Practically Ranching
Join Matt Perrier as he visits weekly with interesting, thoughtful, entertaining individuals within the beef community. Conversations will inspire curiosity and creativity while maintaining the independent spirit and practical nature for which ranchers are known.
Practically Ranching
#83 - Chandler Keys, Cross-Pollination in the Industry
Chandler Keys grew up on a family farm in Maryland. In addition to helping his family raise purebred Angus cattle and grow various grain crops, he was active in 4-H and other agriculture clubs. After earning his Bachelor’s degree from the University of Maryland, Chandler held an entry level position with National Cattlemen's Beef Association (NCBA). Over the next two decades, Chandler stayed with NCBA and moved up within the organization. He became the Vice President for Government and Industry Relations where he led the 20+ staff in the Washington DC office. Chandler then took his leadership to Swift & Company, later JBS, until he began Keys Group in 2012. Chandler and his family live in Maryland.
Hi there, and thanks for joining us for episode 83 of Practically Ranching. I'm Matt Perrier, and we're here thanks to Dalebanks Angus, your home for Practical. Profitable. Genetics. since 1904. It's been a cold few days over most of cattle country and our prayers are with all of you that are caring for the land and the livestock. Uh, always, but especially during weather like this. Hope you're hanging in there fine. And if calving season has started, I hope it's going well thus far. You know, we went from a guest in our last episode with whom I'd guess that most of you can relate to a city girl turned ranch wife who talked about the trials and tribulations of being transplanted from the city and the suburbs to rural Kansas when she married a farm kid decades ago....to this week's guest, a career lobbyist who's worked in DC for over 40 years. And he's represented parts of the beef industry, supply chain that would be fairly foreign in a lot of different words, um, to most of us here in farms and ranches across the Midwest. So if you just looked at Chandler Keys client list and his resume, you might not think that he's anywhere close to Carolyn Perrier in his love and dedication for ranching and the farming way of life in rural America. But I think you'd be wrong. You know, in this episode we talk about the obvious topics. I figured we would hit these foreign ownership of processing companies, imported cattle, um, imported beef, the challenges of a low margin business like the processing segment. We talk about lobbyists and how legislative affairs and communication with our elected officials and bureaucrats in DC have changed throughout the decades. But somewhere along the way, Chandler brings up a couple of things that, honestly, I didn't see coming. The challenges of consolidation in the cow calf segment. The value that romance and tradition and legacy in that pasture part of the beef industry, uh, hold for our industry. the need to keep these small to mid-sized cattle producers on the farms and ranches across the us. Chandler talks about, the need to better understand all of the different segments within the beef industry and, and try to get some of the emotion and the passion that all of us have set to the side as we try to make decisions that that can positively or sometimes negatively affect our industry. You know, quite often, probably all too often, we put industry leaders into kind of a bucket or a stereotype. You know, he represents this segment or that association. She's for another one, and so on and so forth. Guys like Chandler have dealt with this for decades, but as he talks about his commitment to giving each of us in all segments, the opportunity to see the other segments and understand what the challenges are for him or her in that business. It becomes apparent that all of us can benefit from doing just what Chandler terms in this episode, getting more cross pollination in our industry. You know, Chandler's dad, Gordy passed away two or two and a half years ago, and I had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Keys a couple different times. I can assure you that Chandler's wit and his passion and his huge dedication to the beef business are clearly genetic, and they were cultivated by his family through the decades and, and, um, they're definitely a family trait. I, I had seen it in the past in Chandler and I saw it even more this time We got to catch up. So I thought this was a really fun and honestly a very necessary conversation as we see the beef industry grow and transition over these next few years. I hope you enjoy it as well as we get the chance to catch up with Chandler Keys. Did you get the kids, uh, to school on time?
chandler-guest464_3_01-22-2026_094115:Yeah. Yeah.
matt_3_01-22-2026_084115:Before the big winter storm,
chandler-guest464_3_01-22-2026_094115:and then Chelsea's, my wife is leaving to go to California on Saturday morning, so I'm. I'm gonna be here for the blizzard with three kids, three dogs. So
matt_3_01-22-2026_084115:Oh, Chandler, I, uh,
chandler-guest464_3_01-22-2026_094115:this I gotta go get some more firewood and,
matt_3_01-22-2026_084115:if, if only I could have envisioned this, um, 30 years ago. I, I gotta admit I didn't see it coming.
chandler-guest464_3_01-22-2026_094115:no, I didn't either. And boy, it's here now.
matt_3_01-22-2026_084115:It's awesome.
chandler-guest464_3_01-22-2026_094115:I'm not, I'm just glad I'm not changing diapers anymore.
matt_3_01-22-2026_084115:There you go. There you go. I think that's good. Well, for those who may not have gotten to work with you or know you, give us just a little condensed, history of your professional career and, and, what brought you to DC and, and what you've done over the years. Then we'll drill down a little deeper as we go.
chandler-guest464_3_01-22-2026_094115:yeah, I, um, thanks a lot Matt. I, um. I grew up on a farm 20 miles north and east of Washington, DC. We farmed at the end. We were farming almost 3000 acres. family on my father's side has been farming in Maryland, in livestock, in grains and things, tobacco the mid 16 hundreds.
matt_3_01-22-2026_084115:Wow.
