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Each year the Beef Improvement Federation Symposium annual meeting is held in different parts of the country, allowing beef producers to meet and discuss ways to improve their product. This year the meeting is being held in Knoxville. Troy Rowan with the University of Tennessee discusses the importance of this meeting, and how improving cattle genetics has become one of the main topics at the meeting.
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As farmers work to finish planting this year's crops, we have a conversation with Eric Snodgrass, the Senior Science Fellow for Nutrien Ag Solutions about the volatile Spring weather and his predictions for the Summer.
Nutrien Ag Solutions
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We visit with Rob Holland, Director of the Center for Profitable Agriculture, to discuss the impact of value-added agriculture to Tennessee's ag economy.
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The University of Tennessee College of Veterinarian Medicine has announced that former graduate and Sevier County native Dr. Paul Plummer has been selected as the new Dean of the college.
UTIA press release -
Tennessee's State Veterinarian Dr. Samantha Beaty discusses the recent outbreaks of the Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI) detected in dairy cattle in five states and the movement restrictions of cattle coming into Tennessee.
Order of the State Veterinarian -
Our conversation with Andy Holt, Assistant Commissioner with the Tennessee Department of Agriculture, as he just returned with others from an international trade mission to India on behalf of the Tennessee forest products industry.
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On this episode of Root of the Matter Thomas Capps had a conversation with now retired Tennessee Department of Agriculture livestock grader Mack Moss. Moss had an over 35 year career with TDA grading cattle all across the state. Moss details what it's meant to him to have this position for all of these years, and why he believes the work he and his team did is so important.
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On this episode of Root of The Matter Thomas Capps spoke with Tennessee Cattlemen's Association President Dustin Pearson on the latest issues facing the beef cattle industry. A stocker operator in Washington County, Pearson discusses first hand how farmland loss is one of the biggest issues impacting producers across the state, and how high input costs remain an issue too.
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We recently caught up with Tennessee Cattlemen's Executive Vice President Charles Hord at the TCA Annual Meeting. Thomas Capps spoke with him about why it's important for beef producers to meet, and about the issues facing the cattle industry.
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American Farm Bureau President Zippy Duvall sits down with Lee Maddox to recap the American Farm Bureau Convention and to discuss the importance of passing a farm bill in 2024.
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Justin Hargrove of Benton County is the 2024 AFBF YF&R Excellence In Ag winner. Hargrove explains what it means to him to win this competition and bring home a national title to Tennessee.
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Matthew McClanahan is the 2024 AFBF Young Farmers & Ranchers Discussion Meet Competition winner. McClanahan explains what it means to hime to win this national title and bring it back home to Tennessee.
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Trade is essential to farmers and their bottom line. Prior to the pandemic trade was volatile with the trade war with China, but stabilized after. Now US exports are declining at the largest rate since those numbers have been recorded. Dr. Andrew Muhammad explains why this is happening, and what it means for Tennessee farmers.
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Patrick Mudge is the CEO of cooler company Icey-Tek. Earlier in life Mudge served in the military & experienced tragedy and loss. Those combined experiences lead him down the path of becoming Icey-Tek CEO & traveling across the country speaking to Gold Star Families. He also has a passion for farming & ensuring the next generation takes their place in the industry to continue producing food & fiber. Mudge spoke to the Tennessee Young Farmers & Ranchers about how important they are & why they should never give up.
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Smith County's Kyle Owen has been selected as Tennessee's Farmer of the Year and will represent the state in Sunbelt Ag Expo Southeastern Farmer of the Year contest in Moultrie, Georgia.
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Jacob Massey, from Petersburg, Tenn., was named champion at the 2023 World Livestock Auctioneer Championship (WLAC). This was the 59th WLAC held this year at Arcadia Stockyard in Arcadia, Fla., and presented by the Livestock Marketing Association.
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A conversation with Loudon County Farm Bureau President Joe Alexander as he opens up about his memories as a platoon leader during the Viet Nam War, the ultimate sacrifices of his fallen brothers and his hope to preserve our freedoms and encourage others to share their stories.
Lee Maddox: So joining me now on Root of the Matter is Mr. Joe Alexander from Loudon County. Mr. Joe, how you doing today? Thanks for being with us.
Joe Alexander: I'm doing really well today and thank you for, for asking.
