2020 NCBA Audio
Josh White, Executive Director, Producer Education and Sustainability

Cattle producer education is important today, but it’s getting increasingly difficult in these troubling times to get out to industry events and trainings. Josh White is the executive director of producer education and sustainability at the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association. He says his team is stepping up efforts to make sure cattlemen and women have access to information that’s important to enhancing their cattle operations.
 
“One of those examples would be our Cattlemen’s Webinar Series that we have, and we’ve added a webinar here to respond to these events. We know that folks get stressed out and all these changes in routine can lead to not only us trying to protect our physical health and stay healthy out there, but we need to pay attention to our mental and emotional health as well. A lot of stress in the markets, I know, can be extremely stressful too, and the uncertainties. So we’ve added a webinar for this week, March 26, that’ll be happening live, 7 p.m. Central, called When Stress is more than a Season. We have two counselors that specialize in farm and ranch management counseling, and farm and rancher counseling. They know the right questions that you should be asking. They know the right tips and tricks for our industry, for signs that folks might need some additional support and that sort of thing. So we would highly recommend that you join. If you can’t join live these webinars are always recorded and posted within 24 hours so you can watch the recording later this week.” (65 seconds)

According to White, the Cattlemen’s Webinar Series has a wide range of useful topics.

“We’re in the middle of a series on soils, forage and grazing within that Cattlemen’s Webinar Series so just go to the producer tab at ncba.org, click on the webinars and you can see all the lineup of upcoming webinars and also how to get to the recordings for past webinars.” (20 seconds)

White says Cattlemen’s College, an extensive event held leading up to the annual Cattle Industry Convention and Trade show every year, also has a change that will benefit all producers.

“In response to this crisis we’ve also made the decision that our Cattlemen’s College online campus is going to be made free to anyone to log into. It’s typically a $50 cost, but we’ve worked with our sponsor Zoetis that helps with that, and they agreed that we should try to make this free right now, in a time when people can’t get out to in-person events and training, so again go to that producer tab at ncba.org and just click on the Cattlemen’s College subtab there and it will take you to the online campus. There’s a tab once you get in there that says special offers; you’ll have to set up an account, but there will be a code that you can enter to have free access to all of those online recordings. That will be live by the end of this week.” (50 seconds)

White has a suggestion for another way cattle producers can enhance their education.

“If you have some downtime with travel restrictions and other things that you want to commit to learning, I would always recommend going to update your BQA certification status by going online to bqa.org. We have just launched a brand new set of modules; we did that last month in February, so chances are you have not seen the content that we have just released. It will be a new, fresh experience. And if you’re more than a year or two out, for sure go ahead and re-up. That will be good for three years.” (32 seconds)

For more information on the many educational opportunities available to cattle producers through the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, go to ncba.org.