President Outlook

Joe Bales

ASA president

Shakespeare and Shorthorns

If you were like me, there were few things in college that I disliked more than an English Lit assignment on Shakespeare. While I’m sure Macbeth and Hamlet were critical to my education, I never seemed to fully grasp the meanings hidden in his work. However, once I saw the phrase, “What’s past is prologue,” I found a message with meaning. In this simple phrase, we are reminded that much of what lies ahead is determined by the things that have occurred in the past. As we celebrate our 150 years as an association, I was reminded of this concept and quickly realized it was timely and pertinent to our breed and our breeders. With our yearlong anniversary celebration passing the halfway point, if you haven’t seen it, I would encourage you to find a copy of Shorthorn and the American Cattle Industry. In this full color book, Drs. Bob Hough and Bert Moore have done an outstanding job of chronicling our breed and its history – both good and bad. It’s a must read for any Shorthorn breeder or cattle enthusiast. While it would be easy to reflect on our rich history and some of the influential people, events and cattle that have shaped our breed today, I wanted to follow Shakespeare’s lead and look at what might lie ahead for our great breed. In an industry as rapidly changing as the American beef industry, there is much to look forward to, but our success in navigating the future may rely on our ability to learn from our past. By the time you read this, your Board of Directors will have completed a strategic planning retreat, designed to help guide the focus, direction and activities of the Association for the next decade and beyond. While it’s impossible, as I’m writing this, to know exactly what will come from this session, there are a few clear trends that we are sure to be considering. In many ways our beef industry is changing, yet much is still the same. Vertical integration has impacted the production of almost every other meat animal and while we are seeing rapid consolidation of the packing industry, cattle breeding is dominated by individual producers. Cattlemen and women who value their independence are looking to diversify and stabilize markets, assuring they have adequate opportunities to sell their cattle for a reasonable profit. Technology has firmly established itself in the cattle industry, from systems that accurately measure the feed intake of an animal to genetic testing that provides breeders with the ability to more accurately predict the performance of an animal and identify potential health and genetic issues before they become problems. Online systems that allow breeders to register, transfer and manage their cattle from their farm, saving time and money, aren’t optional anymore, they are expected. And while a number of other livestock species have made dramatic shifts toward the use of hybrids in their breeding programs, resulting in a significant decline in purebreds, the beef industry still values the unique traits that the various breeds bring to a producer. With Shorthorns, Heritage Shorthorns, Durham Reds and Shorthorn Plus, we occupy a very unique place in the cattle industry. Our diverse gene pool enables Shorthorn cattle to provide valuable maternal and carcass quality traits, as well as industry leading disposition and convenience traits that can complement a wide range of environmental and production systems. As seen over the past few years, our genetics are growing in demand across all facets of the cattle industry. Understanding how these trends and industry demands are impacting our breed will be your Board’s focus in the coming year. As we work through the planning process and develop new goals and objectives for the next century of Shorthorns, these questions will help guide our considerations:

• What is the role of the ASA office and professional staff? Is there potential synergy for smaller breeds to work together more efficiently?

• How do we develop alternative markets for Shorthorns? What is required to enable a branded product to work for small to mid-size producers?

• With an ever-increasing set of data and DNA validated traits, which ones are most valuable to our breeders and our customers?

• As global diversification of the gene pool becomes more prevalent, how should we monitor and/or manage genetic conditions? In addition to TH, DS and PHA, what else concerns our breeders and commercial cattlemen?

• With demand increasing, how do we build on our strengths and continue to grow our market opportunities? What would be required to move Shorthorn genetics back to the forefront of the cattle industry?

These are but a few of the topics that will be our focus in the coming months. Our breed is on a major uptick and we need to capitalize on the opportunities in front of us. This is a great time to be in the Shorthorn breed, but if the “past is prologue” we need to use the lessons from the past to build an even brighter future for the next 150 years! =