chandler-guest464_3_01-22-2026_094115:So had a lot of agricultural blood in me. Um. And I went to University of Maryland, graduated from there. And, um, NCA at the time, the Cattleman Association in DC was, um, expanding their Washington office. Uh, and they wanted to hire a couple junior lobbyists, um, help them on the hill. uh, they hired myself and Alan Soba, who's a fellow Kansan. Um, and we started the first. We started about the 1st of November in 1984 working for NCBA and I stayed at NCBA for 20 years, in their Washington office. The 10 of those 20, I ran the Washington office, about 20 to 25 people at any given time. Um, working on issue areas and political areas, and then. 20 years, I decided to try something else. I got hooked up with Swift and Company Meat Packing Company, which is a spinoff from ConAgra. I stayed there for, 20 years under, Hicks, Muse, tate owned it for a while, and then of course it was sold to JBS, the Brazilians and I worked them for a while. And then I started my own consulting business. over a dozen years ago. And, um, I have a host of clients in the meat and poultry industry, in technology and food production. I'm married, I have three children, 14, 12, and soon to be 10. So I've had a good married, a good Minnesota farm girl. Uh, she worked on the Senate Ag Committee up until recently, and now she's working for the dairy industry. And, um. It's been a great run. I've enjoyed it. And, still, still popping along.
matt_3_01-22-2026_084115:You've seen a lot through those several decades in dc. If you had to pick one thing that's changed the most from November of 84 to now, what is it?
chandler-guest464_3_01-22-2026_094115:it's easy. That's easy. It's the internet and emails. I first started working for NCBA or NCA at the time, you know, we still had secretaries and typewriters and fax machines. We had no cell phones. So every night, after every evening after being on Capitol Hill around town, you'd have to go back to the office and get all your pink slips of all the calls that came in and sit there for an hour, hour and a half, returning phone calls in the afternoon. and then the internet changed everything and the information availability went from being controlled by a few people, like the speaker of the house, majority leader, minority leader, the White House to everybody having access to the information. And, um, it, it, that was the biggest change, and that is continuing to change as we all know. But it was a shock. When it all came and how it all happened in the late eighties, nineties, and then it really exploded in the mid nineties till today.
matt_3_01-22-2026_084115:So along those internet lines and what has changed in DC and everywhere else, a lot of times I think we talk about the change in the public's involvement in the political process being because of this populist movement that we saw with President Trump's first bid for office and some of these things. How much has that part of the internet and the ability to jump online and absolutely go viral in seconds with a post or a tweet or whatever else. How much has that access to politicians and, and lawmakers changed you and other lobbyists jobs?
chandler-guest464_3_01-22-2026_094115:Well, it's just changed the whole dynamic now. Uh, individuals can have a huge sway over, um, policymaking, where it used to be, where trade associations were looked upon as the aggregator of information for policy makers to make decisions on. And now with the internet, particularly with social media and the ability of individuals or small groups of people to access policymakers. is just phenomenal. you can imagine in 1984, maybe 10, 15 people controlled policy process in Washington today. Individuals in any given industry, it's just not agriculture. Agriculture's everything upend decision making processes because policy makers can make the choice to listen to. Small influential crowds versus an aggregate, decision making from the trade association. It's just that's what's changed um, it's a lot of trial and error now. Uh, it's not as careful. I've always said in public policy, be careful what you ask for,'cause you might get it. And now. It's, that's amped up exponentially where individuals, in groups of individuals can have a larger sway than the trade association that was established aggregate, opinion and, um, policymaking decisions. Now, individuals can have just as much, if not more influence.
matt_3_01-22-2026_084115:Where do trade associations fit in this new model?
chandler-guest464_3_01-22-2026_094115:Wow. That's the big question, is how do they fit in? And I think what trade associations are gonna have to do is gonna have to get edgier, and they're have, they're gonna have to get out in front of issues and, um, be more appealing to policy makers, in, in finding solutions to problems. A lot of times the problems may not even be that but because of the internet, can take an issue and run it up the flag pole uh, with hardly any consequences for their actions. So if it catches fire, it catches fire. If it doesn't, then you just stoke up the stove for another fire shot and see if it sticks. Does that make sense? I mean, it's. Trade associations by nature cautious in their ask. Now, they're competing with people in the, in the policymaking realm that can just throw stuff out there and see if it sticks, and if it doesn't, just throw another thing out there and see if it sticks.
matt_3_01-22-2026_084115:It, it both makes sense and scares the tar out of folks. Um, and, and, and on the flip side of it excites others because yes, all of a sudden, um, if you have an issue, if you have enough. Social media following and ability to, to make that into something that people will watch and share and, and interact with. Um, you can get things done and never have to be a joiner. And I don't know that we've seen that ever in history, maybe since 1770 something. But, um, yeah, it's, it's wild to see what one person can do with the, uh, uh, a shocking enough message.
chandler-guest464_3_01-22-2026_094115:Yeah. And then the question is if it works and it works well and makes people happy, and it's a success, that's gonna have a bunch of fathers, right? Everybody will join in, more than likely. When you do things haphazardly not think them all the way through in a methodical manner, they blow up. And then the question is, where do you put the accountability? And it's a lot easier putting accountability on trade associations than it is on individuals.
