By TIM THORNBERRY
Kentucky Correspondent

CYNTHIANA, Ky. — Beef production has long been a staple in the state’s agriculture industry. With more than 1.16 million beef cows and a total cattle inventory of approximately 2.40 million head, Kentucky is the largest cattle producing state east of the Mississippi.

From an economical engine standpoint, Cattle producers here generated more than $605 million dollars in cash sale receipts in 2007.

With all that said, the Kentucky Beef Council is presenting its “Meat” Your Neighbor Tour as a way to bring people to the farm to see firsthand what beef production is all about.

The event will also coincide with the 40th anniversary of Earth Day as a way to recognize the fact that farmers are and have always been good stewards of the land said Alison Smith, marketing director of the Kentucky Beef Council.

“With the 40th anniversary of Earth Day right around the corner and more and more consumers wondering how their food is produced, Kentucky beef farmers want to take an opportunity to reach out to them,” she said. “Although, we celebrate Earth Day once a year, beef farmers celebrate Earth Day everyday! They are ‘everyday environmentalists’ because they know that in order to be able to raise livestock and crops on the farm they must take care of it.”
Smith also said the tour will provide consumers, media, health influencers, farmers, retailers, and restaurateurs the opportunity to ask the farmers questions and experience what it is like to raise cattle.

“The tour also helps to show that no matter what choice of beef they enjoy, conventional, natural, organic, grass-finished, local or from the grocery store, they can be assured that it is all safe and wholesome and that a farmer or a farm family worked hard to provide it for them,” she said.

There will actually be two separate tours, the first taking place April 14 in Bourbon County and the second, which is being presented in conjunction with the Kentucky Dietetic Assoc., on April 21 in Bowling Green.

The Bourbon County tour will feature four producers who raise a variety of beef types and follow best environmental practices such as rotational grazing, installed water systems, fenced-off ponds. They also participate in the Animal ID Program and the national Beef Quality Assurance Program.

Glenn Mackie, who serves as the University of Kentucky College of Agriculture County Extension agent for agriculture and natural resources in Bourbon County said with the decline in tobacco farming, beef production has taken a more prominent role in that area.

“This was one of the leading counties in tobacco and that has decreased over the last 10 years by 80 percent so there is more emphasis on other farming and beef cattle production has been one of those,” he said. “The farms we’ll go to have produced tobacco in the past, but we’ll have only one farm that is still in tobacco production.”

Mackie added that participants on the tour will travel from farm to farm by way of a bus starting and ending at the extension office.
That lone tobacco/beef producer is John and Melody Sparks who own 218 acres and lease 700 acres to raise 900 head of stocker calves, 40 acres of burley tobacco, and 100 acres of alfalfa hay. The couple also has one-third interest in an additional 750-acre stocker cattle operation.

“It’s all about forage for us. We don’t use any feed. We try to spend all our money and time on water and forage because that’s what it takes to run the cattle effectively,” said Sparks, a fourth-generation farmer.

The operation will have between 1,300 and 1,400 head of cattle during peak times on grass which means you have to have a lot of grass.

“That’s the key. We’re blessed. There are probably very few places in the world that you can raise grass like we can in this area,” Sparks said. “I am the steward of this land and get to manage it while we’re here. It doesn’t take a lot of equipment or use of fossil fuels to do what we are doing, this is very sustainable agriculture.”
All the ponds and creeks on the farm are fenced off and enrolled in the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) program ensuring a portion of the land will serve as a natural habitat and preservation area.

Colcord Farm owned by Carlton Colcord will be another stop on the Bourbon County tour. The 265-acre farm managed by Bryan Carroll is home to 70 cow/calf pairs, 30 stocker calves, and 25 head of grass-finished steers. The farm has a rotational grazing system and is currently developing a genetic line of cattle designed to thrive in a forage-only environment. It is also certified organic.
“That’s kind of the aspect we bring to the tour. We currently grass-finish steers and retail those to local farmers’ markets and grocery stores and we do that under the branded beef name of Blue Grass Finished Beef,” said Carroll. “The tour is an opportunity for anybody involved from one end to the other of the spectrum in beef, to see what goes on in the county and how we are involved.”
He also said that the farm is at the stage where their cows never leave the farm except for processing. “As far as buying locally, this is about as local as it get,” said Carroll.

Auvergne Farm owned by Berle and Brenda Clay will be one of the more historic stops as the farm dates back to 1782.

Jason Sandefur serves as manager overseeing 225 head of commercial cow/calf pairs, 170 head of bred heifers and 500 head of stocker cattle on 1,250-owned acres and 250-rented acres.
Besides its historic importance, CRP has been implemented on about 70 acres of the farm with over 30 acres of riparian forest buffers planted with tree seedlings to improve water quality. Auvergne is also home to an eight-acre wildlife habitat created through the Wildlife Habitat Improvement Program (WHIP) that provides shelter and water to numerous animals.

“This is an all forage-based operation and over the years we’ve put in about 25,000 to 30,000 feet of water lines. That helps us to move the cattle around where we can utilize the forage we’ve got. It doesn’t matter how good the forage is, if you don’t have the water there to be able to utilize it, you’re not getting much,” said Sandefur.

He also said that in participating in the tour, he hopes some light can be shed on some preconceived ideas some may have about production agriculture.

“We just really want to tell our story about agriculture. We’ve got a good one to tell, we just don’t tell it often enough,” said Sandefur.
Brenda Paul will host the group on her farm which is basically a stocker/back- grounding operation to the tune of approximately 2,000 head during summer grazing season. The operation also has a commercial herd of 600 head. The farm encompasses 2,000 owned acres and another 1,500 to 1,800 rented acres.

For more information, visit the KBC website at www.kybeef.com or contact Smith at 859-285-0204.