The Alabama Cattlemen’s Association strives to educate industry professionals about the beef industry. Michael Smith with the Alabama Cattlemen’s Association is here to tell us more about their Beef 101 classes.
“Yeah, so this is something that kind of follows the traditional school year. We host this program with our friends there at Auburn University at the Meat Sciences Lab. And what we do, it’s an interactive hands-on class where we go over, got multiple stations and we’ll go over production of beef cattle in Alabama, followed up with a trip outside to get some cattle there, there at the university. And we’ll have one of our producers and a veterinarian speak on, you know, the care and the time that it takes to get that cattle from the pasture of the plate,” said Smith
“And of course, like any cattleman’s event, we offer lunch. And after lunch, we go into the meat lab where the folks in attendance can actually see the breakdown of a side of beef. So, they get to see kind of the start to finish on that,” Smith added.
“It’s open to everyone. What we try to do is target professionals, maybe in the food service industry or culinary folk, but we also target schools heavily. So, if there may be ag classes or culinary classes or nutrition classes, that they’re available to get online and sign up and get registered to come do it,” said Smith.
“It’s a free event, doesn’t cost anything for the folks to come. You can go to our website, bamabeef.org, and you can find information there. And Bailey Watson, who’s our staffer here, kind of oversees that portal there to where folks can get registered. I would encourage folks to register early because spaces fill up pretty quickly,” Smith said.
Audio Reporting by Elizabeth Sanders for Southeast AgNet.