As the 2024 Cattle Industry Convention and NCBA Trade Show approaches, Senior Farm and Ranch Broadcaster Ron Hays is back talking with the Executive Vice President of the Oklahoma Cattlemen’s Association, Michael Kelsey, about some of the top ideas of conversation that the convention will focus on.
Kelsey said animal disease traceability will be a topic of discussion, as the National Animal Disease Traceability Taskforce will be bringing some of their policy to the convention that will consider how to institute disease surveillance on a national level that includes not only older and more mature cattle but also younger cattle.
Aside from disease traceability, Kelsey said there may also be discussion regarding beef sustainability.
“To make sure we are part of those conversations wherever those conversations may occur,” Kelsey said. “If they are at the state level, if they are at the national level, even if they are at the international level, we need to make sure beef is positioned positively. Sustainability, whether we like it or not, is a topic.”
Oklahoman Jimmy Taylor will be in the spotlight on the Beef Checkoff side of things, on the Cattlemen’s Beef Board. Taylor has been chairman of the Cattlemen’s Beef Board for the past year.
“We are so blessed with great leadership in this state,” Kelsey said. “Jimmy, out in western Oklahoma, has done a phenomenal job on the Cattlemen’s Beef Board. He is just an upstanding, very nice gentleman. He is just a good person. Sharp and smart and wants to help the industry move forward.”
The incoming president for the American National CattleWomen, Ruth Coffey, is another Oklahoman who will be attending the convention. Coffey assumes the office of President of ANCW at the end of their meetings next Tuesday.
Kelsey described Coffey as a “salt of the Earth, top shelf type of person.” Both Ruth Coffey and her husband serve as a great model for the cattle industry, Kelsey added, from a conservation and leadership standpoint.
“All of us can lead in this industry in some form or fashion,” Kelsey said. “We need that because our adversaries are extremely well funded, extremely highly motivated, and they have momentum.”
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