The National Cattlemen’s Beef Association (NCBA) offers many services to its members (such as the newly launched www.beefusa.org website) including producer education. During the Cattle Industry Summer Conference today, I was able to spend some time with To Field, NCBA’s executive director of field eduction to learn more about some of the myriad of resources available.
Field said they do a number of things under the purvey of producer education but one that they are especially proud of is their work in the Stockmanship & Stewardship Tour where they feature a number of their clinicians including Ron Gill from Texas and Curt Pate from Montana. Within this program, producers are reminded of the time honored art of stockmanship and low stress cattle handling, which does a couple of things.
“One, we improve productivity of cattle when we handle cattle correctly, and secondly, we improve our image as an industry,” said Field.
Another key issue for NCBA’s members is the hemorrhaging of research and development at land grant universities and NCBA is working on developing solutions for this trend. In addition economic turmoil along with long-term drought have been, and continue to be critical issues in the South. Field said this, along with unfavorable policy is causing some ranchers to liquidate their businesses.
“The reality is that drought has been an ever present risk on our business. We’re a land dependent, weather affected industry and have been since the first cattle came to this country,” said Field. “Drought on a wide spread scale does two things. One, it limits the opportunity for producers to have choices in how they manage cattle. Secondly, at some point in time it creates a cost structure to where break evens aren’t even possible in this historic high markets and so liquidation becomes the option.”
Despite the current challenges, Field does think producers will come back when conditions improve.
Listen to my interview with Tom Field here: Tom Field Interview
Photos from the conference will be posted to this photo album: 2011 Cattle Industry Summer Conference Photo Album. Check it often as we add to it over the next several days.