Chuck Jolley: Five Minutes With Max Thornsberry, DVM
I stole this introduction from the internet. So sue me. It’s a great description of the man.
Max Thornsberry, DVM, MBA, Richland, Missouri: Thornsberry is a past president of Missouri Stockgrower's Association and Missouri Cattlemen's Association and is the Region VI Director for R-CALF USA; he is licensed to practice veterinary medicine in Kansas, Illinois, Iowa, Missouri, and Nebraska. Thornsberry owns TNT Cattle Company, a certified feeder calf preconditioning enterprise and Avanco Feeds, a veterinary and nutrition company serving the beef, dairy, swine and companion animal owners of central Missouri.
It makes Dr. Thornsberry a very busy man.
So in his spare time, he decided to get even more deeply involved with R-Calf. In an era when super-achievers often go 24/7/365, he’s kicked it up a notch - - - to 24/8/365. As an incoming Vice President – he assumes his new duties at the R-CALF convention in Denver in less than two weeks - he’ll have at least a second and maybe even a third full-time job on his hands.
He comes from a long line of cattlemen and he’s damn proud of his heritage. Maybe that’s the reason behind that big bush of a mustache that would make him look at home in a Civil War era Matthew Brady daguerreotype with a six gun strapped to his hip. It’s definitely the reason he’s so completely involved in the politics of cattle raising in America.
We spent five minutes with him between the holidays.
How did you get involved in the cattle business?
My ancestors were pioneer settlers of central Missouri, coming to Camden County in the 1830s. I live in the same county, and my father lives on the same farm that my great-grandfather homesteaded immediately after completing his service with the Union Cavalry. My grandfather bought local feeder cattle, fed them out on corn silage and cottonseed meal, and shipped fat cattle to St. Louis by rail. I have a letter he wrote in the 1920s to a Missouri congressman concerning the Packers and Stockyard Act. Our family has always been involved in cattle production, and the politics of grassroots agriculture. I continue the tradition. I have owned cattle since I was 9 years old.
What do you do in your free time?
I am a Deacon at Cornerstone Baptist Church in Richland, Missouri. I participate in the shooting sports, pistol and rifle. I have very little “free time.”
You made a pre-CAFTA fact-finding tour of Central America. What did you see and what effects do you think the CAFTA agreement will have on the participating countries?
I visited Costa Rica, Honduras, and Nicaragua in June of 2005. In no case did we find any U.S. beef, poultry, or pork sold in any of these countries. Because of the BSE issue in Canada, and the lax policy of the USDA towards BSE, all of these countries prohibited importation of meat, and in some cases, fish, from the United States.
The local Spanish and Latin culture desires lean, grass-fed beef. There is no demand for corn-fed beef in any of these countries, outside of a few upper scale restaurants and hotels. Even in restaurants that advertised “imported beef,” it was discovered the beef was grass-fed from Australia. In one packing plant in Honduras, we were told that fat trimmings were allowed to be imported. These fat trimmings were then mixed with local very lean ground beef for export to fast food restaurants in Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic.
Basically, the CAFTA agreement will be good for Central American corporations that sell meat items. It will eventually harm cull cow, canner, and cull bull prices in the United States. There is no recourse should these countries dump increasingly larger amounts of lean red beef into our country. I did discover that each of these countries is rapidly expanding their beef production systems in anticipation of free access to our U.S. marketplace, while prohibiting U.S. access to their respective marketplaces.
CAFTA will not benefit grassroots beef producers in the United States, unless hundreds of years of cultural desire for grass-fed lean beef can be altered. I doubt it will!
You own TNT Cattle Company, which is a feeder calf preconditioning business, and AvanCo Feeds, a veterinary and nutrition company. It is a unique position that lets you look at the cattle business from two perspectives. What have you learned in the last 10 years?
That the U.S. market is the best market for our beef producers. We have determined that without our major export markets, demand for our beef is greatest, and best, in the USA. We should focus on positioning our beef as the safest, tastiest, cleanest, most nutritious beef in the world. Without the tools to identify our superior product in the marketplace, we are just selling a commodity.
We have proven in this expanding economy that U.S. citizens prefer our domestic product, and they are willing to pay prices that will allow us to remain economically solvent. Producers will buy feed, supplies, tractors, pickup trucks, medicine, vaccines, feed bunks, feed storage units, and much more if they are making a profit. In the last three years, with better beef prices, we have seen an infusion of capital into our local economies that rivals the 1950s. That is what I have learned.
