From Dave's Desk Dave Maples Executive Vice President
I spent five days and four nights in the COVID unit at Lexington’s Baptist Hospital this past month. This was my first time being in the hospital. I know I was lucky and way more fortunate than many people in the same position. As I laid in the hospital bed so many thoughts were going on in my head. This was in the early days of the Russian Ukraine war, so I felt guilty about having that nice room when there were people that needed it so much more than I. After they stuck me so many times and hooked me up to all the devices, one of the first things that I noticed was that the food was much better than the stories that I had heard about hospital food. The important point was that the first four non-breakfast meals were beef. They did not shy away from protein. Every meal had an animal protein on the plate and the material that was sent home with me called for protein. To be honest, I have had the attitude that COVID could not happen to me. I had the COVID vaccines and I was healthy. I thought that I could just work through it. I was wrong. I found myself hooked to more tubes than I expected. There is no way how I could ever thank all the nice people that cared for me. Their job is challenging, from room to room, they did not slow down. I would get a chance every now and then to ask a question and get to know these nice people. When they found out I was connected to cattle, I most always made a connection. I think it was the third day, Monday, and I should have been at work and I wasn’t. I was hooked to all the different devices with antibiotics flowing through my veins and there were so many thoughts running through my mind, some reasonable and some so far out that they were crazy. But there would be times when it was quiet and I could think clearly and for the first time in now over 22 years I said to myself, “I am not pushing, I don’t have the pressure on.” I have for all these years either had hard or passive pressure on first myself, then my family, and my KCA family or my leadership or my friends within all the different Kentucky Agriculture organizations. But to be truthful I was thinking about the wonderful people at KCA because I was not in a position to ask for more. But guess what, I got more and I was not even there and it worked without me. Thanks for the nice comments and thoughts and prayers. This stuff is not to be taken lightly. The other wonderful thing about agriculture and farming and owning cattle is your neighbors and fellow cattlemen because for over three weeks I never saw my cows. My neighbors took care of them for me, when one neighbor would be out of town the next neighbor stepped in. The support network in agriculture is very loyal. In several ways this article has not been about cows or beef but through the entire process I tried to watch and listen to how the beef industry fit in. As I was recovering at home, I spent several days watching DV auctions where I could watch cattle sales at many different stockyards. I would watch a Kentucky sale, then I would move to a sale in Missouri, then Nebraska, and later in the
day Arizona and California. A couple of things that I knew, but was noticeable, was that Kentucky really has some nice stockyards, very modern and clean. The other thing was that we sell a lot of 400-pound bull calves. One of my bigger surprises was the number of fat cattle that were sold at auction in South Dakota. If you ever have time this was a nice way to pass some time but to be able to see what was happening in the cattle business from North Carolina to California. The other nice thing about this is you can go between a sale at a stockyard to a purebred bull sale. The other thing that I did to pass time was to watch the Food Network. One of the nurses thought that I should watch a basketball game so she turned the TV on. There was no basketball on but the history channel was showing documentaries on the history of food and how some of the largest food companies in the world got their start. And they are still with us today and they are now larger than they were a hundred years ago. There is a big conversation about concentration in the packing plant industry but if you really look at the concentration in the food industry that should answer some of the question. I looked at the brands and the suppliers of the food served in the hospital, all big nationally known brands, distributors and providers. Many of these companies got their start in the early 1900’s. As you can see, even when I was forced to slow down due to COVID, I still tried to pay attention to what was happening in our industry. Again, I appreciate everyone's prayers and help during that time.
