Agricultural News
Kansas Cattleman Jerry Bohn Set to Become Vice President of National Cattlemen's Beef Association This Week in New Orleans
Thu, 31 Jan 2019 05:32:21 CST
For the last 45 years, Jerry Bohn of Kansas has been involved in the beef industry. Since recently retiring from a feeding operation, Bohn has had more time on his hands and has been inclined to devote his energies to giving back to the industry. Despite his active schedule before retiring, Bohn was still able to find time to get involved and has most recently served as Chairman of the National Cattlemen's Beef Association's Policy Division, leading the organization's efforts in developing policy important to cattle producers and their business interests. Prior to this, Bohn also served in many capacities within the Kansas Livestock Association as well as the Kansas Beef Council.
At the 2019 Cattle Industry Convention this week, Bohn, given his wide breadth of industry knowledge and experience, was nominated to serve on the NCBA officer team as Vice President. Upon hearing this news, Radio Oklahoma Ag Network Farm Director Ron Hays caught up with Bohn in New Orleans where the convention is being hosted, to talk about this exciting opportunity to continue his servant leadership on behalf of US cattle producers. Listen to their complete conversation for Bohn's full reaction to this nomination, by clicking or tapping the LISTEN BAR below at the bottom of the page.
"The industry has been really good to me and my family and I just felt like it was important that I give back to it," Bohn said in response to what motivated him to seek an officer position. "I'm interested in political things and all the different legislation activities that go on and affect the beef and cattle industry. So, I'm looking forward to being more involved in that process here in the coming years."
Given the level of involvement in legislative affairs this position requires, the decision is a natural move for Bohn who shared with Hays the many issues he has tackled as NCBA's Policy Chairman. These include various hot-button issues that have dominated agricultural news in recent memory - issues such as the passage of the 2018 Farm Bill with its provisions authorizing the establishment of a Foot & Mouth Disease Vaccine Bank; Electronic Logging Devices and the Department of Transportation's Hours of Service Rule regarding the ongoing work to exempt livestock haulers from this limiting regulation; the revision of the controversial 2015 Waters of the US Rule and many others. This year, too, brings with it new issues that Bohn hopes to address as well.
"Here in 2019, we've got three or three or four priorities we're going to be working on," he said, remarking on the success of the Korean Free Trade Agreement and the importance of forging a similar bilateral trade pact with other major markets like Japan where the Trans-Pacific Partnership has put US beef at major tariff disadvantage to its competitors. "So, one is trade and continuing to work to expand the opportunities to export beef to other countries around the world."
This issue is particularly important to the industry from a big-picture standpoint, Bohn says, pointing out the tremendous leverage exports have created for our domestic product.
"The industry is doing quite well right now. The export business alone is giving us $300 a head and therein lies the opportunity for us," he remarked, but noted the challenges that the developing political landscape presents in this endeavor to continue to build on the current momentum in the marketplace.
"The current environment in Washington is probably not going to be as favorable for us over the next couple of years as we have a divided government. It doesn't appear like we're going to have a lot of new legislation that we need to be concerned about and probably not a lot of new legislation that is going to be favorable for us. So, we're going to probably end up playing defense a little bit more than we have the past two years."
Our coverage from New Orleans and the 2019 Cattle Industry Convention and NCBA Trade Show is being powered by Corteva Agriscience, delivering solutions to help you manage weeds and brush- learn more by clicking here for their website- www.RangeAndPasture.com.
WebReadyTM Powered by WireReady® NSI
Top Agricultural News
More Headlines...