The Japanese have conditionally reopened their markets to North American beef. What does that really mean to the average cattleman?
Anytime a market expands, producers should benefit. In the past, prices to Japan were much higher than domestic beef, but producers realized very little of that price differential. I seriously doubt if grassroots producers will directly benefit from the Japanese market this time, either.
Local market outlets for very high quality beef could pass on some of that price differential to local cattle feeders. What is really sad about all this concerns the Japanese request for testing of animals for BSE. The U.S. could have sold all the beef it wanted to Japan immediately after the Canadian cow was discovered in Washington state, if the USDA had allowed packers to simply perform a BSE screening test (ELISA) followed by a confirmatory Western Blot test, costing about $30 to $40 per carcass for the Japanese market place. Japan has been performing such tests on all beef carcasses in its own country, and has identified 21 cases of BSE, thereby preventing the movement of BSE-contaminated beef to the consuming public.
The economics are there. A $30 - $40 test to generate a $300 to $400 return for each carcass does not require a degree in agriculture economics to realize the potential profit to the industry. The U.S. could have had the Japanese market back much sooner. The market we now have is quite limited by comparison, and we have not yet regained the Japanese consumers’ confidence.
The USDA has told us they cannot abide by two classes of cattle, those tested negative for BSE and those not tested. That argument holds no merit, since we have USDA approved and sanctioned Brucellosis Certified Free Herds, Tuberculosis Certified Free Herds, Bovine Virus Diarrhea Free Herds, etc., marketed on the basis of cattle testing negative for those respective diseases.
Let’s talk about COOL. The cost of implementing it has been pegged at somewhere between $2 billion and $9 billion – a staggering figure even at the low end. What marketplace advantages does it bring, and is it worth the cost?
First, let me say that I believe the cost estimates are exaggerated. Our country performs a country-of-origin labeling program each and every day for our public schools. Meat cannot be served in public schools unless it is of U.S. origin, and proven so. A similar system would work quite well for the U.S. cattle production system. I find it ironic that the same USDA that adamantly refuses to implement COOL has determined to electronically identify each and every animal in the U.S., the cost to be borne by the individual beef producer. Talk about a staggering cost!
While visiting Central America, I found that each country I visited had mandatory COOL implemented at the meat counter. Consumers could choose meat from a variety of countries, except no meat that originated from the United States was allowed in any of the countries I visited. If the poorest countries in the Western Hemisphere can implement mandatory Country-of-Origin Labeling at their meat counters, why can’t the richest country in the Western Hemisphere do the same?
There are consumers in the United States that simply don’t care where their food originates. Surveys conducted over the last 10 years do indicate that a vast majority of food consumers want the right to know where their food originated. These surveys are well documented. Opponents say if consumers wanted COOL, they would demand it themselves. How is that to work? How does a consumer of beef demand COOL? Most consumers already believe whenever they purchase USDA inspected meat, the meat originates from the United States. If only they knew!
The real issue here is market position. Meat packers and meat purveyors desire to keep beef a commodity item. They want to identify their products with product identifying marks and labels, but they do not want to have to identify U.S. beef any differently than Canadian, Mexican, or beef from any of the approximately 40 different beef-exporting nations. It is to their benefit to keep beef a generic item.
It is the grassroots producers’ aim to position U.S. beef in the marketplace as being a superior product. U.S. beef is safe, wholesome, and has no antibiotic residues. U.S. beef is raised, fed, processed, and marketed under the most strict hygiene rules in the world. Should we not draw attention to our superior product? That is the real issue, not what COOL will cost to implement.
Thousands of cattlemen and women read Cattlenetwork.com. What would you like to say to them?
First and foremost, we are the last bastion of grassroots free enterprise animal production agriculture left in the United States. We have sat idly by while other well established traditional animal production systems have been fully integrated and centrally incorporated. If we are not careful, the same thing will happen to beef production.
To keep beef production free of corporate takeover, it is important that producers join up with organizations that speak for them and them alone. R-CALF USA is the only national cattle producer organization that is entirely grassroots in its origin and intent. To be a voting member of R-CALF, you must own cattle and be involved in the day-to-day business of cattle production. R-CALF represents those producers that have calluses on their hands, and dirt under their fingernails.
I would say to your readers, send a check for $50.00 to R-CALF USA. It will be the best money you will ever spend to promote your industry and protect your future livelihood. Get involved. If you don’t, someone else will!