Marketing Update Sharing the Stewardship Story

by Katie Martin, Assistant Director of Field Services

“This is the best set of bulls this operation has ever offered!” This phrase is heard frequently throughout bull sale season. While some of what is said on the auction block is hype, this particular statement should be true among successful cattle operations. By utilizing genetic improvement tools and employing sound management practices, beef cattle herds should improve year after year. In addition to an improvement in the livestock, sustainable ranches should also improve the land. Successful multi-generational ranches view the land as an essential resource, not to be depleted, but rather, improved over time.

Sound stewardship has always been a non-negotiable for agriculturalists who depend on the land for their livelihood. Though agriculturalists are top stewards, they have also done a historically poor job of staking this claim. The popularization of carbon offsets in the early 2000s brought renewed attention to stewardship and began to hold large corporate companies accountable for the negative environmental impact they were inflicting for financial gain. The introduction of carbon markets also brought to light the role of agricultural land in the reduction of atmospheric carbon and provided a unique opportunity for agriculturalists to capture a new source of revenue.

Ranchers recognizing their important role as stewards of the land is only the first step in creating additional income. Sharing and verifying sound management practices has become the name of the game in beef cattle marketing over the last decade. One such opportunity to share the stewardship story and market beef as a climate-friendly choice now exists through Tyson’s Brazen Beef brand. Red Angus producers were among the first to learn of Brazen Beef during an informational meeting hosted by Adams Land and Cattle LLC, in Broken Bow, Nebraska, in November 2022. Since then, Red Angus cattlemen have had the opportunity to get in on the ground floor by providing cattle to be marketed under the Brazen Beef brand. The new brand was only recently unveiled to the larger public at the 2023 Annual Meat Conference in early March. Brazen Beef is the first beef product to receive USDA approval for a climate-friendly claim, earned by documenting a 10% greenhouse gas emissions reduction compared to standard beef production.

Ranchers who wish to be paid a premium for their cattle by partnering with the Brazen Beef brand may already be employing many of the eco-conscious practices which the brand claims, and need to simply document those practices. Brazen Beef cattle will be CARE certified through IMI Global, a division of Where Food Comes From, Inc. Red Angus producers utilizing RAAA’s value-added programs have a leg up when it comes to CARE certification, as FCCP and Allied Access EIDs may be used as the individual animal identifier for all IMI Global programs. Ranchers wishing to produce cattle for the Brazen Beef brand must also share relevant operational data and agree not to sell the carbon rights to their grazing land. For more details on partnering with Brazen Beef, contact Will Druery at 308-870-4566.

Third-party verification of stewardship practices and marketing beef through climate-friendly beef brands ushers in a new generation of beef producers. This generation can reclaim the narrative and champion producers by sharing the long-implemented, but scarcely shared, stewardship success story of cattle ranchers. It’s a success story that should be shouted from the rooftops. //