Most consumers are satisfied with the choices available to them when it comes to purchasing beef products. However, conflicting messages from anti-agriculture activists, media and even the celebrity community can make a trip to the grocery store a daunting task.

There has been a lot of focus in recent years on improved stockmanship and low-stress handling of livestock. Efforts to teach principles of handling have been done a lot of different ways.

The adoption level of Beef Quality Assurance (BQA) program guidelines by the cattle industry has primarily been evaluated at harvest via the National Beef Quality Audit (NBQA), at processing through injection site blemish audits or on cattle operations by small local or regional surveys.

One of my favorite magazines is the National Junior Livestock Exhibitor, and it’s not just because they have carried my column for years. It’s just that underneath my cowboy exterior lies the heart of a steer jock. I enjoy looking at pictures of winning show steers. I always have. While other boys’ bedrooms were filled with pictures of baseball players, every spare inch of my room was covered with newspaper and magazine clippings of winning show steers. Even after I reached puberty – about my first year of college, I think it was – I thought more of steers than I did girls. I’ve had more dates with Angus than I ever did with women.

Stew and I were talking about the world we grew up in. A time when family had a much greater influence on children than they do today. We grew up before cable television, texting, iTunes, unavoidable soft porn, misogynistic vulgar rap, instantaneous news, a sense of entitlement and electronic isolation. Both of our folks were Bible Belt believers and played music. I’ll let you decide whether it was better or worse; we all have our own story. But I think we’d agree it was a simpler upbringing. In both our growing-ups, cussing was not allowed. Stew was raised in the bootheel of Missouri, and his family were farmers. Grandpa was the patriarch, stern but compassionate. Grandma’s pride was her bountiful garden. She would not allow a tractor or roto-tiller in her garden for fear of oil or gas contamination of the soil.

Ranchers look at cattle, equipment, fences and buildings as investments. Needs are determined, requirements discussed and cost and return are analyzed before they are purchased or built. Ranch employees are also a ranch investment.

Charged with highlighting the effects of the deemphasized decision-making process behind breeding decisions at the commercial level, Western Kentucky University faculty Nevil Speer opened the 2013 Beef Improvement Federation (BIF) Symposium in Oklahoma City.

Officials at Gallagher North America, a producer of animal management systems, say that this summer the company will donate 1 percent of all participating dealer purchases of its fencing products and scales to the nonprofit organization, Armed Forces Foundation (AFF). The two have partnered for “Save Our Troops,” a program that aims to help America’s servicemen and women.