Beef Improvement Federation President Donnell Brown says seedstock producers must remain focused on the needs of the commercial industry.
As a fifth-generation rancher from Throckmorton, Texas, Brown has spent most of his lifetime focused on the wants and needs of the commercial cattleman. Striving to produce seedstock that will help his customer be more profitable and sustainable in today’s beef industry.
Donnell was elected to the BIF Board of Directors in 2012 and is currently serving as BIF president. His term as president will end at the 2018 BIF Research Symposium and Convention June 20 to 23 in Loveland, Colorado.
The ranch
For more than a century, west Texas has been home to the R.A. Brown Ranch. Named the 1993 BIF Seedstock Producer of the Year, the Brown family currently supplies Angus, Red Angus and SimAngus genetics to cattlemen across the country.
“Our mission at R.A. Brown Ranch is very clear,” Donnell explains. “We are striving to improve the efficiency of converting God’s forage into healthy, nutritious, great tasting beef to better feed His people.”
Why BIF
“As seedstock producers our job is to make progress through selection,” Donnell explains. “EPDs can help us, but we need to make sure the tools we use to describe our cattle, specifically EPDs, continue to be based on the most advanced sound science—that is a must.”
In 1968, BIF was formed as a means to standardize programs and methodologies, and to create greater awareness, acceptance and usage of performance concepts in beef production. The organization’s three-leaf clover logo would come to represent industry, extension and research, just as the organization’s annual symposium would become the premier forum bringing industry segments together to discuss and evaluate performance topics.
“BIF is focused on the application of sound science to make a lasting impact on the beef business,” Donnell explains. “The BIF convention is the crossroads where academia, breed associations and cattle producers all come together.
Looking forward
“Today’s beef producer has a wide spectrum of challenges to face,” Donnell says. “As BIF leaders, we need to go back to the basics and discuss accurate measurement and proper contemporary grouping. We need to address multi-trait selection indices. The application of all-purpose indices focused on long-term profitability in the beef business needs to be our focus.”
Join us in Loveland
Registration is open for the 2018 Beef Improvement Federation Annual Meeting and Research Symposium. This year’s event, themed 50th Anniversary in the Rockies, will be June 20 to June 23 at the Embassy Suites Convention Center Hotel in Loveland, Colorado.
Online registration is available at http://www.beefimprovement.org.
