Agricultural News
Lowell Catlett Presents Master Class on Why It's the Best Time Ever for the Cattle Feeding Business
Mon, 16 Oct 2017 11:27:20 CDT
The Texas Cattle Feeders Association celebrated its 50th anniversary during the association's annual convention this year in Amarillo. Dr. Lowell Catlett, Regents Professor for the Department of Agricultural Economics and Agricultural Business, New Mexico State University, was there to offer attendees a bit of perspective on how far the feeding industry has come in Texas over the last 50 years. Radio Oklahoma Ag Network Farm Director Ron Hays was there and had the chance to speak with Dr. Catlett, who says when it comes to cattle feeding in Texas, things are a lot different - and a lot better.
Catlett explained that before Texas really established itself in the business, cattle feeding was done primarily in Iowa and across the Midwest, where feedstocks like corn and soybeans were plentiful - Catlett says it was only natural for feeders to begin where the source of feed was. However, he says they eventually discovered the benefits Texas and the High Plains had to offer.
"This old dry climate here in the Great Plains - the Southern Great Plains, especially, you just don't have quite the harshness of having to use up a lot of energy to just stay warm," he said. "So, cattle do quite well in the High Plains and so we just uni-train grains down sometimes from the Midwest and we saw some transformations over the last 50 years."
And it is not just the cattle feeding industry that has grown by leaps and bounds during the last half a century, he says, but rather the entire ag industry. As many wonder how farmers will be able to feed 9 billion people by 2050 - Catlett confidently says we are already there.
"We are - we produce enough food in agriculture now - we can easily feed 10 billion people. We already do essentially produce that much," he said. "Until we go back and look, and frame some things in the past - we tend to just kind of think that things are always the way they were."
Listen to Catlett and Hays discuss where the cattle feeding industry in Texas began, where it is now and where it is going, on today's Beef Buzz.
The Beef Buzz is a regular feature heard on radio stations around the region on the Radio Oklahoma Network and is a regular audio feature found on this website as well. Click on the LISTEN BAR below 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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