Senior Farm and Ranch Broadcaster Ron Hays is talking with the Director of Sustainability at the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, Samantha Werth.
NCBA launched sustainability goals in November of 2021, Werth said, and since that time, one focus of NCBA has been defining what sustainability means for the cattle industry.
“For us, that comes down to the animals, the people, and the planet,” Werth said. “We are really focused on what we can do as a cattle ranching and producing community to advance sustainability initiatives, continuously improve as we have been for decades, and be able to leverage that work we are doing to share across the broader industry.”
When it comes to talking to producers about sustainability efforts, Werth said profitability is a big concern.
“If we are talking about a new grazing management strategy that is going to help with enhancing biodiversity on the land, are there ways we can enhance biodiversity for producers to help get them paid, essentially, for that work they are doing to enhance biodiversity,” Werth said. “In anything we are doing, we are looking at what are the opportunities to get support and what are the ways we are going to improve profitability for a producer if we are implementing sustainability practices.”
By keeping conversations centered around what is viable for producers, Werth said NCBA works to help producers implement ways to be sustainable while still being plenty profitable. As for the cattle industry’s goal to be carbon neutral by 2040, Werth said things are on track.
“Things that we have been doing here at NCBA and with our partners here at the U.S. Roundtable for Sustainable Beef is working to amplify the need to have grazing management plans for ranchers, thinking through the elements we can do through grazing management to optimize how we are producing our animals, optimize our resources, and use that to leverage that conversation of improving efficiency and reducing our impacts leading to climate neutrality,” Werth said.
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