2000 Annual Report for FNC98-220
Beef Alliance Association to Develop a Premium Market
Summary
PROJECT RESULTS
The organization of the SARE was started with help from Bill Woods the Doniphan County Extension Agent. In December he moved to Douglas County Extension. Charles Call (Brown County Extension Agent) stepped in and helped with the organizing of meetings and the acting secretary for the steering committee. The steering committee consisted of John Atwater, Charles Nimz, Tom Lockwood, Neil Caudle, and me. We had a meeting in December and planned to have Rodney Jones the KSU research and extension specialist come January 29th to discuss maximizing income from the Northeast Kansas Beef Herd.
There were 20 producers who came to the meeting. Rodney gave us valuable information on record keeping with the Standardized Performance Analysis (SPA). Howard Jensen the veterinarian from Doniphan County had also spoke at the meeting. He is participating in the Beef Futurity which the extension agency had helped in organizing. The Beef Futurity Group retains ownership to the feedlot and receives information on the quality of their cattle. The purpose of the futurity is to provide cattle producers with non biased data concerning the economic performance of their cattle.
In June Chris Rost took the Doniphan County Extension position. He has been very helpful and willing to work with us on the grant. He will be very helpful because of his knowledge with cattle. He also plans to become a certified SPA.
Chris set up a date in July for a refresher meeting with the people participating in the SPA records. We also planned to have Diane Endicott and Anne Wilson to speak at the meeting, but a date which they would come was not arrived. We hope to have them come this winter.
August 25th we took a chartered bus to Clay Center Nebraska to the Meat and Animal Research Center. Thirty three people participated. Everyone was very impressed and would have liked to have spent more time there.
The participation in the SPA records had not turned out like we hoped. Their was 4 or 5 instead of 15. We have a meeting planned on December 16th with Rodney Jones. Chris has also invited Dr. Jerry Stokka, Extension Veterinarian to speak about Beef Quality Assurance.
I would like to extend the grant project for one more year. One year was a short time to get people interested in records and to hunt for a market for quality cattle. We also had a extension agent shuffle which hurt our progress. I feel more confident that next year we will complete the SARE grant project. Some future plans will be looking at marketing strategies and building a Beef Alliance.