Lee Maddox: Yes, sir. We're getting ready to celebrate kind of a holiday that has been around our country for for many years, and rightfully so Memorial Day. And I know it's a it's a special day and a special special tribute for you, as a former service man. And even more so than that. Before you were in the military, you were a farmer growing up, and I think that had a lot to do with the man you are today. But I would say your military experience as well has, has kind of molded you into who you are today. Right?
Joe Alexander: Yes, Lee it has. And I did grow up in the farming world and, and I found later in my life, how important my youth in farming, how well it served me as a soldier and in life in general. The I was had the good fortune of being involved in farming and agriculture as a youth and it had such a tremendous impact on me, and especially my military career.
Lee Maddox: Take us back to where you were raised. And about that farm you're referring to tell me about growing up where it was that and what kind of farming was it?
Joe Alexander: Yes, I worked on my grandfather's farm. We've been in the family since around 1810 here in the Lenoir City or near Lenoir City in Loudon County. And my family historically had been farmers and my father was fortunate enough to get a college degree became a teacher of vocational agriculture. And he continued to farm as well as been a teacher and every day of my life after school on weekends on holidays, it every possible time my father took me to the farm, and we work on that farm in the summer months we work and I did have my grandfather and finally, just my father. And it it gave me so much, I guess traits and qualities that we've been doing me the rest of my life
Lee Maddox: That's not an unlike us story we hear today you have an ag teacher and their kids growing up on a farm. Unfortunately, there's just not as many kids growing up on farms today. But the ones that do are in that same similar situation as you were as as a youth you you learned the values of hard work and responsibility and and and then eventually you know that kind of led towards patriotism right?
Joe Alexander: It certainly did and and so many things as a farmer you learn you know, one is that if you you do everything you can you do everything right in farming, you plant the seed, if the rain doesn't come then you don't have a crop and you have to you'd have to endure that and have to come at a continue again the next year and keep doing it not to give up and those kinds of things were so critical in not most my life but particularly in my military service as a as a patriot in our country.
Lee Maddox: And you talked about it not raining there's there's also those times when you when you get too much rain, right so you never know the weather is always going to play a factor on on how successful or unsuccessful a farm maybe
Joe Alexander: You're exactly right. And you just don't give up. You just keep plowing you keep holding or you, you keep replanting and and if there's too much rain or not enough rain or whatever the case may be, you just don't give up and you you just you just didn't do the hardships and you plan you find ways to survive you do
Lee Maddox: So obviously Mr. Joe, you are your father was a was a ag teacher and you went so high school and and you knew that he had gotten his college degree and and that's something that you wanted to pursue as well. -
The clay shooting sports events, Shooting Hunger, has raised enough money to provide more than two million meals to feed Tennesseans in need. Shooting Hunger is an event put on by the Tennessee Farm Bureau, Farm Credit Mid-America, Rural First, and the Tennessee Farmers Co-op. In recent years the money raised has been distributed to all 95 counties to go towards the backpack program, which sends food home with kids in need. Jessica Johnson coordinates the backpack program in Rutherford County. She says without the money from Shooting Hunger, kids would go hungry.
Thomas Capps
Joining us now on Root of The Matter is Jessica Johnson with Rutherford County Schools. And Jessica, you're here at the Rutherford County Farm Bureau today and y'all are doing something really cool. Y'all are packaging food for the backpack program here. And of course, Farm Bureau, and really a lot of different ag organizations have been a big help with that over the last couple of years with the shooting hunger event. Tell me a little bit about what exactly y'all are doing here and really what the backpack program is.
Jessica Johnson
Okay. So, again, like you said, thank you, first of all for having me. So my name is Jessica Johnson and I am with the homeless education program with Rutherford County Schools. Currently, we have over 1,300 students that are considered homeless in our community that attends Rutherford County Schools. And our backpack program gives food to our students, so they have food to go home with for the weekend, we know that our students because the majority of their food, from our schools, breakfast and lunch, and we know that when they're not with us, their nutrition is often not available. So the backpack program is crucial to keeping our kids fed and shooting hunger. We've been working together and continue to work together and if they just help us keep our kids keep their nutrition in their bodies in so we know that they're going to be taken care of over the weekend. It's just we're grateful for this partnership that we have with shooting hunger.
Thomas Capps
So that number again, how many homeless students do you have?
Jessica Johnson
Over 1,300. That students living in motels, some living in cars, some living in shelters, transitional housing, and just moving from home to home?
