September

Welcome Our New Beef Ambassadors

Our Beef Ambassador program is coordinated by the Cowbelles and strives to provide an opportunity for youth to educate consumers and students about beef nutrition, food safety and stewardship practices of the beef industry. Beef Ambassadors tell their beef production story to consumers and students through promotion, education, media and the online environment. Beef Ambassadors serve for one year and travel the State promoting our industry.

Mia Encinias is the 16-year-old daughter of Manny Encinias and Hayley Encinias. She grew up in Clayton, NM and now lives in Moriarty, NM. As a junior at Moriarty High School, Mia is active in FFA, serving as the Chapter Secretary and District Co-Vice-President. She is an Honor student and plays basketball. She shows heifers and bulls at the county, state, and national level.

Mia was raised on a registered and commercial cow-calf operation and especially enjoys researching and selecting sires at breeding. She is also an integral part of Trilogy Beef Community which provides local beef to consumers. She plans to attend West-Texas A&M after graduation to pursue a degree in Animal Science with Pre-Vet focus. She would like to become a large-animal veterinarian or work in the area of Animal Reproduction while maintaining an active role in the agriculture industry. Mia wants to be a Beef Ambassador to educate youth and adults

about the health benefits of beef, the is the state’s most valuable agricultural significance of the beef producer, and to commodity, many New Mexicans don’t ensure consumers have faith and confiunderstand the process of beef from gate dence in a safe and steady food supply. to plate. He believes ranchers have a

Grady Hodnett is a junior at strong ecological message to share and Mayfield High School in Las Cruces. He that can be achieved through in-person has shown beef cattle, both steers and events such as the state fair and Ag heifers, for seven years in 4-H and FFA. Fest, but also through messages on social He participates in calf shows across the media. state and has served as the Southwest McKenzie Luna, a 17-year old Representative homeschooled Sierra County resident is for the New active in 4-H and FFA serving on her M e x i c o club and chapter officer teams as well as Club Calf being the State 4-H Reporter. McKenzie Association. recently won the 2019 Arizona Nationals He is also Livestock Show Prepared Public Speaking a graduate Contest with her first-person speech on of NMSU’s bees and this year she has already won Youth Ranch her Chapter and District FFA Prepared Management Public Speaking Contests with a speech P r o g r a m on Ag Wars and Fake Beef and is eager to compete at the State FFA Contest. McKenzie wants to be an AGvocate so she can continue to spread the word about the ag industry. Being a beef ambassador is the first step on the path for her to spread the message with those who truly need to hear it, that are not familiar with the ag industry, but need to be educated about the Top: Beef Ambassador facts. McKenzie is set to Grady Hodnet complete high school at the Right: Beef Ambassador Mia Encinias same time she will obtain and a winner in this Bottom left: Beef Ambassador her Bachelor’s Degree in year’s NMCGA’s McKenzie Luna Business Management Beef Speech contest. through Western New Grady appreciates the Mexico University. She wants opportunities afforded to him by the to obtain her massage and cosmetology agricultural community and wants to licenses so she will have the flexibility to work in Ag Business after completing his continue being an AGvocate around New degree at Texas Tech. Grady wanted to be a Beef Ambassador because even though the raising of beef Mexico and give back to the roots that have helped shape her. ▫

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2020-2021 DIRECTORS – CHAIRMAN, Matt Ferguson (Producer); VICE-CHAIRMAN, Zita Lopez (Feeder); SECRETARY, Susie Jones (Dairy Producer).

NMBC DIRECTORS: John Heckendorn (Purebred Producer); BEEF BOARD DIRECTOR, Bill King (Producer) Jim Hill (Feeder); Kenneth McKenzie (Producer); FEDERATION DIRECTOR, Matt Ferguson Cole Gardner (Producer); Marjorie Lantana (Producer); U.S.M.E.F. DIRECTOR, Kenneth McKenzie Dan Bell (Producer) For more information contact: New Mexico Beef Council, Dina Chacón-Reitzel, Executive Director 1209 Mountain Rd. Pl. NE, Suite C, Albuquerque, NM 87110 505/841-9407 • 505/841-9409 fax • www.nmbeef.com

