In today’s Beef Buzz, senior farm and ranch broadcaster Ron Hays speaks with Chris Carroll, president of National Livestock Credit Corporation, about the company’s long-standing partnership with the All American Beef Battalion and the outlook for the cattle industry. Carroll joined Hays at the Oklahoma National Stockyards, where National Livestock helped host a steak dinner prepared by the Beef Battalion as a thank-you for years of fundraising support tied to cattle sales at the yards.
Carroll said National Livestock is proud of its roughly 15-year partnership with the All American Beef Battalion, an organization founded by Vietnam veterans. “A lot of those guys came back from the Vietnam War and didn’t feel like they were welcomed home,” Carroll explained. He noted that although many of the founders have passed on, the mission continues. “We’ll sell a calf here today, and we’ll sell him multiple times over and try to raise, you know, $50,000 to $55,000 today, and this is all going to go back to help, basically say thank you to troops.”
The funds raised help provide meals for service members before deployment or upon returning home. “They’ll fix them a meal and just tell them thank you for their service,” Carroll said. He added that the cause resonates deeply with National Livestock’s customer base. “A lot of our farmers and ranchers that we deal with are military service members or in the past, and so we’ve always wanted to give back.”
Carroll also reflected on National Livestock’s nearly century-long history, which dates back to the early 1930s. “We actually started in 1931 with the commission company here at the stockyards, and then the credit corp was founded a year later in ’32,” he said. Since then, the company has evolved alongside the industry. “Originally it was just cow-calf producers that we financed… now cattle in the feedlot. So basically, from start to finish, we’re willing to finance anybody that has really good credit.”
Looking ahead, Carroll described an optimistic tone across cattle country, despite recent market volatility. “They all know that right now, we’re at the lowest cattle inventory that we’ve had in the last 100 years,” he said. While strong calf prices may slow widespread heifer retention, Carroll remains bullish on the future. “We think the future is bright,” he said, pointing to young producers entering the business and operations planning for the next generation as signs of long-term strength for the industry.
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 for today’s show and check out our archives for older Beef Buzz shows covering the gamut of the beef cattle industry today.