matt_3_01-22-2026_084115:So as we look specifically at the beef industry, you know, I have heard, and I have said for well over a decade, maybe two. That beef producers need to tell our story. Every article you pick up, every podcast you listen to, every association meeting you go to, we've gotta tell our story. And usually, at least in my inter interpretation, that is telling that story to beef consumers, to give them reasons to want to come and buy that steak or roast or ground beef. But telling that story to the political side of things is also a part of that. And they're seeing that, or their staffers are seeing that post or whatever else. And so that's one more piece. I mean, now, instead of just trade associations, we get to talking about our promotion alarms, like the beef checkoff and, and how does that fit in when, you know, there's tens of thousands of us out here, quote unquote, promoting the beef industry on our Instagram or Snapchat or Facebook page, um, that changes those efforts too. And so, yeah, it, it kind of has become the, the wild, wild West all over again in terms of, industry participants' ability to affect change out there, hopefully positively.
chandler-guest464_3_01-22-2026_094115:Yeah, I mean, look, everybody has a microphone now and, of our business very hard to describe because it's so segmented. I mean, you have the cow calf, producer. Um, they have a calf nine months gestation. The calf is on the cow between five and six months. It's weaned off, it's sold at auction. then stocker operators buy those calves, they put'em on grass until they're a year old. they sell'em again in an open cry auction. and then they get sold to the feeder. The feeder then sells it to the packer animal goes to market it. to slaughter, uh, between 20 and 24 months of age. And then the packer sells it to the retailer and the food service and export companies and, um, that's the chain. Note, we have the animal will change hands between three and four and sometimes five times prior to being consumed. And that's a very hard, um, to describe. Even for in industry, the vast majority of cow calf people have never seen a major feed yard, have never been in a double shift meat packing plant, never been to a, discussion, meeting with a retail on how they price the meat. Whereas the chicken never changes hands. Pork now is more like the chicken industry. very rarely changes hands, maybe once prior to slaughter. we have a interesting industry, but it's very segmented and not many people from the packer doesn't really understand the cow calf guy. The feeder doesn't only deals with the stocker and the packer. So it's, it's hard, to describe the industry to the public and to policymakers. Because we're all very segmented in how we produce beef. it's just, that's the way it is.
matt_3_01-22-2026_084115:The only thing I think is more difficult than describing that industry that segmented, as you called it, interesting, but segmented industry. The only thing harder than describing that to a consumer and to lawmakers is. To work within that industry and get out of this island mentality that the only way I can make a profit is by stealing it from the guy that's buying my calf, or from the guy that raised this calf. Hopefully I can buy a profit and selling it average and, and, um, and because of that. We're still fighting the battles that we were in the mid nineties when we tried to merge several segments of our industry together, um, so that we could communicate better. I, I'm not sure, some days I, I, I know that we do a better job communicating amongst the different segments and, and trying to figure out ways that we can grow the whole industry, not just our segment. But man, it's still tough when we're having to fight those battles internally.
chandler-guest464_3_01-22-2026_094115:Yeah, it, it's, it's, it's easier to fight than it is to cooperate. And, um, I've seen it my whole 40 some odd years of doing this from a policy standpoint. I've seen it from the producer side, I've seen it from the Packer side, um, intimately. And the knowledge of all these segments of one another is very limited. uh, people are anecdotally make shots or take shots without much information. I'll give you example the about, uh, six months ago um, invited LMA. One of their chairman of one of their committees and a group of livestock auction owners to go through a double shift meat packing plant. Not one of those people that sell enormous amount of cattle every year. It's their business and they do a good job of it. Not one of'em had been in a, in a modern beef packing plant before. And they are senior people in the industry, and I'm glad I got'em through. But they came out on the other side. Like"I never knew, I didn't know, uh, the complexity of running a major packing plant." Um, we need to do more of that where people can, um, go in these different segments, get tours, understand the business, because visually that's the only way you can kind of comprehend it. You know, when I, when I say, oh, that plant, um, process is 5,000 head of cattle a day that just rolls off your tongue until you walk in that plant and see 2000 people down on the cut floor. you have or go to the slaughter side. You have no idea. No idea. And, and. The packer doesn't know anything about the cow calf guy'cause he doesn't do business with him. So they just look at data, when they're looking at the industry. And we need to encourage more cross pollination to understand everybody's opportunities and, and issues that we need to address. I, will say this. The one thing I did see that's phenomenal in this industry over my tenure was value-based marketing. When we broke that spell selling on the average and then selling more and more and rewarding more and more, uh, producers that were producing animals that were gonna grow the right rate and produce a marbled product, and we started getting paid for it. Um, boy, we saw the quality of beef go from hardly edible ni late 1970s and eighties to a, a product that has looks right now to have unlimited demand to it, uh, because people like eating it so much.
matt_3_01-22-2026_084115:You know, that's the thing that every cattleman that you ever talk to about doing something differently, changing the way cattle are bought and sold, raised bred,, whatever the case may be. The first thing is who's gonna pay me to do it? There have been times when we did it for the right reasons. BQA would be one that bring, that we talk about ad nauseum, that nobody actually gave you a premium for moving those shots from the round to the neck, but we did it as an industry and added a lot, but every, nearly every other thing, and, and value-based marketing was the driver and those folks that championed that in the early and mid nineties said, we've got to, we've got to incentivize folks to do the right thing, to feed'em right, to breed'em right, to make'em higher quality, more consistent, et cetera, et cetera.
