NCA President’s Perspective – January 2024

Season’s Greetings, Friends! I recently took a trip from Elko, Nevada to Fort Worth, Texas for the National Cutting Horse Futurity. As I drove across the west, I am always amazed at the bountiful agriculture production this country has. Nowhere that I traveled was agriculture not present. Cattle – both in and out of feedlots, corn fields, cotton fields, and tracts of other fairground cover the land.

A lot of the articles that I have read lately lead me to concerns if consumers will keep up the demand for our product with the higher prices they are having to pay. As I go about my day-to-day chores and isolate myself on the ranch, I have worries about demand issues in the beef industry. As I drove through big cities like Albuquerque, Salt Lake City, Dallas, and many others the demand issue faded and turned it to concerns of how in the world will we ever feed all these people! Every establishment that we ate at (all of them served beef) was packed with consumers ordering our product and loving the eating experience. At the Big Texan Steakhouse in Amarillo I watched a truck driver in a funny top hat eat a tomahawk steak to the bone and then clean the bone off to nothing left on it. People love beef.

I can’t help but ponder this as the “Climate Elites” fly their private jets into Dubai to recommend the west eats less beef. If you research the food vendors at the Summit there is plenty of meat for them (Wagyu burgers and BBQ).

Private Jets are the biggest climate offenders in terms of CO2 that there are but these folks want to blame cows. HUH? If you want this “President’s Perspective” I say, “ban private jets and eat more beef to save the planet!”

Hanes Holman
President, NCA