Texas A&M AgriLife Hemphill County Beef Conference kicked off Tuesday

CANADIAN, Texas (KAMR/KCIT) – The Texas A&M AgriLife Hemphill County Beef Conference kicked off Tuesday, with this year’s conference being more vital to local ranchers now more than ever after the devastating wildfires earlier this year.

This year’s beef conference is themed “Better Ranching for Better Life and Andy Holloway, Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service agriculture and natural resources agent, said this conference may be as important as ever.

“Many people even wondered if we could have the beef cattle conference, but we were determined…The reason for that is because the people need encouragement and there are so many wonderful volunteers and donors that have helped and we are going to celebrate them later on this evening,” said Holloway.

Holloway added the conference will be addressing everything from the future of the cattle market to what is in store with the weather and risk management.

“All of these speakers are speaking to things that the ranchers are going to have a lot of take-home messages, so this conference has turned into a national event, just because of these great speakers. The networking that goes on in the trade show…We talked about the weather, we talked about that, it’s one of the big issues. Our markets. where are our markets going to go. are they going to continue to go up? are we at a peak? we’ve got issues about profitability, how do we manage the inflation and the high cost of things we have to use in order to produce the products that we have. We are going to talk about genomics and how through genetic selection we can improve not only the beef quality but our bottom line, our profit. So, there are a lot of things going on, and of course, we are going to talk about range management issues, things that have to do with recovery from the wildfires as it regards our range. There is a lot on our plate here. A lot of big things to talk about,” said Holloway.

One of the ranchers in attendance was Landon Nine from Slapout, Oklahoma and he said the reason he came this year was to hear speakers talk about how to better manage your ranch and passing it down to the next generation.

“One thing that is really neat about having all ranchers that are here is everyone wants to do a better job at ranching. Better management. Do a better job at raising cattle that do well performance-wise and better beef for the end users, at the store,” said Nine.

Nine said last year was his first year attending and he was excited to be back this year.

“Andy does an excellent job here in Hemphill County on putting on this conference and he has done it for many years,” said Nine.

Ranch and Feedlot Operations Director with Clarendon College Tye Chesser said they have been bringing students to the conference for the past five years to hear firsthand what is the future of the cattle market.

“It’s obvious that the panhandle is affected by this recent fire. We are all affected by drought. Everybody is curious, about what the cattle market is going to do, so CattleFax was here this morning talking about what kind of our future is, what it looks like, what the model is showing, just to see if whether or not the profits are going to be in our favor or not. So that’s where we bring the class, that ranch and feedlot program class up here just to get a first-hand feel and hear for some of the professionals in the industry on what’s our future, what it looks like. Whether it’s weather or the markets,” said Chesser.

Holloway also talked about how the recent wildfires could impact the cattle business.

“28% of the nation’s beef cattle supply comes from the Texas panhandle. The mother cows that were lost during the Smokehouse Creek Fire and Windy Deuce Fire have just been off the charts terrible, but in the big scheme of things the number that we lost are just a small portion of the total cow herd. But every time a cow, which is like a factory off the market, she can’t have a calf, it hurts the long-term recovery of the business. Even though this isn’t huge, as it is in regards to the national population of cattle, it’s still going to set us back some,” said Holloway.

Folks were also able to purchase a donation ticket option to benefit wildfire recovery efforts.

According to the Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service, a new feature at the beef conference was a feature with the Texas Beef Council and will include chef presentations in a new tent dedicated to beef products developed by Texas Beef Checkoff dollars, including a tasting opportunity of some of the developments to enhance value.

Also, at the beef conference, there was a record number of trade show exhibitors, with more than 100, in attendance.

The Hemphill County Beef Conference also welcomed Kayleigh McEnany, former White House Press Secretary and current co-host of Outnumbered on the Fox News Channel as its keynote speaker this year.

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