K-State Beef Conference
“Critical Thinking”
August 12, 2010
Greg Henderson
“Critical Thinking”
“Critical thinking is the identification and
evaluation of evidence to guide decision making.
A critical thinker uses broad in-depth analysis of
evidence to make decisions and communicate
his/her beliefs clearly and accurately.” - The
Critical Thinking Co.
“Critical
thinking is reasonable, reflective thinking that is
focused on deciding what to believe and do.”
Robert H. Ennis, Author of The Cornell Critical Thinking Tests
FOR SALE: 1995 Ford F-250, 4-door, long-bed, 7.3 liter turbo diesel
pickup. 169,000 miles. “She’ll pull anything you put behind her!”
Know your customer
The Chicago Daily Drovers Journal
Since January 11, 1873
America's oldest livestock periodical
Harvey Goodall launched the Chicago Daily
Drovers Journal in 1873, just ten years after
the Chicago Stockyards opened for business.
Mr. Goodall gathered prices on the cattle
trading in the yards and published them in
the daily newspapers that were mailed
throughout the Midwest. Other market
newspapers sprang up in river market cities
such as St. Louis, St. Joseph, Peoria and
Kansas City. The Neff family acquired the
paper in 1917 and merged it with their
Kansas City Drovers Telegram.
Today’s average Drovers reader has:
381 beef cows
431 stocker cattle
1,188 fed cattle marketed
7,230 acres owned/leased
Education level of Drovers’ readers:
68 percent have at least some college
25 percent have a college degree
9 percent have a graduate degree
“I saw great businesses become but a
ghost of a name because someone
thought they could be managed just as
they were always managed, and though
the management may have been most
excellent in its day, its excellence
consisted in its alertness to its day, and
not its slavish following of its
yesterdays.”
Source: My Life and Work (Henry Ford)
Change
Daily Google searches
2000
100 million
2010
2 billion
Text messages
2000
400,000
2010
4.5 billion
Books Published
2000
2010
282,242
1,052,803
Daily newspapers
2000
1,480
2010
1,302
CD sales revenue
2000
$943 million
2010
$428 million
iTunes downloads
2000
0
2010
10 billion
Broadcast Media Has Changed
America’s most trusted
newscaster: July 16, 1979
America’s most trusted
newscaster: July 22, 2009
Source: TIME magazine, 07-22-09
Changes in agriculture
Average corn yield per acre
1950
1980
39 bu/acre
153 bu/acre
Beef production
1980
111,242,000
21.469
449
$40.7
2009
million cattle
94,521,000
billion pounds
25.951
lbs./beef per cow 632
billion retail value $80.6
-15%
+21%
+41%
+98%
Consumers often have misguided perceptions about foods.
Consumers Have Misconceptions
Source, The Onion
Your New Customer is:
 Better educated
 Pushed for time
 Conscious of food industry trends and issues
 Far removed from production agriculture
 Commutes an average of 25 minutes one-way
 79.8 percent live in metropolitan areas
Prepare for change
Conduct a
SWOT
analysis
SWOT Analysis
Annual analysis of your business
• Strengths
• Weaknesses
• Opportunities
• Threats
Strengths
 Employees/family
 Genetics
 Facilities
 Forage availablity / pastures
 Marketing
Weaknesses
 Age of cow herd
 Facilities
 Marketing strategies
 Equipment
 Organization
Opportunities
What opportunities are available to you?
• Genetic improvements
• Pasture improvements/acquisitions
• New employees
• New ventures – recreation, hunting, fishing
• Strategic partnerships – feedyards, other cow-calf
producers
Threats
What current and future threats does your operation
face?
• Age/retirement of manager CEO
• Financial
• Loss of resources – rented land/pastures
• Declining demand for product
• Marketing issues / local, regional, national
Meet your challenges
 Animal welfare
 Marketing issues
 Diet/health
 Environmental
Diet/health
Meatless Mondays
The Meatless Monday campaign is backed by some
public health advocates, chefs and suburban moms in
an effort to reduce consumption of too much saturated
fat.
Sid Lerner
50-year advertising career on Madison Avenue.
Creator of “Squeeze the Charmin” campaign, where
grocery shoppers can’t keep their hands off the
“irresistibly soft” Charmin toilet paper.
Consumer questions
 Where does my meat come from?
 How was it raised?
 What is the impact on the environment?
Beef’s water footprint
“One of the biggest advantages of cutting back on meat
consumption is the reduction in the water demand,”
says environmentalist Peter Gleick of the Pacific
Institute.
“It takes 140,000 bathtubs full of water to produce 1 ton
of beef.”
Outrageous claims
“A pound of beef takes anywhere from 2,500 to 6,000
gallons of water to produce.”
- Stanford professors Paul R. and Anne H. Ehrlich
Newsweek once reported that the water required to
produce a 1,000-pound steer “would float a destroyer.”
Reality
 A pound of beef requires 441 gallons of water
 A pound of rice requires 403 gallons of water
 A pound of chocolate requires 2,847 gallons of water
Jim Oltjen, department of animal science,
University of California, Davis
Meet the challenges
 Focus on your business
 Evaluate new technology – DNA, etc.
 Evaluate your business practices
(animal welfare, animal handling)
• Think critically