COUNTRY HUMOR

Ready for the future?
By Jack S. Bray

You may not realize it, but you can become a beef producer without being bonded, licensed or knowing how many industry committees are working on a national animal ID program. All it takes is grit, gumption and cash—especially cash.

How did most producers get into the cattle business? According to a (not very) recent survey, 64.5 percent took over operations from families or in-laws; 35.4 percent worked hard, saved their money and bought a farm; and one guy in southeastern Oklahoma photographed his banker coming out of the No-Tell Motel at 2 a.m.

Do you have the right stuff to be a beef producer? Do you have the ability, as livestock economists put it, to run your business like a business? Assuming that you do not have a grandfather who is ready to hand over the reins to a thriving cattle operation, the Postoak Point organization has developed a brief, painless quiz to help you decide if you have a future in the beef industry of the future. Ready? Begin.

1. Recognizing the need for better, more useable production records, you:
A) Buy a computer records software package and subscribe to a new web-based accounting system called holycow.com.
B) Enroll in the university’s mail-in records program.
C) Start buying shirts with two pockets.

2. You are being considered for membership in the industry’s group du jour, The Task Force on the Future Direction of the Industry’s Long-Range Plan. Considering all the demands already being made on your time, you:
A) Say yes, realizing that accepting could lead to the presidency of your state cattlemen’s association, and eventually, a position on a federal advisory group or even a slot on the Beef Board.
B) Gratefully decline, leaving the door open for the future.
C) Say no, explaining that you already spend too many weekends away from your family; and besides, calving season is coming up.

3. It’s the year 2010. To increase beef consumption and counter the latest red-meat fad, low-fat armadillo, the industry’s leading ad agency has come up with an aggressive promotion campaign with the theme “Buy Beef or Else.” You have been picked as a member of the focus group to give an opinion on the campaign. You tell the focus group leader:
A) This campaign will be a terrific success, since it targets an audience we have ignored in the past, the Occasional Beef-Eating Girly-Man.
B) The theme is fine, but might be less in-your-face.
C) A better way to sell beef might be to have some of your Mom’s beef stew at the meat counter, along with recipes.

4. A new beef breed has recently been introduced into the United States. Called the Polled Pakistani Pot Roast or PPPR, the cattle are lean-muscled and fast growing but wouldn’t grade Select if they were tied to a corn crib. You consider the new breed and decide:
A) To buy as many head of breeding stock as you can afford, in hopes of getting in on the lucrative seedstock phase of a new breed.
B) To pore through reams of breeding records and EPDs until your eyes glaze over, then hire a post-graduate geneticist to help you determine how PPPR will work in your crossbreeding program.
C) Those PPPR calves would look pretty silly when your kids show them at the county fair and
4-H livestock show.

If you selected mostly “A” answers, get your best suit cleaned and pack your bags. A limousine is waiting to whisk you off to the airport for the next big industry meeting.
If you checked “B” most often, you are a careful, thoughtful manager who will do well in the cattle business.

And, if “C” was your most frequent choice, we’ll see you tomorrow morning, same time, at the coffee shop.