How AngusLink is Revolutionizing Cattle Market Risk Management

Listen to Ron Hays talking with Mark McCully about AngusLink and other Angus innovations.

Mark McCully has served the American Angus Association as Chief Executive Officer since 2019. He was a former vice president of production for Certified Angus Beef and previously led the beef improvement program and value-added feeder cattle marketing programs for cattlemen within a 22-state region for Southern States Cooperative.

In today’s BeefBuzz, Senior Farm and Ranch Broadcaster Ron Hays continues his conversation with McCully. In the first part, they discussed the Angus breed’s innovations in the beef industry. Today, it is all about the breeders.

According to McCully, Angus breeders, like most cattle raisers, are optimistic about the strong cattle market but not naïve to the input costs, namely labor.

“No one has enough labor, and labor is hard to find. That is a consistent message that I hear regardless of where I travel,” McCully said.

Many breeders have expressed excitement about the new innovations of AngusLink to Hays. “We had a tremendous amount of growth,” McCully said. “Last year was really an exciting year for us as we look back and reflect on the growth we saw in that program.”

He said that he believes that the Angus industry is at a turning point and mentioned that cattle feeders are looking for ways to manage risk regarding the current value of feeder cattle.

“What we are able to do with AngusLink is verify the amount of Angus bulls – that is the AngusVerified portion – but the Genetic Merit Scorecard, that is a new piece that I consider a game changer because we can put a genetic description on a group of feeder cattle so that cattle feeders can better manage their risks and determine what they should pay for those cattle with a lot more information available to them about how they will grow and grade.”

U.S. Premium Beef is already paying grid premiums for the Genetic Merit scores, and McCully expects the program to grow quickly over the next three or five years.

When herd rebuilding begins, McCully looks forward to breeders having the information available to them to be sure they are retaining the right heifers. In 2024, the A.A.A. released a functional longevity EPD to help predict the length of time a bull’s daughters should be able to stay in a herd and an EPD for udder quality.

GeneMax Advantage is a commercial DNA test that is sold through HTI in cooperation with Zoetis. Dollar Value Indexes of the A.A.A. have been added to those scores. It will allow a producer to genomically test a set of commercial heifer replacement candidates instead of only testing bulls.

“Those scores that you are used to seeing on registered Angus bulls – dollar beef, dollar maternal weaned calf value, and dollar combined – you can get those same indexes on those heifers to make sure you are keeping the right ones back,” McCully said.

Historically, in herd rebuilding, producers cull the older genetics and refresh them with new genetics and see a bump in quality. He predicts more of the same during the next herd rebuild phase.

“Ag people can always find the things that aren’t right, and it is never perfect, but this cattle business has a lot of optimism in it. I think we have a great product and we have a lot of demand for it here in our country and around the globe, so I wouldn’t want to be in any other protein business,” he concluded.

The Beef Buzz is a regular feature heard on radio stations around the region on the Radio Oklahoma Ag Network and is a regular audio feature found on this website as well. Click on the LISTEN BAR at the top of the story for today’s show and check out our archives for older Beef Buzz shows covering the gamut of the beef cattle industry today.

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