A Texan and an Oklahoman are helping lead the Cattlemen's Beef Promotion Board in 2016- the body that is responsible for collecting and investing federal beef checkoff dollars on behalf of the nation's beef cattle producers. The Chairlady of the CBB is Anne Anderson. Anne is a cow-calf and stocker operator from Austin, Texas and a former executive vice president of the Texas Beef Council. She and her husband, Jim, own a small cattle ranch in Colorado County and a larger one, which Anne manages, in Menard and MuCulloch counties. In addition to ranching, she has spent more than 15 years providing assistance to individuals and groups trying to build new companies -- mostly in the beef industry, and all in the food industry.
The Vice Chair is dairy and beef cattle producer Brett Morris from Ninnekah, Oklahoma. Brett is a third-generation dairy farmer and runs a dairy, cow/calf and stocker operation, as well as the Washita Fertilizer Company, in partnership with his father. Theirs is a diversified farm operation, including about 1,000 acres of alfalfa, wheat and grassland, 65 registered Holstein cows for milking, 100-125 beef cows, and 200 stocker calves. Brett was nominated to the Beef Board by the Dairy Farmers Of America (DFA), and is very active in both industry and community activities. He has served as chairman of the Oklahoma Dairy Commission, vice chairman of the Oklahoma Johne's Advisory Committee, as a district voting delegate to DFA, and as chairman and vice chairman of the Oklahoma Beef Council, on which he has served since 2005.
This week, on our daily Beef Buzz, we are featuring the conversation that we had with Chairman Anderson. She explained to Hays that she "truly believes that the industry needs the beef checkoff." She cited several of the challenges the beef cattle industry has faced in recent years- and pointed out how checkoff monies have been used to respond to criticism about the industry and problems that only the beef checkoff funding was able to address.
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