Student travel fellowship

First day of the Schedule
Thanks the International Stockmen’s Educational Foundation (ISEF) I had the chance to be one of the twelve students with Student travel Fellowship to attend the congress. Through the student program prepared by ISEF, the experience not only included the conference but also a tour to the National Western Stock Show, the King Sooper case-ready Processing Plant, and theNational Cattlemen’s Beef Association (NCBA).
On the first day of the program, we went to the King Sooper Case-Ready Processing Plant. It wasn’t my first time in a food processing plant, but it was my first in a case-ready plant type. The tour allowed me to see and fallow a process adding value to the meat product. Through many different beef presentation, King Soopers goes to the groceries storesgiving more choices to the final costumer to satisfy its food demand. The second activity of that first day program follow the same line because the tour took the group to the NCBA where we have demonstration of beef cuts and dishes presentation followed by interesting presentation from Dr. Gary Smith and Dr. Daryl Tatum. Here I cannot leave to mention that comparing to the Asociacion Rural delParaguay, a kind of Paraguayan version of the NCBA; I think both associations have a lot of knowledge to share in a beneficial course and hope the future gives the chance of that.

Second day of the Schedule
The second day of the program was the conference day at the ballroom of the Renaissance Hotel, and it was at this place where meet many of the most important people of the U.S. beef businessand industry as attendees as well as speakers.
Right after the welcome speech by the organizers, Dr. Lowell Catlett gave a very entertaining as well informative introduction to the conference in a presentation entitled “Globalization of the Beef Business”. He not only identified some important trends to take care about in reference to the beef business, and he also explained it in a simple andfunny way to make everyone understand it.
The morning continued with the topic entitled “Global Beef Market Drivers”. Mexico, U.S.A., and Europe markets where discussed by Ramon Lozano the Vice President of RYC Alimentos-Mexico, Charlie Winters the Vice President of Fresh Meat and Deli, division of Costco Wholesale the fifth largest retailer in U.S.A., and Monty Brown a processing retailconsultant of the US Meat Export Federation (USMEF). John Lundeen, NCBA Executive Director of Market Research, closed the topic. The panelists drive the audience to the different tastes and preferences in markets around the world, showing key aspects of markets tendencies and how those differences conduct the beef meat demand.
That day the lunch time was special though. During the time the people wereenjoying the lunch, Deborah Perkins, from Rabobank International, gave a description of world economy situation, a sort of informative luncheon. But what impressed me more was that I shared the table with Ms. Rosemary Mucklow, a remarkable woman in the beef industry. So there I was having a nice conversation with a person that is making history in the U.S. beef sector. I keep that moment as one ofthe most important and significantly to me. Also it was special how the attendees distinguished the group of ISEF travel fellowship recipients.
After lunch and back to the ballroom for the conference, the seminar continued with two informative sessions. The first was about one of the latest and somehow controversial U.S.A. policies, the country of origin labeling (COOL). Dr. Derrel Peel fromOklahoma State University and Burton Eller Vice President of NCBA gave a presentation about the implications of this new Rule, effective in 2009. The next presentation was about new technologies advances and its contribution to cattle raisers. The title of the presentation was New Generation Growth Technologies, Where do they fit? By Herb Meischen, Vice President, Strategy &Customer Development of...