News Update
May 7, 2015
Marketing Your Herd
Marketing plays an important role in every cattle operation, whether that operation sells a couple head each year or a couple hundred head.
Alex Tolbert, American Angus Association regional manager for Kentucky, Ohio and Tennessee offers several marketing tips for the registered-Angus producer. He puts the most emphasis on building a website. It’s just a small thing, he says, but it can have a large impact on customers.
“I think it’s probably the simplest thing you can do, but if I am looking at a sale book and I see a pedigree that I like, as a specific customer, I want to check out your program a little bit. And so that one site visit may generate a lot of business,” Tolbert said.
Placing an ad in the Angus Journal can bring great exposure to an operation, as well, he offers.
See all of Tolbert’s marketing tips on this week’s The Angus Report.
Report Finds Mandatory COOL Causes Meat Industry, Consumer Losses
Any policy that results in higher costs of compliance without a quantifiable benefit will likely have an adverse economic impact, and recent research shows mandatory country-of-origin labeling, or MCOOL, is one such policy.
The USDA assigned the research, based on a requirement in the 2014 Farm Bill, to quantify the market impacts of MCOOL. The requirement included studying both the implementation of MCOOL in 2009 and a revision of the policy in 2013.
Agricultural economists Glynn Tonsor and Ted Schroeder from Kansas State University and Joe Parcell from the University of Missouri completed the research and issued the full report available as to government officials May 1.
The researchers found no evidence of meat demand increases for MCOOL covered products — those products sold at retail locations such as supermarkets. Because general meat demand has not increased, and the meat industry as a whole has experienced lower quantities and higher costs to implement the additional labeling procedures, MCOOL has led to net economic losses.
For more information, please view the full K-State release online.
Beef Industry Scholarship Challenge
Dates for the Georgia Junior Cattlemen’s Association Beef Industry Scholarship Challenge have been set for June 19-20. Please encourage your students to consider the intellectual challenges and opportunities offered by this event. It will be hosted on campus at the University of Georgia in Athens. This outstanding program is designed to offer scholarship funds to students, while providing opportunities to participate in hands-on, real-world scenarios beef cattle producers deal with every day.
More than $10,000 in scholarships will be available. Please contact Bailey Toates, director of communications & youth activities for the Georgia Cattlemen’s Association, to discuss details. She can be reached at 478-474-6560 or bailey@gabeef.org. Also, you may go online to complete the entry form, which is due May 20.
Statement from Vilsack on Data Showing Majority of Schools Meet Meals Standards
Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack released the following statement May 6, after USDA’s Food and Nutrition Service issued new data showing that 95% of schools are successfully meeting the updated meal standards made possible by the Healthy Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010:
“Thanks to updated nutrition standards, the vast majority of young people are welcomed each school day to an environment that supports their health and wellbeing, as well as their minds. Students are growing more accustomed to the updated standards and are eating healthier. The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation found widespread acceptance of the healthier meals by students, while studies by the University of Connecticut and Harvard found that more students are choosing to add fruit to their lunch tray, are consuming more fruit and vegetables and that plate waste in schools has not increased.
As expected, the majority of American parents are also embracing healthier meals in school. Researchers found that 72% of parents favor national standards for meals, and 80% support healthier snacks.”
Read the full USDA news release online.
‘From Battleground to Breaking Ground’ Workshop Offered in San Antonio
Veterans and active duty military, small acreage farmers and ranchers, and beginning producers are encouraged to attend a free agriculture business workshop June 6, according to Erin Pilosi-Kimbrough, Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service program coordinator for Texas Agrability in College Station.
The event will be from 8 a.m.-5 p.m. at Texas A&M University-San Antonio, One University Way, San Antonio. Attendees should complete registration online.
Texas AgrAbility, which is part of a nationwide network of programs funded by the USDA’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture, aims to inform, educate and assist individuals with disabilities to stay actively engaged in agriculture.
The morning sessions will include presentations on business opportunities, resource networking, information about Texas Agrability and a talk by a military veteran who now is an agricultural producer. The afternoon sessions will focus on funding with a panel discussion, a presentation on business planning and a networking session.
For more information, please view the Angus Journal Virtual Library calendar of upcoming events here.
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