Be a Price Maker

By Larry Stalcup Contributing Editor

When Andy Holloway and his committee brainstormed the first Hemphill County Beef Conference 11 years ago, they envisioned a forum that would provide ranchers with tools to boost their cattle production, enhance their land and overall environment, as well as improve other aspects of their ranch operation.

Boy, did they ever succeed!

Held in Canadian, Texas, the conference has evolved into a can’t-miss, prime beef event that regularly draws close to 800 people from two dozen or more states and several other countries. It was the idea of Holloway, Hemphill County Extension agent, and various regional ranchers, agribusiness leaders and lenders, West Texas A&M University and others.

Guest speakers have included Sarah Huckabee Sanders, now the governor of Arkansas, former U.S. Sec. of State Mike Pompeo, cattle handling guru Temple Grandin and Duck Dynasty’s Willie Robertson. While those speakers were more motivational in their approach, most headliners have been Extension, USDA and private industry beef cattle specialists, with expertise ranging from production management to market risk management.

National Cattlemen’s Beef Association (NCBA) leadership also puts the Hemphill County conference on their calendars. At this April’s conference, NCBA CEO Colin Woodall discussed NCBA policies to lower taxes, reduce unnecessary regulations, urge national policy against fake meat, and other issues that can benefit production efficiency.

Woodall also stressed the importance of how producers have upgraded their cattle quality. Among other speakers who centered on beef quality was Randall Spare, DVM, Ashland Veterinary Center in Ashland, Kan. Spare emphasized the value of using bull EPDs (expected progeny differences) to identify sires that can improve their commercial herd.

Spare stressed that EPDs, measured through technological advances seen in the past two decades or more, “predict how progenies of a particular bull are expected to perform relative to progeny of other animals within the same database.”

A producer’s customers, whether they’re other cow-calf, stocker or seedstock operators, or cattle feeders, will likely have an interest in an animal’s EPD data. One data point identifies a bull’s “beef dollar,” Spare said.

EPD data provides a dollar index, based on post-weaning merits. It shows the dollar difference between a particular progeny compared to other animals in a contemporary group. One bull in a list may have a $188 beef dollar, while another may have $288 in post-weaning merits.

“Feedyard managers will ask, ‘What is your average beef dollar on bulls?’” Spare said. “Ultimately, someone will buy our product. But don’t be a price taker, be a price maker.” He explained that price takers often make few, if any, genetic investments “beyond the ranch gate.” “Price makers,” however, invest in high-quality bulls and/or semen for artificial insemination to help improve their herd quality, Spare said.

The tools are available from breed associations that provide registered sire and dam progeny lists. Commercial cattle herds can benefit just as much as seedstock operators in improving their breeding programs. “Make sure the next person to own our cattle makes a profit,” Spare said, who is also on the U.S. Premium Beef (USPB) Board of Directors.

USPB has various market grids to help identify quality cattle and usually pays a higher price for them. “Consumers want quality. They are not going to buy Select beef to celebrate [a student’s] graduation,” Spare said.

Holloway said Spare’s information “was one of the most practical and important presentations we’ve had at our beef conference. “When I heard Dr. Spare at the Certified Angus Beef Quality Feeding Forum in Dodge City, I knew he was someone with information that is not smoke and mirrors. He buys and sells a lot of these cattle and shows his customers the value of EPDs.”

Spare added that even though the booming cattle market is breaking records, it will likely eventually come down. When the market goes down, “our [higher quality cattle] are going to weather storms.”

Spare was one of several dozen speakers at the conference. Capital Farm Credit was the title sponsor. There were more than 125 vendors at the trade show, including nearly 30 corporate sponsors and dozens of Canadian and area volunteers who made the event possible.

Other conference presentations included those that involved: cattle marketing, financing, soil and forage health, weather forecasting, new technologies including artificial intelligence, weed and brush control and other major issues facing cattle producers.

In reviewing the conference’s history, Holloway’s emotions got to him, notably after he remembered how the event survived to live on after the 2024 wildfires. The disaster charred more than 1.2 million acres in the northern Texas Panhandle. The inferno claimed several lives and 15,000 or more mother cows and other livestock. Many producers lost their cattle, homes, barns, equipment and other ranch property.

Holloway and his wife, Tanya, Hemphill County’s Extension family and community health coordinator, were recognized for their dedication to the county’s ag producers and 4-H youth. Thanks to their leadership in making and keeping the conference one of the nation’s finest regional beef forums, volunteers and sponsors are eager to join their team.

“Coming here [to Hemphill County in 2015] was God’s gift to Tanya and me,” Holloway said. “Those of you who know me know I get emotional. If you go through a traumatic experience, like losing your ranch to a wildfire, and go through the hurt, you know why I get tears in my eyes.

“I lost my herd in the drought of 2010-2012. I lost my way of life. I thought my life was over. I’m sorry to say this, but I contemplated suicide. But God saved my life. He had a bigger plan for me. That experience sharpened me for such a time as this.”

He thanked the Lord for “pulling us together” as a family, as a team, as a group to help each other network and learn. He reviewed the success of the conference and the overall economic benefit to producers, based on their cattle numbers and acres involved.

The first conference in 2015 had 85 paid participants and registered $1.1 million in economic impact. That increased to $3.4 million and more than 200 people in 2016. By 2018 and ’19, the conference had grown to 325 and 519 participants, respectively, and about a $9 million in economic impact. After COVID cancelled the 2020 conference, it returned in 2021 with Sarah Huckabee Sanders as speaker with 805 participants.

By 2024, the number of participants grew to about 850, barely one month after the devastating wildfire. The economic impact surpassed $19 million. Including the 865 or more this year, the 10 conferences have attracted more than 5,000 participants.

Holloway says the initial conference charged participants $100 per person. Many thought the high price wouldn’t fly. But his Texas A&M Gig Em’ attitude wouldn’t let that happen. “Our strategy was, and continues, for the conference to be a winner for you producers; to learn from our speakers and many sponsors and vendors, and to socialize,” he said.

“We’ve had the right people addressing the right subjects for people who were eager to learn and not mind spending $100 to $125 to put their skin in the game.”

Look for more stories from the conference in upcoming issues of CALF News. For more on the 2024 Hemphill County Extension Beef Conference and its many sponsors, visit www.hemphillcotxbeef.com.