CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO HIS PRESENTATION

You will need Windows Media Player to listen in.
Click here to download a free version.

Wayne Gretsky attributed his success in hockey to being able to skate to where the puck was going to be. This is the same philosophy we are talking about here today. Change will occur over time, and breeders need time in order to react to these changes. The worst-case scenario is to do nothing, then get blindsided by change you were not anticipating. This would cost the Angus breed market share and position.
Be prepared to change! This might seem like poor advice to give to a breed association that is clearly in a dominant position in the beef industry. However, I believe that associations like yours will only continue to enjoy a leadership role if they are ready and prepared for the large changes that are headed your way.
For example, the packing industry is on a course to convert to case-ready product to ship to retail stores. This will mean that we can ship more meat with less waste around the country and have tremendous savings in transportation cost. The retailers will not need to operate cutting rooms in every retail outlet and undergo the liability of a food safety accident due to microbiological contamination.
Instead, the meat will come to them prepackaged for sale, and they will simply manage inventory and distribution into the case. These changes make a great deal of economic sense to both packers and retailers. The savings are too large to ignore.

Pay more attention
What does this change mean to the American Angus Association? The case-ready evolution that we are about to experience will cause all waste fat and bone to fall on packer floors. They have completed the cutability studies to determine that Yield Grade (YG) 3 carcasses are too fat to be used in this process. As we move toward a larger percentage of production as case-ready, the pressure will build to discount YG 3 carcasses. This pressure will, in turn, place pressure on cattle that have routinely reached the Choice grade at a YG 3 level of fat cover.
The emphasis in selection in the past has been to reach Choice at YG 1, 2 or 3. With the drive to discount YG 3s, cattle with superior muscling and the ability to marble will become the most valuable. Breeders will try to accomplish this with a single breed or, failing that, with a crossbreeding program.
The cattle and data available to them will determine whether commercial producers use straightbred or crossbred cattle. The time to change is now, if you are to be ready to provide the information and cattle necessary to meet this new reality in the marketplace.
The change that is called for is more attention to muscle in selection. We have selected for marbling and have done a good job of collecting data and targeting this characteristic. We have had a rather broad muscle specification of 11 to 16 square inches (sq. in.) of ribeye area (REA) as we pursued muscle. It has been my observation that, as we have become more successful in producing marbling, we have slipped into the lower end of this muscle range.
We must now begin to try to pay more attention to muscle than we have in the past. This is not a call to compete with Exotic breeds in cutability. It is simply recognition of the fact that the targets are changing, and you must begin to change now if you want to continue to have a preeminent position in the seedstock industry.
The change to case-ready will be slow and steady because the cost of the facilities needed to create the product is high. Therefore, the industry has time to adjust if it begins now.

More than a trophy
The next significant driver for change is the data explosion among cattlemen. Data are becoming available from multiple sources for decision-making purposes. As data becomes more available and usable, a dominant hide color will not be as powerful a marketing tool for purebred breeders. It will still have appeal, but it will be modified so that data and hide color must go hand in hand in order to be successful.
Commercial companies are trying to position themselves to collect and analyze data on a fee basis for producers. Some firms are using the interpretation of data to get entry to marketing of animal pharmaceuticals. This competition will create more information in the marketplace, and purebred cattle will have to have more data than anyone else in the business.
This is a tremendous challenge for your association and your staff. I believe that, in the future, the cost of obtaining and analyzing data and turning it into information will not be a luxury to be debated but rather a simple cost of doing business.
The generation of data is hard work that demands the cooperation of many people in the beef marketing chain. We must be sure as we gather data that what we are gathering can be used effectively.
For example, I have had commercial cow-calf producers ask me to help them get carcass data about their calves from a packinghouse. This would seem like a good thing to do. When I ask the producer if he individually identifies his cows, he says that he does not. When I ask if he runs only single-bull breeding pastures, he says that he does not. I then have to ask, “What can he hope to accomplish with the data after someone goes to all the work of collecting it?”
Data is not a trophy to be held up for admiration. It is a tool to be used to manage a beef operation more effectively. We must be able to help producers structure their management programs to make best use of information, then help them gather the appropriate data to create the information.
These changes in our business should not threaten us but rather cause us to be glad that the beef industry is moving in a positive direction, driven by success rather than the desperation of hard times. If we are willing to change and anticipate change, we will be in the right location when the puck gets there.

home | conference schedule | tour schedule | conference speakers | hotel info