chandler-guest464_3_01-22-2026_094115:was in the room when all this happened. I was there when we put the strategies together and we brought the major packers in. will tell you, Bob Peterson rest his soul, was in a meeting at NCBA and Chuck Lambert, another famous Kansan, was giving a presentation to them on how they should pay, producers to produce a higher quality animal. And Bob Peterson said, don't you worry about that. You grow'em any way you want. I'll Kill'em, kill'em, and sort'em. And that's how I'm gonna make money. I'm not gonna do this value-based marketing. And of course he ended up doing it because other packers decided to do it. the same way with certified Angus beef. that vote was taken in the late seventies and the decision was made to move forward on in the early eighties, everybody laughed at'em. And now look at what three quarters of the herd is black... Has Angus influence in it, uh, because they put value to it and they took a chance. So there's plenty of really good ideas out there that have happened and have, uh, promoted beef in the right direction. I think our problem now is we've worked for 40 years on the demand side, improving the quality of the product exponentially, and we haven't looked at the supply side at all 40 years. said, well, if prices get higher and there's enough moisture, people will retain heifers and we'll grow the herd. We'll still have cycles, but we'll try to flatten'em out a little bit. And now we're in a conundrum that we've got really good prices for calves right now. Extraordinary good prices, particularly if they're high quality animals. um, we're still not seeing heifer retention. So why is that? What's happening? What's making people decide not to keep any heifers and grow this herd back with these higher prices? So I think that needs to be looked into a little bit.
matt_3_01-22-2026_084115:Yeah, I've tried to answer that one or even discussed that one in multiple podcasts, and I, I have my hunches and I think it's multifaceted and very nuanced. I think one of the hindrances is such a recent, relatively speaking, 10 years ago, that people got burnt by overbuilding too quickly'cause they hadn't seen a cattle cycle in 20 or 30 years. And um, some of'em are still trying to pay for that, that blunder, but, or that risk that they took. But there's a lot of others. I mean, the aging, the increasing age of the cattlemen Yeah. Demographics and things like that. So. You, we talk about value-based marketing and all of these different, um, premium programs that have incentivized someone to do what it is that the consumer has indicated that they'll pay for. I have used this quote for 30 years. I don't, I don't know, maybe you've done some work for Hormel Foods, but. I saw one time back when I was still working for the Angus Association that they had a quote that they used probably in the pork industry."What's premium today is commodity tomorrow," and that's something that has stuck with me from the early days in the mid nineties and early two thousands of, of these grids and, and, um, value-based marketing arrangements. Are we reaching that what was premium is commodity Now that we're seeing double digit, prime and, and single digit sometimes select, uh, that's almost going to become no roll here before too long. Most cattle grading choice or higher. What's the next hurdle that that consumer that you see, or even maybe that legislative body that is demanding from us as beef producers, is there something more that's gonna be the next premium?
chandler-guest464_3_01-22-2026_094115:You know, that's a good question. I mean, I think like the Wagyu programs now appealing to even a higher end consumer. is there, I, I've said for a while that I've always thought that maybe Angus is at some tipping point where everything's Angus, how can it be a premium? But it seems to continue to blow forward and move forward. but I think the most important thing is we have to remember that our number one customer is the middle class, working middle class family, and they want a quality product. And they don't wanna have to guess whether it's gonna be quality or not. As long as we keep that quality up and we don't go back commoditizing the product, which we tried to do here over the last decade where people were trying to use legislation to get rid of value-based marketing and go back to a commodity type situation where pounds were the most important thing.
matt_3_01-22-2026_084115:Yeah.
chandler-guest464_3_01-22-2026_094115:We've beaten that back and the consumer is gonna beat that back. If we go back to pounds only not a quality eating product, the they'll, they'll leave us. Uh. Uh, they'll go back to chicken and pork, and ground beef only. So we've gotta constantly be on the lookout for efforts to roll back, um, value-based marketing. But I, I still think there's room to grow. but the question is, are we gonna have the supply? where do we get that point where people say, I'm gonna have a hundred cows. I am gonna have 50 cows.'cause people forget, we have 700,000 cow calf producers in this country. 70% of those cow calf producers grow 30% of our production. And we need those people desperately to stay in the business. we can't do without them. Um, you know, I, the 700,000 cow calf producers, 20,000. Have 200 mother cows or more. so industry, unlike Brazil, and unlike Australia, this industry's backbone the smaller producer and the medium sized producer. And we've gotta bring stability to them where they're, they know that they're gonna get$5 to$6, maybe even$7 a pound for their five weight calves. To encourage them to stay in the business because it'll be profitable for them. And stability, I think is the biggest thing. They need a stable market, stable demand so they can grow or at least stay the same.
matt_3_01-22-2026_084115:So,
chandler-guest464_3_01-22-2026_094115:get out.
matt_3_01-22-2026_084115:so you mentioned that size and you compared it to Brazilian beef supply chain types. From an efficiency standpoint and, and you do work or have done at least in the past, work with a company that has large holdings in Brazil. How on a global market, which we still are in, how do US producers that are running 50 cows or less, even 200 cows or less, how do we produce beef on par, or at least close to with somebody in Brazil who's running 2000 or 20,000 cows.
