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North Mississippi Beef Expo

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October 3, 2019


Amy Meyers: Today we're talking about the North Mississippi Beef Expo. Hello, I'm Amy Myers and welcome to Farm and Family. Today we're speaking with Lance Newman, Mississippi State University Extension Agent.

Lance, this event is always a really popular one. Tell me, what is the North Mississippi Beef Expo all about?

Lance Newman: It's about providing educational opportunities for our beef producers, forage producers in the North Mississippi area.

Amy Meyers: So tell me more about who comes to this event.

Lance Newman: We have producers, the industry reps will be there, just anybody wanting to know information about being a better beef cattle producer, better forage producer. It's open to the public.

Amy Meyers: Tell me about resources and learning material at this beep expo.

Lance Newman: We'll have a classroom type setting. We'll have some outdoor activities. One of the sessions, animal welfare, animal welfare and handling, it's a big topic in our industry right now. It's a big topic in the public. All farmers and ranchers want to handle their animals correctly and positively, and that's what we're going to do. We're going to talk with a gentleman that does a lot of training on that, does a lot of animal handling, animal preparedness, how to better help your animal so we can provide a good positive attitude for the industry.

Amy Meyers: Right. And when the animals are handled correctly, that also helps things run smoothly at our operation. It makes it run better.

Lance Newman: It does. We always want to, one, keep us safe, our workers and us. And we always want to provide and be safe for our animals as well. So we need to find a safe environment. We need to handle them properly. We need to be humane with them and do the right thing.

We're also going to talk about cool season forages in North Mississippi, how they affect us, what are options available, what can we do to better improve our cool season forges. We're going to talk about hay quality and nutrition. And we're also going to talk about some bull data that was collected at Prairie Research Station, that's real live data that you can actually take back home and use. It was collected right here in north Mississippi.

Amy Meyers: Oh, well, that'll be interesting. Is there anything else you want to say about techniques or skills to be learned, or anything like that?

Lance Newman: The animal handling part, where we will do some live cattle demonstrations, we'll have some horseback and walking on foot demonstrations, just to kind of show how to do. A lot of our producers don't do horseback, but you know a lot of them do, so we're going to talk about that, talk about the right way to handle them, how to work them in a chute, those kind of things. And we'll have some lab activities.

Amy Meyers: So this'll be some lecture-based and then some hands-on.

Lance Newman: Most of it will be in and out of the classroom, but then we'll go outside, or go up under a roof out into the arenas and be able to handle some animals, move some animals around, kind of see the proper way to do things.

Amy Meyers: And is there anything else you want to add about this event?

Lance Newman: It is sponsored greatly with our Mississippi State University Extension Service. We're very fortunate to do that, have a lot of agents, a lot of specialists that work to put this on. Mississippi Farm Bureau's a big support of this, has been since we started. Also way, John Deere local dealerships in the north Mississippi area, they've been very supportive. The Mississippi cattlemen, they provide a tremendous amount of input, tremendous amount of expense and time into it as well. And Mississippi Land Bank as well, has been a huge sponsor.

Amy Meyers: There will also be vendors available, right?

Lance Newman: We'll have some break times and we'll have some vendors. Outside there'll be some animal health representatives, and animal feed companies, seed companies, chemical companies for you to visit with, talk with. We'll also have some other extension agents and specialists out there. We'll have somebody from the Board of Animal Health talking about EID tags and the implementation of those down the road.

Amy Meyers: Okay. And lunch will be provided.

Lance Newman: Lunch will be provided. There'll be a link through the Mississippi Cattleman's Association. We've passed that on to all of our extension offices, or you can call your local Mississippi State University Extension Office. Please let their agent know how many is coming so we can have a count before the day of each event.

Amy Meyers: And what website is that?

Lance Newman:

Amy Meyers: Okay, so when and where will the North Mississippi Beef Expo be held, and where can we go for more information?

Lance Newman: Okay, on October the 24th we're going to hold it in Verona, at the North Mississippi Extension University Research Station. Registration will start at eight. It'll start at nine. The following day, on October the 25th, it'll be in Batesville, at the multipurpose Civic Center there in Batesville.

Amy Meyers: Sounds good. And what website?

Lance Newman:

Amy Meyers: Today we've been speaking with Lance Newman, Extension Agent. I'm Amy Myers, and this has been Farm and Family. Have a great day.


Department: Animal & Dairy Science

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