Lots Of Action
During the last week of July, the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association (NCBA) held their Summer Conference in Denver, complete with a full agenda.
While I was not able to attend, I’ve seen plenty of information that came out regarding topics discussed and agreed upon. This information reflected lots of action brought on by long days of meetings. In the end, there was an agreement on a five-year plan. They also identified a policy to help resolve concerns about live cattle market issues and ways to increase profits for producers.
This policy was hard to reach an agreement on, as it took nearly six hours to complete. As we all know, it is a tough issue, and producers have little control of over much of this issue.
Kim Brackett, the Beef Industry Long Range Task Force chair said, “The industry objectives are the corner posts of this long-range plan. To support each of those objectives, we created six core strategies. Those core strategies are beef exports, consumer trust, developing/implementing better business models, promoting beef, the business and political climate and safeguarding and cultivating investment in our industry.”
This task force really laid out some aggressive targets.
NCBA President Marty Smith said, “The policy decisions we made this week show the grassroots policy process at work. We had tremendous turnout for this year’s summer meeting, clearly demonstrating that cattle producers needed the opportunity to meet in person to hammer out solutions to these important issues.”
He went on to say, “The policy we passed today is the result of every state cattlemen’s association coming together to work through their differences and finding solutions that meet the needs of their members, all of whom agree our industry needs more robust price discovery. This policy provides all players in the industry the opportunity to achieve that goal without seeking government mandates. Everyone who took the time to participate in this process over the past several months and throughout this week’s meetings are to be commended.”
We need to thank NCBA members, members of the board, executives and staff for their good work. This work, plus NCBA’s involvement with Congress and the White House will help cattle producers and feeders across the nation.
Lately, we’ve had around five weeks of beef cattle price increases, some of those increases haven’t been too significant, but the video sales of feeders and calves have been on the rise. We can’t say it is a trend yet, but rising prices sure beats price declines.
To be profitable, I think we need a strong checkoff, managed by producers, as it currently is. We need to stop complaining about what certain groups or our neighbors are doing. We have had to deal with a long six months of pandemic, and now some of us are getting hit in the rear with drought conditions.
It is easy to be in a bad mood, but we have to stay positive. As I always say, some days are better than others.
As I write this column from the Wyoming State Fair, I look around at the great groups of 4-H and FFA members showing their livestock and other projects, as well as the gatherings of agriculture personnel to honor those who have given so much of their time to the industry. These are positive things. Complaining will not get the job done.