chandler-guest464_3_01-22-2026_094115:Yeah, I mean that, that's a big question. And people think, well, the Brazilian beef's, all grass fed and Australians grass fed and no one's gonna like it, like ours. Well, all you have to do is look out the genetics improvement that is going into Brazil right now is phenomenal. The amount of semen they're importing from the us. Angus mate, the Angus semen, they're breeding those cows down there, gonna put in feed yards because they have the feed stuffs and they're going to build, um, bigger and modern or plants. way with Australia, their, their growth short grain fed beef is phenomenal a lot of it's gonna come here because of the demand. have for grain fed product. So I think the Brazilians are gonna, they're gonna crack the code. it's just analogous to look at Mexico 40 years ago, the Mexican feeder calf or weanling calf was a joke. Today they are no joke. Their genetics and their cattle are a hundred percent better than they were 40 years ago. And Brazil's gonna do the same way. and, and Australia's already doing it, so that's why I say supply. We just need, no one's going to go out there and invest in a thousand mother cows unless they already have'em. Um, you know, can you imagine going out and try to buy land now and
matt_3_01-22-2026_084115:Yeah.
chandler-guest464_3_01-22-2026_094115:to cash flow cows on it? It's just impossible.
matt_3_01-22-2026_084115:Is that something that the market, and I really hadn't thought about this until we just had this discussion. I I is, is that something that the market is taking into account as we see less expansion? Do we know quietly? I don't think any of us truly realize just how many, uh, US genetics are being imported and used in Brazil right now. But is is the market saying this supply is gonna be met outside of the borders of the United States of America, and really we don't need to be at 30 million cows ever again?
chandler-guest464_3_01-22-2026_094115:Well that's, that's the big question that gets back to the supply. Where's it gonna come from? Are we gonna do it? Are they gonna do it? Somebody's gonna do
matt_3_01-22-2026_084115:Right.
chandler-guest464_3_01-22-2026_094115:Um, because beef is such a popular protein and, um, we've said it for a long time, as the middle glass grows and. In other countries, I mean, look, excuse me, the, the European Union just did a deal with the MEO countries, which is Brazil, um, Paraguay, and Argentina, and maybe even, chiles in there too. But they just did a deal with them, uh, because of the Europeans are not producing enough food for their own people right now because their regulatory burdens are putting on their producers. So they're gonna import more for Brazil or Southern South America. Um, that's just the way it's gonna be.
matt_3_01-22-2026_084115:As we talk about this kind of an issue, no shocker to you, but. Lobbyists, especially those who've worked with Packer processors probably get lumped into this enemy camp, and especially someone who has worked with a, Brazilian owned processing company. Why is it somebody like Chandler Keys says something like, we've gotta find a way to make this market stable enough to keep the little guys running cows. W why would you even utter that? I think it's, it's interesting to me for all the stereotypes and others that might have, that others might have about you and, and the segments that you work with.
chandler-guest464_3_01-22-2026_094115:Because I, I think raising cattle is an integral part of a rural America integral. And, um, we need to encourage it. We need to, lessen the regulatory burden of running cattle on federal lands, on, um, places, uh, where, um, it's under fire. I think it's important for the psyche of America to have a strong and vibrant rural America is raising animal protein. We just got a big shot in the arm the other day with dietary guidelines where we flipped it on its head, and now we're encouraging people to eat red meat, uh, consume saturated fat. Um, and, and that's great. And it's, it's a fight that we've been having for 40 years and we finally have prevailed and we need to encourage that production out in the countryside. and I, I think it's important. I think there's. You know, Brazil is not gonna stop. Uh, a Australia is not gonna stop the, but the minor, other minor beef producing countries aren't gonna stop. maybe Argentina because they're switching their cow herd off the Pampas and they're growing more corn in soybeans. but, you know, I, I just think it's so important. And such an integral part of rural America. And that's why the Brazilians came up here and bought production is because they're intrigued and they're very supportive the US cattle business. Uh, why wouldn't they? They've got all these assets up here that requires a larger cattle herd, to fill up the production space that they have. they're very supportive of it also. And, you know, look how much CapEx the Brazilians have put into the meat packing industry over the last 15 years. It's phenomenal. Um, and, and they're pouring money into these plants every day. so their best interest has a strong, vibrant cattle industry, or why would they be up here? love processing animals. they love doing it,
matt_3_01-22-2026_084115:That's the challenging thing. Yeah. That's the challenging thing as we look at this. And as we have producers or producer groups who really take offense at any quote unquote outside money in our industry, whether that be, outside capital that's, that's. Invested in the processing side or the feed yard side, or whether that be outside beef that's being shipped and sold in the United States or, or Mexican feeder cattle or whatever the case may be. You know, the, the, the fact of the matter is this industry, gosh, throughout the centuries, I mean, if you go and read back to how a lot of these cattle and stockyards and everything else were started. It was started with outside money from Scotland or England and, um, throughout the years. And so we're kind of seeing history repeat itself. But man, it's tough to go into the coffee shops and the cafes in rural America and have the conversation that you and I are having about this very industry needing that outside money or that outside product to keep the wheels turning because as high as we've driven demand, beef demand, I'm not sure we can satiate it anymore with cows strictly raised, fed and processed in the United States. And, and I'm not advocating, don't get me wrong, I'm not advocating for doing away with the US cow herd. In fact, I think we need to grow it. But I, the irony is it might very well be the only way we can grow this cow herd. Is with those outside either dollars, pounds, uh, capital expenditures, and the like.
