The Georgia Beef Board (GBB) is spending time this week across state lines to help prepare youth interested in the cattle industry. Here is Wyatt Doolittle with the Georgia Beef Board to tell us how.
“One of the things that we talk a lot about in the beef industry is preparing that next generation and I think one of the best examples of that is the National Youth Cattle Working Contest,” said Doolittle.
“So this week we’re up in Elizabethtown, Kentucky with the Georgia team that qualified for this national contest and it gives young people the opportunity to take what they’ve learned about cattle handling, animal health, beef quality assurance, and teamwork and actually put that into practice. So they’re not just answering questions out of a textbook, these students have to work cattle, make decisions, communicate with each other, and really demonstrate that they understand how to handle these animals safely and responsibly. From the Georgia Beef Board’s perspective, this is so important because those skills directly connect them to the future of our industry,” Doolittle added.
“Whether these students eventually go back to the family farm, become veterinarians, work in livestock marketing, or don’t even have any sort of an agricultural based job and are just consumers, it builds a foundation that stays with them and allows them to connect with other people. It also gives us an opportunity to reinforce beef quality assurance principles at a young age. So things like proper injection sites, low stress cattle handling, reading labels, and maintaining records, which ultimately influence the quality and safety of the beef that we produce,” described Doolittle.
Doolittle also said, “For the Georgia Beef Board, supporting programs like the National Youth Cattle working Contest is really about investing in the people who are going to be responsible for producing beef for the next generation of And when you see the knowledge and ability of these young people, there’s a lot to be encouraged about when it comes to the future of the cattle industry.”
Audio Reporting by Elizabeth Sanders for Southeast AgNet.