Darrell Busby, Southwest Area Extension Beef Specialist, Southwest Iowa
Problem Statement
Identified problems include economic options for generation transfer of the family farm, pre-weaning vaccination programs, beef cattle disposition and cattle market outlook.
Programmatic Response
The 4-State Beef Conferences are designed to give beef cattle interests in Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, and Nebraska a regular update on current cow-calf and stocker topics. The conferences provide a forum of specialists from four of the USA’s leading beef cattle land grant universities.
Impact/Outcome
Seventy-seven of the 86 people in attendance responded to the end-of-meeting survey. Average cow herd size was 124 head. The 4 topics (Economic options for generation transfer of the family farm, pre-weaning vaccination programs, beef cattle disposition and cattle market outlook) were rated on a 1 to 5 scale of value, with 5 being the highest value. The average score for the 4 topics were 3.9, 4.3, 4.3, and 4.5, respectively. Ninety-six percent of the respondents said they were “likely” or “very likely” to make business or management changes as a result of listening to the presentations. They were asked to estimate a dollar amount that these changes would make to their operation yearly. The average estimate was $3,583 per family.
September 7, 2005
107 -- Iowa Beef Center
Page last updated:
July 8, 2006
Page maintained by Linda Schultz, lschultz@iastate.edu
