Livestock Resource F&R

Published quarterly by Farmers & Ranchers Livestock, Salina,

By Deb Norton

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Editor:

Production

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Daric Wells

Editorial Assistants: Dixie Russell, Dave Cumpton

Contributing Editors: Wes Ishmael, Paige Nelson, Sara Gugelmeyer

Contributing Artist: Ted Foulkes

A lifetime spent in agriculture with the majority of a career spent in beef industry marketing, yields an interesting perspective relative to modern communications. Living in a city and doing the stuff city people do, like shopping at a variety of supermarkets or big box stores on a daily basis, keep me grounded in the importance of the generational work of beef producers and livestock agriculture.

We saw supply and inventory challenges at the retail stores during the pandemic. Those challenges were the result of delivery and logistics and not by lack of supply. In fact, beef processing was faced by unprecedented challenges to keep enough healthy employees on the processing floor to move beef out the door and onto trucks. Finished cattle were always in the pipeline waiting to be processed.

No doubt challenges ranging from drought, wildfires, floods, pandemic, geopolitics and inflation seem never ending. However, optimists recognize almost every challenge as an opportunity to rethink, reset and restore. As a result, ultimate optimists are also some of the most progressive beef producers. These producers, some as far back as 30 years, have embraced market challenges and recognized the most sustainable path forward for their operations was investing in changes to take advan- tage of a value-added marketing system.

While optimism is always an option, until the first National Beef Quality Audit (NBQA) published in 1991, optimism was largely a pipe dream. Very little measurable, quantifiable change had been made in beef production or how beef was marketed. Producers had no road map, market signals or direction to suggest change. Basically, all live cattle were priced on an average. The most recent NBQA documents real change made in the last three decades. The beef industry has every reason to be optimistic. Scarlett Hagins, vice president of communications at the Kansas Livestock Association, recently outlined the progress in “Keep Getting Better”, July 2023, Kansas Stockman. “The 2022 audit revealed the highest number of carcasses grading Prime and Choice since assessments began, which proves a good job is being done in selecting genetics that are going to produce that type of beef. Additionally, there were almost no injection-site lesions found in the audit. …today, many of these concerns have been addressed due to the entire industry—from ranchers to feedyard managers to meat scientists to packers—spending decades adjusting factors that help determine beef’s quality. What previously was reserved for high-end steakhouses, cuts grading Prime and Choice, now are available at supermarkets nationwide at price points that fit a variety of budgets.”

Because of the optimism of many, regardless of the information available at the time to make progress, ranchers and farmers have persisted to make significant quality, safety and nutritional improvements to the food supply. Moving back down the supply chain to producers, their investments in science and technology have challenged traditional business models and inspired directional changes. Progressive stakeholders across the entire beef production space are more apt to acknowledge the value of collaboration between sectors. As cow-calf producers, cattle feeders and packers decided that “skin thy neighbor” was a zero-sum game and a value-based marketing system could result in predictable, higher quality outcomes and collaboration became the pathway forward.

Back to living in the city. Conversations with city friends, disconnected from agriculture but consumers nonetheless, are the lifeblood of our industry’s existence and largely uninformed yet vulnerable to misinformation. It is encouraging to see the energetic movement among the next generation of decision makers that recognize the importance of “agvocacy”—transparent, innovative, honest and informative/educational communication directly with

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Beerys utilize AI intensively to build bulls their customers want.

“Our specialty is working with commercial cow-calf producers trying to produce large groups of closely related genetics,” Beery explains. “We sell lots of half-brothers and three-quarter brothers. Ninety percent of our Hereford bulls go on black Angus cows to make them better. We push to our customers the value of the F1 and using Hereford bulls on their black cows.”

BLL ends up with 100 or so Hereford and red baldy steers each year. They background the steers and market them as feeder calves weighing 800-900 pounds. No matter how good the cattle, or the method used to market them, Beery says the cattle are often discounted because they comprise mixed loads—Hereford and red baldy—rather than a straight load of one of the other.

Beery sent 54 straightbred Hereford steers and 52 red baldy steers to feed and evaluate at HRC. While also a marketing decision, more than anything, he says it is the chance to see how his cattle perform in the feedlot and on the rail, to improve his program and help the Hereford breed.

Currently, 94 participants from 22 states are feeding more than 1,400 head of Hereford and Hereford-influenced feeder cattle at HRC Feed Yards.

Hands-On Learning

Beery took advantage of the annual Fed Steer Shootout Field Day April 15 to visit HRC and see his cattle.

“I wish more people could see this side of the business and understand it. I wish I could have had 50 of my commercial producers with me that day,” Beery says. “When I showed up, all of the cattle across the yards were so clean and so well taken care of. I was so happy to see what Lee is doing. It’s just a win-win for us, for the breed and all of the way through.”

