Dear Pat:

 

This letter is in response to your "As I See It" column of Nov 28 in which you expressed concerns about the declining levels of marbling, excessive carcass weights and fat levels, variability in weight of cuts, etc. and asked for comments to help protect the beef industry as we know it and to improve consumer confidence.

 

Some of the reasons you give for this trend are implants, imports, excessive feeding resulting in 30-40% yield grade 4's & 5's, yet we have a significant decline in choice & prime, etc.  Someone sent me a report that states in the 30 year period from 1975 to 2005, the percent of cattle in the upper 2/3 of Choice & Prime dropped from 84% to 21% in our own NATIVE cattle.   Regardless of what any of us do along the line to improve our own situation, I think you have missed the primary reason for these results.

 

Beef production starts with genetics.   The industry as a whole has been very successful at increasing output at the expense of long term improvement.   It has utilized crossbreeding; changed the color of some breeds to black; developed multi-purpose composites; changed breeds to mimic crossbreds; maximized breed and across breed EPD; developed trait races; employed AI, ET and ultrasound to win these races; expanded breed distributions.....An endless list of change.

 

This runaway train of events seeking a super "one size fits all" type of animal has disregarded the consequences of trait relationships which have caused continuous cycles of change for the most needed fashion of the day.   When all these things are put together, the result is a genetically mongrelized industry.

 

It is my firm belief that the remnants of the genetic reversion processes from all these ambitious directions are what end up on the packers floor and accounts for not only "the variability in weight of cuts", but the immense increase in the variability in our breeds and herds.   The industry simply reaps what it sows.

 

From this point of view, rather than protecting "the wonderful beef industry as we know it", I would rather see us improve it.   Obviously, we cannot improve both the efficiency and consistency of beef production with mongrelized genetics based on an ever widening range of EPD averages.    We must learn how to maximize efficiency instead of traits.   Rigid culling is an inefficient way to improve the profitability of a commercial cow herd.   Without improving the genotypic uniformity of a cow herd, there can be no consistency in what they produce, whether it be a straightbred or a hybrid.

 

Consequently, from personal experience, I can tell you trying to encourage a chaotic industry to develop stabile parent lines with :"depth of breeding" to improve commercial consistency and efficiency is like fighting a tank with a BB gun.   As the traditional habits of the industry continue, the real end results speak for themselves.

 

While it is human nature to blame someone else for our woes, I do not hold the mismanagement of today's available cattle as being solely responsible for the industry's dilemma... I attribute the greater blame to the short-sighted seedstock suppliers who should be in the horse racing business instead of the beef business, and all those who support these ever changing, over-promoted "one size fits all" directions by the numbers.

 

Instead of just listing the "EPD ingredients", perhaps it would be a step forward if the promoters of trait leaders would follow the pharmaceutical practice, who promote their pills and at the same time are required to issue warnings of the potential side effects therefrom.    The beef industry will eventually recognize that the cyclic pills of change we take to cure our ills are often worse than the disease.    We know how to cure the disease, so is the trait of the survival of the fittest mechanisms, human greed, what is stopping us from doing it?

 

Sincerely,Larry Leonhardt