Agricultural News
Masters Of Beef Advocacy Program Helps Beef Producers be AgAdvocates for Their Industry
Mon, 20 Jan 2020 10:38:22 CST
Radio Oklahoma Ag Network Farm Director Ron Hays sat down with Ryan Goodman, Director of Grassroots Advocacy from the National Cattlemen's Beef Association, to talk about what the title, "Grassroots Advocacy," entails. "Grassroots Advocacy is a flagship by our Masters of Beef Advocacy program at NCBA, kind of under our checkoff programs, and that can encompass a lot. For us, it involves helping farmers and ranchers to tell the story of how cattle are raised. So consumers that are asking questions about beef can have a person to speak to. Consumers today want to hear from farmers and ranchers. So we're working to help farmers and ranchers, members all across the community, to be more equipped and be more confident in sharing that information in a way that resonates with consumers."
The Masters of Beef program has gone through a rebirth a couple of times, and Goodman said they just celebrated 15,000 graduates from the program in 2019, "That's 15,000 people from across the beef community that have been involved. So that involves an online course, to walk through the beef life-cycle, learn what are the hot topics that consumers are asking about today, and how can we in the beef community, answer those questions in a way that addresses those concerns. Then I do about 70 meetings and presentations a year working with members of the beef community, farmers and ranchers like with the Oklahoma Cattlemen's Association, or the Oklahoma Beef Council, helping the leaders and the spokespeople and organizations to be out there and be accessible to consumers to share that information about beef and raising cattle."
Throughout the MBA program, Goodman says they have had to update the information, and priorities of the program, "Right now we're working on the 3.0 version of Masters of Beef Advocacy online courses and hoping to launch that later in 2020. Something we're looking at is, is updating information on not only the farm statistics from the Ag Census, but our stewardship reviews showing our market research and consumer market research. A lot of that is changing perceptions about beef, and what consumers are asking about. Because that evolves a lot, and how we're utilizing our information, how we're seeking out information today, and a lot of that turned to online sources such as social media."
Goodman says people are asking about sustainability today when it comes to all types of food, and another hot topic is greenhouse gas emissions, "We want to be able to equip our advocates from the farming and ranching communities to answer the questions and showcase how they are working to get back to our environments by raising cattle. Whether that be upcycling and nutrients to reduce food waste, or reducing our greenhouse gas emissions. So we want to equip our farmers and ranchers to have that information when they get asked about it."
For More information, or to go through the online MBA program, click or tap here.
Click on the LISTEN BAR below to hear the complete interview with Ryan Goodman as he talks With Ron Hays.
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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