Mayo and his crew welcomed more than 100 participants and guests to the field day, which included intensive informational and hands-on educational sessions, including the following.

• A talented team from Cargill Protein North America led producers through rotations, including a carcass cutout demonstration, along with focuses on beef quality and consistency, carcass defects and cattle hide value points.

• Corbin Stevens, DVM, HRC Feed Yards consulting veterinarian, performed necropsies and showed participants the difference between healthy bovine lungs and those scarred by respiratory infection.

• AHA staff led participants through the ins and outs of live market cattle evaluation including estimating grade and yield to arrive at value differentiations.

• Kevin Good, CattleFax vice president of industry relations, provided an overview of current cattle markets and the drivers behind them.

• Gregg Barfield, president, BlockTrust Network and Mike John, MFA Health Track manager, introduced a new information sharing system fueled by blockchain technology.

“The field day continues to strengthen the overall program,” says Trey Befort, AHA director of commercial programs. “Our hands-on approach to education brings a lot of value to the experience. Once program participants also come to the field day, everything comes full circle for them.”

“I am so happy the Association is providing a program like this, doing something to get some numbers back that we can take to the commercial industry,” Beery says. “Lee Mayo also deserves a great deal of thanks for providing this opportunity.”

Tracing Value

Current participants are also the first, on a voluntary basis, to be part of a collaborative pilot program testing the efficacy of blockchain technology to share data from pasture through the packing house. AHA, HRC, BlockTrust Network and National Beef LLC are partners in the project.

“You have more value points associated with the genetics of these cattle on feed than I’ve ever seen. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a feeding trial of this size with this much complete data attached to it,” explained Mike John to field day participants. He is manager of MFA Health Track, a process-verified preconditioning program.

John deals with 600-700 producers who enroll approximately 40,000 head in the MFA Health Track program each year. Each head is identified with a unique identification number, tied to an RFID tag. In turn, individual animal information is tied to each number.

“We know when they’re born, when they were weaned, what they were vaccinated with and all of that kind of data,” John explained. “The problem is that the average producer size in our program is about 65 head. Nationwide, 70-80% of the beef cows are in herds of less than 50 head. When those cattle go to market, most of them go to auction because of the size of producers’ drafts. Those cattle get dispersed, and the information is basically gone.”

Put a big dent in resistant fly populations with a fall application of BRUTE® .

Studies show that the best way to stop resistant flies from attacking your cattle next spring is to hit them with an application of BRUTE Pour-on for Cattle this fall. BRUTE® controls horn flies, face flies and other biting flies, as well as Gulf Coast ticks and lice.

So make sure resistant flies don’t come back to haunt your herd next spring by treating your cattle with BRUTE® this fall.

Selling 250 baby colts and yearlings representing great bloodlines like: Smart Chic Olena, Peptoboonsmal, Dash Ta Fame, Dash For Cash, High Brow Cat, Playgun, Docs Hickory, Docs Oak, Paddys Irish Whiskey, Three Dee Skyline, Sophisticated Cat, Shining Spark, Metalic Cat, Dual Pep just to name a few. These colts and yearlings will be paid up in the 2025 and 2026 Farmers & Ranchers Cow Horse Futurity.

Unless individual animal data accompanies an animal throughout the supply chain, it has little value, no matter its potential to add value. In the case of MFA Health Track producers, data has been collected on about 1 million head so far but could be used only sparingly to verify value added to the cattle.

Enter BlockTrust, a block chain system created by Gregg Barfield, president of the BlockTrust network. The system maintains the integrity of each data point associated with unique RFID numbers.

John has been working with Barfield, using Health Track data to ensure the system’s utility within supply chains.

In simple terms, think of block chain as an electronic ledger. Throughout the lifetime of each individual head of cattle, information associated with its unique RFID number can be added by whoever has permission to add the data. Those contributing the data grant permission for others to view the data. It’s fraud-proof and permanent. It also creates a road map by which those involved can see where value accrued and potentially share the value.

“This opportunity you have with the genetic data, the growth data and carcass data is very rare. It’s an amazing opportunity for you to get some really important feedback to your genetic programs,” John told the crowd.

Mayo summed up the many opportunities at the outset.

“Everyone, every day can produce the champion beef animal. That’s a Prime Yield Grade 1. Everyone has a shot at being a champion every day,” Mayo says. “There aren’t many of those champions in the country today, but that should be the goal. How do we get there? And how do we create that animal where its mother still does a good job on grass, yet her calf converts well, gains well and performs well in the feedyard and then does that on the rail? That’s the idea, and we’re all striving for it.”

Sitings

1 Hereford Feedout Program—participants enroll a minimum five head of same-sex (steer or heifer) cattle for feeding within a designated delivery period; participants can enroll whole-pen groups outside of designated delivery period.

2 NJHA Fed Steer Shootout—participants enroll individual steers or pens of three steers. Reprinted with permission, Hereford World.