CALF_News_February_March_2020

22 CALF News • February | March 2020 • www.calfnews.net T he 125th annual Kansas Livestock Association (KLA) Convention was held Dec. 4-6 inWichita, Kan. Wednesday evening opened with a banquet dinner honoring those members celebrating 50, 60 and 70 years as KLA members. They recognized scholarship recipients and conducted a live auction. The evening concluded with the keynote speaker, Devin Henderson, who shared through soccer, magic and his time on the television show America’s Got Talent that life is sure to hand us blows. We must do three things: Start slow. Quit expecting the time or conditions to be perfect. Showing up is the biggest challenge. Don’t expect perfection. We’re not going to be able to be as good as the professionals when we start. Don’t let that get in our way. Keep showing up. Keep putting in the work. Pick the ball up. Pick the ball up over and over again. Slowly, very slowly, we’ll be able to do one more thing without dropping it. Then we can add one more thing and one more thing. Never stop trying. Never stop picking the ball up and trying again. Thursday morning began with the trade show breakfast and silent auc- tion. Each session was started with a nod toward history and KLA’s 125-year heritage with a past president or member sharing personal stories of the past. The Beef Industry University was no differ- ent. After introductions, CattleFax CEO Randy Blach gave an update on the beef industry, herd size, projected market and weather reports. It appears that winter weather condi- tions heading in to 2020 will return to a more “normal” year. Last year’s winter was filled with snow and cold and a wet spring. This year is projected to be much more in line with what should be expected. Market predictions, according to Blach, is that they are going to remain very in line with this past year – no huge upswing or downswing projected. African Swine Fever is the major factor in all of this. When and if it hits U.S. soil, he said, it’s going to cause some major disruption. We need to encourage trade talks. We need to be able to export all of our products to as many countries as we can. The market will work when given the opportunity to. We are producing the safest food supply in the world. We need the opportunity to ship that product to other countries. After a brief break, we were right back to meetings to discuss animal health and the identification issue. Justin Smith, DVM, the Kansas Animal Health Com- missioner, gave an update on how hard the Kansas Department of Agriculture works to ensure that Kansas remains a leader in innovation when it comes to herd health. They go above and beyond to ensure that there are no disease out- breaks. They go so far as to do complete mock trials of exactly what would be done in the event of an outbreak. They have identified and isolated any incidence of disease so that the animals in Kansas can remain safe. Sara Place, Ph.D., gave a riveting and informative presentation about sustain- ability in the livestock industry. Place is a technical consultant in sustainability with Elanco. Sustainability is a one of those hot button words and Place made several amazing points about its role in agricul- ture. She cited that globally, one in four children under the age of 5 are stunted because they don’t have the nutrients needed to grow and develop properly. She explained the term beef upcycle as playing an important role in feeding the world. Upcycle means making a lower quality product better. For example, beef cattle eat forages and utilize land that couldn’t be used for other things, while creating a highly nutritious product. Many argue that we should just eat the plants instead of the beef, and we would be in a better place. However, we can gen- erate more high quality protein by feeding it through cattle than we would get simply by eating those plants, even if we could. The U.S. beef industry is shrinking the negative environmental impact we have. We are the most environmentally friendly beef-producing country in the Kansas Livestock Association Celebrates 125th Convention By Kelsey Pagel Contributing Editor CattleFax CEO Randy Blach shares market and weather projections with a roomful of producers. Sara Place, Ph.D., explains the role beef has in a sustainable environment. Continued on page 33  CONVENTION COVERAGE