Senior Farm and Ranch Broadcaster, Ron Hays is talking with the Chairman of the Cattlemen’s Beef Board and Oklahoma Rancher, Jimmy Taylor.
Taylor talked with Hays as he began the second the leg of the journey in Tokyo, Japan- this after spendinga couple of days in South Korea with the U.S. Meat Export Federation Trade Mission.
Taylor says that he wore his cowboy hat on the trip- and that his smile has been met with smiles from virtually everyone he has met- saying “I think that means they think I’m the good guy.”
USMEF CEO Dan Halstrom says Taylor is a great ambassador when it comes to selling US Beef- “Jimmy stands out in the a crowd over here- I’m saying that in a good way with his cowboy hat and he is pretty much taller than everyone over here so that’s a very good marketing tool.”
“This is very important to come over here and look and see how our checkoff dollars are working through USMEF and these two very important markets,” Taylor said. “They are our number one and number three markets overall in value. Last year, in the record-setting year, South Korea was our top market at 2.7 billion dollars, and Japan was our number three market at 2.4 billion dollars.”
For the 2024 fiscal year, USMEF will receive $8,150,000 in funding through the Cattlemen’s Beef Board budget.
“Our foreign marketing program is, I think, second overall,” Taylor said. “The return on that dollar is $24.45, so this work that they do is so important because it has a good return on investment.”
Foreign marketing could use more dollars if those were available, Taylor said, and because of the size and potential of the dozens of markets that are buying US Beef, the efforts to sell US Beef with the help of the USMEF remains extremely valuable to cattle producers here in the US.