CHAROLAIS << continued from page 20 “Here at K State a lot of the research, specifically focusing in the beef industry, takes California had data with specific descriptions for calves and feeder cattle. We specifically looked at calves. Whenever we look at these steer calves in the analysis had a base weight of ab out 58 0 p ounds,” an applied approach and allows the producers to take those results and potentially incorporate them back into their own operations to help make decisions. “We feel like knowing the history and Electricity Woes a McCabe stated. Profitability for cow calf producers really begins with the initial investment in the what has happened previously in the industry, we can better prepare for what is to come in the future and help make those Warning for genetics they are going to use in their cow herd. These investments set the stage for the long-term profitability of a cow calf f u t u r e d e c i s i o n s , ” M c C a b e concluded. ▫ New Mexico producer. The video on this project can be viewed at: www.youtube.com/watch?v=lJviEEE5IoA by Paul Gessing, Rio Grande Foundation A s with so many political issues of the left, California has put itself on the very edge when it comes to following

Effect of Breed Descriptions on Sale Price of Steer Calves Sold Through the green agenda. It should come as no surprise, given the State’s “deep blue” politics, that California has some of the most

Superior Livestock Video Auctions aggressive renewable energy goals in the United States. As has been widely reported (3,084,918 head — 2010-2016) in the media, Californians are experiencing electricity shortages due in part to a heat

Breed $/cwt difference wave hitting the State. But, it is not just the heat, it is also the

Charolais Sired $8.12 lack of reliability of these “green” power sources. And New Mexico is not far behind

Red Angus Sired $6.89 when it comes to mandating them. If it continues to follow California as mandated by

Angus Sired $6.26 Governor Lujan Grisham, the Legislature,

Brahman Influence Sired $0.00 and the Public Regulation Commission (PRC), New Mexicans might see some of the E.D. McCabe, Kansas State University very same problems as California has. In California the law requires utilities to obtain at least 33 percent of its electricity from renewable resources. New Mexico is in the New Mexico Stockman. A DVERTISE Breeding Charolais since 1956 currently at 20 percent “renewable” but the Energy Transition Act (passed in 2019) requires 50 percent carbon-free electricity by 2030 and the PRC just required PNM to go with 100 percent “renewable” electricity in the future. Call: 505/243-9515. Will battery technology improve enough by the time New Mexico’s mandates are fully implemented to avert what is happening right now in California? PNM strongly

SLATON, TEXAS C Bar RANCH Charolais & Angus Bulls TREY WOOD 806/789-7312 supported the Energy Transition Act and its “renewable” mandates, but they have expressed concerns about grid reliability as the PRC pushes them to embrace 100 percent “renewable” electricity generation. Only time will tell how that works out for PNM and its ratepayers, but how about El Paso Electric which serves Las Cruces? As of December 2017, El Paso Electric’s generation mix was 36.6 percent natural gas and 48.7 percent nuclear with only 2.8 1460 Penn Road Belleville, KS 66935 Home: 785/527-5047 Cell: 785/527-1269 www.runftcharolais.com • runftmc@nckcn.com Consigned to T&S Charolais Sale Nov. 12, 2020 Female Sale Mar 20, 2021 Bull Sale Private Treaty Anytime

CLARK WOOD 806/828-6249 • 806/786-2078 1460 Penn Road, Belleville, KS 66935 785/527-1269 • runftmc@nckcn.com www.runftcharolais.com percent of their overall mix coming from “renewables.” The balance comes from various fuel sources and falls into the cate

gory of “purchased” power the exact provenance is not explained to the public.

The point is that El Paso Electric is going to be in for a massive shift in power generation sources in advance of the 2030 requirement that half of their power comes from “renewables.” And, while nuclear is “zero-carbon” and in many ways the most environmentally-friendly source of electricity, that is not how the radical environmental-left sees it.

In fact, given dim view of nuclear power on the part of radical environmentalists, it would seem likely that El Paso Electric could be forced to replace more than three-quarters of its electricity generation within the next two decades. That is going to be expensive from a ratepayer perspective. California, a state with an ideal climate and many energy generation options, has some of the highest electricity rates in the nation with just 33 percent of its electricity coming from “renewables.”

As the mandated “renewable” percentage goes up, reliability and affordability will be increasingly problematic for both California and New Mexico ratepayers. As we have seen this summer in California, reliability becomes a challenge long before the 100 percent “renewable” targets kick in. Getting a steady supply of electricity produced at reasonable prices to customers when they want it may look easy, but it isn’t.

El Paso Electric actually has a rather “green” electricity generation portfolio that relies heavily on zero-carbon nuclear and natural gas which has half the CO2 emissions of coal. This was driven by mostly market decisions, not government mandates. Those “green” credentials will likely not placate the “environmental” movement and it will be Las Cruces ratepayers and the reliability of their power grid that take the hit. ▫

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Dennis Adams P.O. Box 110590, College Station, TX 77842 (979) 693-1301 Cell: (979) 229-4472 outfrontcattle@gmail.com • www.OutFrontCattle.com Brett Sayre: 573-881-1876 Candy Sullivan: 859-338-0170