is the new Chairman of the 
Today I’m attending the board meeting of the