chandler-guest464_3_01-22-2026_094115:Well, the question you have to ask yourself, um, you know, we'll see this all works. We're just putting a brand new packing plant up in North Platte. but Walmart is financing the vast, you know, a vast majority of the capital to go into that plant. So we'll see how long Walmart sticks with it. hope they do. and I hope they, you know, are successful. We've got plans to build other packing plants in Amarillo and Council Bluffs, Iowa. the question is, where are the cattle gonna come
matt_3_01-22-2026_084115:Right.
chandler-guest464_3_01-22-2026_094115:and, um, how are we gonna fill those packing plants up? I mean, we can, we can hatch a chicken and have it in the marketplace within six to eight weeks. We can fare a hog. And had that in the grocery stores within, you know, six months, um, by the time an animal gestates and you know, gets all our beef animal gets all the way through. know, it's two years to 24 months before slaughter. So it's a great product, but it's not as efficient as our, as our competition.
matt_3_01-22-2026_084115:It's wild to see the conversations change as they have in the last five years post COVID. All we heard from producers was, we need more plants, we need more kill capacity. Um, we've got to have, uh, spots for these cattle. Of course, a lot of it was backed up because of some black swan events. A plant fire and Holcomb, uh, COVID, labor issues, et cetera, et cetera. But now some of this very little, but some of this, uh, kill capacity has already come online and immediately we've had to close a plant or throttle all of them back. So now the question becomes, where is our industry gonna find cattle? I mean it, you know, as slow as this biological cycle is with a nine month gestation and a year and a half to market, et cetera, et cetera, it still seems like it happened in the blink of an eye that we went from having a glut of cattle in 21 to, we can't even run two shifts at most of these plants in 25 and 26.
chandler-guest464_3_01-22-2026_094115:Yeah, COVID was a disaster for running these packing
matt_3_01-22-2026_084115:Yeah.
chandler-guest464_3_01-22-2026_094115:I mean, again, I was right in the middle of it. We had to go out in Worthington, Minnesota and we euthanized 20,000 hogs because we couldn't process'em. And once the hog got too big, it couldn't get into the packing plant because there's so much automation in these hog plants now. The pigs got too big and it was a disaster and we had to throttle these plants way back. managed to, you know, slow the cattle growth up. Because, it didn't matter if they're big or not, because we had the, all the processing and beef plants is still done by hand. There's very little to no automation. Um, so we could get through it, but that was just a, a black swan event that happened that slowed us up. it didn't slow down um, lack of retention that we saw. I, I talked to a real estate guy the other day, that friend of mine who, um, deals in selling ranches, trophy ranches all through the west. and he said 80% of the guys that are buying these big ranches are just going out and buying stocker cattle to as mowers, you know, buy'em in the early spring. Graze all, and then when the first frost comes in, they load'em up and take'em to market. we're losing these big ranches, we're losing the nursery, and that's where the industry needs to go in and look at is affecting our supply? What is gonna help grow to meet this demand that we have? or is it just gonna come in from, foreign countries?
matt_3_01-22-2026_084115:Do you have any potential solutions to grow that cow herd?
chandler-guest464_3_01-22-2026_094115:I, I don't know, but it is, it is freaky. You know, when you go out to Northern Virginia, which is close to DC and you drive out, and I go out there all the time, you know, my family had a farm out there for a while, but I visit people the amount of open ground, open pasture ground in Virginia is unbelievable. mean, just open and they just, the people that own these places just mow it or hay it once or twice a year and, um, there's no cattle on, so I don't know what it is, but I, I know growing up on a cow calf operation, we had 200 registered Angus cows growing up and it was tough work, right? Calving out the calves in February and March. And um, getting them in the cycle. And it was tough. And I just think there's a lot of people that, on the consolidation of farms that are going on in this country where maybe granddad had 50 cows on some rough ground and he passes away and you know, his son and his grandson said, well, first thing to go those 50 cows, you know, they're going to market because we want to go on vacation the winter. Um, and we're farming 5,000 acres, 10,000 acres. We don't need those 50 cows.
matt_3_01-22-2026_084115:Yeah.
chandler-guest464_3_01-22-2026_094115:And we don't have the hobby for, you know, we don't, don't want to do it.
matt_3_01-22-2026_084115:Yep. We see it
chandler-guest464_3_01-22-2026_094115:and
matt_3_01-22-2026_084115:all, all over. All over.
chandler-guest464_3_01-22-2026_094115:yeah, so there's, there's plenty of pasture ground out there. But it's people, do they wanna put up the fence? Do they wanna hire a herdsman? Do all these things that they have to do to be successful. And I think a lot of people are like, well, it's just a small bottom line issue on my budget. I'm, I'm out.
matt_3_01-22-2026_084115:Yeah, and I don't know what changes that or if anything does, but I guess time will tell. I wanna circle back here as we kind of. Finish things up to right in the middle of your wheelhouse and we, we touched on it, but governmental affairs, legislative affairs, lobbying from trade associations, and let's get beef industry specific as we see things change like they have over the last 20 years in terms of, individuals almost feeling like they have more power than a trade association with social media and, and the like, as we see political trends that may or may not have started with President Trump, but he really accentuated this individual, voice over the swamp or the entrenched lobbying organizations or whatever the case may be. Does that trend continue? And if so, how do we drive value or is there value in the model of trade associations that you pay dues to, to hire lobbyists, and then give to political action committees to make sure we get the right folks elected, et cetera, et cetera. Where do we go from here, uh, specifically in agriculture and the beef industry?
