|
West Central Iowa | I sit on the Tri-County Steer Carcass Futurity Board in southwest Iowa that manages around 8,000 head of retained ownership cattle for producers. Only the cattle that were home raised and valid records provided were ever able to be age/source verified. The Futurity got a call a few weeks ago saying that the last load that would receive an age/source premium would be last week (if I recall the phone conversation correctly). Producers can still go through the audits and pay the necessary fees to have the cattle age/source verified, but if there is no financial carrot......who will go to all the work?
It's almost like telling producers who sell their feeder cattle at the salebarn every year they need to start selecting seedstock for carcass merit in addition to their other selection criteria. If there is no financial carrot.......then why should it be important to them other than the warm and fuzzy "I do it because it is the right thing to do". I believe all producers want to produce a good & marketable product, but jumping through extra hoops and incurring extra expense for no financial gain is a pretty hard sell. | |
|
Age & Source going away ??