Thomas Capps
I mean, that's just an unbelievable, really, I mean, you know, we we don't really imagine that we know the need is there. But 1300. That's, that's a big number. And with without this program, as you mentioned, a lot of these kids wouldn't have anything to eat, right?
Jessica Johnson
You're correct. So our numbers are up by 300 of this time last year. And the food that they we give them is easy to prepare food, so things that they can put in the microwave, because we know that you know we even have preschool students that are in this program, and they might not have someone at home that can assist them. So we want to make sure that whatever we're giving them is meeting their hunger need is somewhat nutritious, and it's I can prepare, so guess our backpack meals also fits in a backpack. So that's where the backpack meal comes from. So we either slip it in their backpack, so it's, it's a private situation, not everyone knows what's going on at their home where they're staying, or it's in a bag, so nobody knows what's in it.
Thomas Capps
That school will be out of session in another month or so is this something that you all are able to do year round? And how do you make that happen year round.
Jessica Johnson
So Rutherford County, my positions moving into a full year position, because like you said, students are hungry all year, it doesn't stop just because school is on. And so we have a lunch program where we have schools that are open for breakfast and lunch on the north and the south ends of the county, but students have to be able to get there. But we will also be giving food up during summer schools ... -
Charley Martinez and his team at UTIA have been conducting research on the amount of farmland we've lost in Tennessee. They now have hard data, and the numbers are staggering.
Thomas Capps
So joining us now on root of the matter is Charlie Martinez with UT and Charlie, y'all have been looking at the numbers for farmland loss for several months now. And we've got some numbers in what What have y'all come up with over the last several months.
Charley Martinez
So we've of course been going through looking at different data sets, the number of acres that have been converted out of agriculture production, it depends on what data set you're looking at. So for instance, crops gate data, which comes from USDA, NASS, they estimate that we've lost around 86,000 acres a year for the past four years, five years. Actually, if you look at comptroller data, and you look at that, from the comptroller treasury, here in Tennessee, we're averaging 34 34,000 acres a year that we've lost the last five years. And so we're getting a wide range of variation in terms of how much we've been losing, to, you know, out of, you know, out of production, I think, regardless of the of what dataset you're looking at, the big thing is that we are still losing data at a high rate. And it depends upon what county or what region of Tennessee that you're in east versus West versus middle. And the one thing that we're excited about the most is that we've collected parcel of a data from tax assessor's offices offices across the state. And we're on our way to having a data set that's going to have parcel of a data that allows us to look not only just at an aggregate state level, or, or by county, for instance, but then we can actually dive into regions of a county that might be nearing, you know, the Nashville area. And you know, how was that land, what land what type all that stuff, we're on the right track. And it's, I wish we could already have it done today. But it's just taking time and effort. And it's not just me it's CTAS and UT as well, they've been tremendously helpful in getting data. It's other colleagues in our department, that we've really worked hard, and our grad students and our undergrad students have really helped us. And so it's just taking time. I wish we could fast forward it. But I think we're, we're well on our way on the right on the right path.
Thomas Capps
So we have the the numbers of how much we're losing, is the why factor. Is that something that you all are going to eventually try and dive into as well?
Charley Martinez
Yes. So you know, the why factor, it's when it comes to agriculture, we know that there are producers that will sell their land whenever they're ready to retire, because that's basically like a 401k for them. And so we know that that's part of it. Another part of it's going to be the low profitability over the past couple of years in agriculture. And so that's driving it, but the y part of it, it could be regionally based in terms what I'm what I mean by that it could be a city that wanting to build schools and needed and it for school zones, it could be an area that wants to build more residential area, you know, have more residential area have more things of that nature. But we also know that there's industrial, there's commercial growth in certain areas as well. If you think about West Knoxville, and the Farragut area and things like that, that those have all changed over the last 20 years. And so the why is is going to be something that we're chasing, but not only the why, but what does it mean for the Tennessee economy is what we really want to know what does it mean, as this land has gone out? We know it's not going to be even and we know we have the blue of city coming. What's that? What's that going to look like in the future? That's what we really want to know.
Thomas Capps
I mean, that's a good point, because these are large numbers. And that's before Blue Oval city is built. -
On this episode we talk with Matt Niswander, a first generation cattle farmer in Lawrence County and owner of Niswander Family Medicine, who recently testified before Congress during a Subcommittee on Health for the House Ways and Means Committee.
Link to Hearing: Why Health Care is Unaffordable: Fallout of Dem's Inflation on Patients and Small Businesses - Visa fler