chandler-guest464_3_01-22-2026_094115:Well, I, I don't think it slows up at all. Uh, I think it accelerates. and, and, um, you know, the one thing about the cattle industry, there's a lot of romance in the business. There's no romance in raising hogs, milking cows, checking, chickens. Um, but there's a lot of romance in the cattle industry. And I, I'll just go to my father, who was a big farmer. He made all his money on grain, but passion was, his registered Angus cows and his thoroughbred horses, and, and that's where his passion was. And he, you know, he's a big Angus man that within the cattle industry, he is even more specific on the Angus deal. that's a social bind that's very strong in the industry, that individualistic, um, being around livestock. But there's some responsibility to also be serious and look at issues. can talk about'em in the coffee shop, you can. You can rally yourself up, but you also have to slow down and make the right decision, just like when you're doing business. Yeah, yeah. It's a lot of romance to it, a lot of emotion. then at some point in time you gotta stop and say, okay, how do we correct this problem? Whatever this problem may be without undue consequences that we'll regret later. I think that's where trade associations still have a role, they have to play that role. When things fire up, they gotta get right on'em and sit people down and say, okay, let's rationally look through this and not wait for it to become a boil, but wait to, if it's simmering out there, get on it. And I, I think, you know, I've talked to NCBA senior staff, All the time. And I talk about them being edgier, being out there, getting on issues, getting ahead of issues, get people in a room to make rational decisions, based off and get the emotion out of it, as quickly as we can to come to a conclusion. So I think that's where the trade association. In the modern era needs to be, you just can't look at these outliers and say, I'm gonna ignore it anymore. You have to get right in there and have those discussions and then communicate that making process back to policy makers. Yeah, we've been on top of this issue. We've delved into it. We brought everybody in. Here's where here's where he came to an outcome. Um, because. You have a lot of power, but if you have a lot of power and you use it irresponsible an irresponsible manner, you may create a bigger problem than you're trying to fix.
matt_3_01-22-2026_084115:Yeah, the, the challenge, I think in that quick response, in that edgy response is that by and large our trade associations are governed by a board of directors, sometimes probably too large, but a, a board of directors of volunteer farmers and ranchers who most hours of the day may very well be in an area that they can't sit down and come together and have that conference call or that zoom or fly to DC and have a sit down meeting to figure out what do we do. And, and that's the thing that I think all of us as producers have to recognize is that, we have to have a little grace and we have to have, uh, probably a stepped up involvement to be able to help move things that quickly and our, our organizations that have paid staff lobbyists, CEOs, whatever the case may be, they too have to know that they've gotta boil things down and give us two or three options, any of which have a pretty decent chance of working and then getting that implemented quickly. And, and sometimes that isn't the way cattlemen like to work. And that's gonna take a paradigm shift as well, I think. And, and that's sometimes what gets us into trouble. We are very methodic in our, decision making. We're doggone quick in our, aggravation and emotion and passion, and so we can read something on the internet and get stirred up, but then sitting down and making an actual decision that may positively affect change is a little tougher for us to do. We'd rather just get mad and post something.
chandler-guest464_3_01-22-2026_094115:Yeah, I mean that's just the world we live in now is um, you know, you can get involved in this debate and get beat up and just to say the hell with it. Not going to participate, any longer. And that's, that's a shame, but, and you have to hold people accountable for their actions too. And if people try to blow things up or deliberate and try to blow things up, people have to be held accountable.
matt_3_01-22-2026_084115:And I think we have to have a little level of trust the folks that we have asked to be on those boards, and if we don't like what it is they've done, if we don't like what that CEO has done or that, you know, lobbyist or whatever the case may be, we talk to the folks that have a say and, and we figure out if there's something better. But you know, you talked about having a segment of our industry that toured through another segment of our industry, whether that be retailers coming to the ranch, or ranchers going to the processor, whatever the case may be. That builds so much trust. I think that is evident when you talk with different groups that haven't had that opportunity or, or won't take that opportunity because when you've walked a mile in that guy's shoes, you see that, okay, there's a reason that he made this decision in that boardroom. There's a reason that this, his company took this step to either expand or contract and, um. It kind of makes sense, but when we haven't gotten that opportunity, it, it makes it tougher to trust that they're making the decisions for the benefit of the beef industry, not just one segment.
chandler-guest464_3_01-22-2026_094115:Well, I, I am committed to this in sort of my later years in life. I, I am pushing hard, for, for people to visit these packing plants cow calf guys to, uh. To get an experience of going through a packing plan. I'm, I'm working with JBS time, any time an opportunity get people of leadership caliber or future leadership caliber, particularly younger people, to get into these plants and see them, um, and see what goes on. know, I think the problem is in our industry, we love the cow in the grass. We love the boots, the cattle, the horses, the cowboy heritage. then we love the sizzle of the steak, but we don't want to talk about what happens in the middle, right? We don't like to talk about the feed yards. We don't like to talk about the packing plants. That's the messy part of the industry. Uh, we'd like to talk about the, you know, the cow on the grass and the sizzle of the steak. To get to that cow calf on the grass to the sizzle of the steak. That animal has to move. It has to be sold, it has to be put in feed yards, it has to be run through a packing plant, uh, of enormous complexity. You know, you go into these packing plants and there's at least a dozen languages and probably another dozen dialects. And that's always been the case, always been first generation Americans, whether it's, you know, the Germans in Colonial America to the Italians in in Philly the, uh, Balkan states and Eastern Europeans in Chicago to the Central Americans and Mexicans in, in Grand Island. it's always been first generation Americans that do this work. And it's difficult. And it's messy and no one likes to talk about it, but they do like to beat up on the packer, but the packer doesn't sell one ounce of beef to the consumer. All they do is process the animal. That's all they do. sell the meat. I'm talking about beef here in particular. They sell the meat immediately. And uh, the person that puts the price on that beef for the consumer is the retailer in the food service. The packer does not decide the price of that animal of that meat is to the consumer, only to the retailer in food service. So he just provides a service and gets paid historically, a very little margin, um, to do it. And that's why a lot of people are not in the business. Because it is such a low margin business across the board, really we have too many, transactions in our business, to be a higher margin business.
matt_3_01-22-2026_084115:do you ever see that changing? Do you ever see going from those four or five different owners, sometimes eight or nine different owners to one or two?. Or is the beef industry and land asset acquisition and things like that so capital intensive before, even before they get to that processor that it's,
chandler-guest464_3_01-22-2026_094115:I
matt_3_01-22-2026_084115:don't want any part of it.
chandler-guest464_3_01-22-2026_094115:that the craziest thing I've heard in the industry over the years, and I'm, and I've seen a lot of crazy things, when people talk about how we're gonna"chickenize" the beef industry. Tell me how in the hell is that gonna work? You're gonna have to own the pasture, own the range, own the cows. You're gonna have to manage those disparate units. It's not gonna happen. You cannot grow cows in a barn. People have tried it. They've tried dry loing cows, they've tried putting them in barns. There are people that do it, but it's a such, it's a minuscule. of the industry. These cattle are out on pasture and range that's either rented or owned, and the capital investment of owning cows over a long period of time, if you could put, you know, it's just, and the packer is not gonna do it, it is not gonna happen. Now, it happened in the PO in the pork industry because you could chickenize the pork industry. Look who did it. It was a bunch of poultry and Turkey guys in North Carolina that came up with that model. Wendell, um, the Brown family and the Prestige family, and they put it together and that's where Smithfield came from. Um, and they chickenized and Polk industry, but it won't happen in the beef. It just can't. Logistically, how are you gonna make that happen?
matt_3_01-22-2026_084115:Yeah, we lose one of our biggest competitive advantages, and that's the cow's ability to turn grass into protein. And we also lose that romantic green grass, cowboy hats, horses, four wheelers, whatever the case may be, that I'm not sure any of us realize the value that that has when we go to sell those steaks for$40 a pound. I mean, that is what helps. Yes, the sizzle, yes, the flavor, yes, the taste and the tenderness and all of these things. Zinc, iron, and protein, all of the things that we, that we applaud, but that image is something that adds value.
chandler-guest464_3_01-22-2026_094115:It, it
matt_3_01-22-2026_084115:to anything else.
chandler-guest464_3_01-22-2026_094115:And that's why I went back when you asked me the question earlier, why am I so interested in the domestic beef supply? Because it is an integral part of rural of America. Not just rural America We are a cattleman you know, my dad, right when I started working for NCA. I don't know. A few years in the corn growers tried to hire me away from NCBA. So I called my dad up and I said,"Hey, the corn growers are gonna hire me and pay me more, and blah, blah, blah." And the phone went dead. I mean, it went dead. And finally my dad said, you're working for the cattlemen. And you're telling me you're thinking about going, working for the seed cap wearing corn growers. And I said,"well, you're a corn grower.""Don't ever say that, son. I'm a cattleman." And I stayed 20 years at NCBA because of that phone call.
matt_3_01-22-2026_084115:Good for Gordy.
chandler-guest464_3_01-22-2026_094115:wasn't any, it wasn't anywhere better to go, than working for the cattlemen. And it still is a premier organization, a premier industry. And, um, we need to constantly work on it. And we've had huge successes our industry and we've had some downfalls, but I've been through e coli, I've been through BSE, I've been through the screw worm deal. I mean, I've been through this stuff and we always come out on the other side better for,'cause we are a good industry um, we just need people to engage. And make sure that we continue to focus on things that are real and not focus on phantoms in the night.
matt_3_01-22-2026_084115:I can't tie a better bow on it than that, Chandler, that that says it all. And, and that's what I think all of us yearn for. That's all. That's why we go out and do what we do every day, and we have to recognize that it's not just our segment that feels that way, it's everybody included. Because we need, we need all of it. We need to be looking in the long term and figuring out how to do things together, better. So,,, appreciate all your comments, appreciate all your work, and, um, look forward to catching up again soon.
chandler-guest464_3_01-22-2026_094115:Thanks a lot, Matt. I appreciate
matt_3_01-22-2026_084115:You bet. Thanks a bunch, Chandler. Thanks for tuning in to Practically Ranching, brought to you by Dalebanks Angus, all the best to you and your family. May God bless each of you and we will talk again soon. I.
