Tom Jones Elected as Chairman of the Cattlemen’s Beef Board
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Suggested Lead: Today, cattle producer Tom Jones from Pottsville, Ark., is proud to join the ranks of many across the country chosen by fellow cattlemen and women to serve as Cattlemen’s Beef Board (CBB) chairman. Elected during the 2011 Cattle Industry Annual Convention in Denver, Colo., Tom is no stranger to the cattle business.
As third generation on the farm, Tom has spent much of his time in the row crop business along with cattle. For the last few years, they have been more concentrated on the stocker segment of the industry, but with his Dad getting a little older and wanting to slow down, and a large portion of his own time being spent away from the farm, Tom decided to back off of the stocker business. They currently are transitioning back to cow-calf and hay production. In fact, he has spent this winter feeding a lot of other people’s cattle by selling hay, which has been in short supply in Arkansas.
We asked Tom how he finds time to serve in his volunteer leadership position with the Beef Board.
Jones 1: “We work when I’m at home, we work extra hours, or I do, when I know I’ve got to be gone. I don’t do things for me – I do them for my wife, I do them for my family, I do them for the Lord, I do them for the industry…I don’t think a lot about me. Has that probably cost me money in my career? Probably has. I do it because I care.” (22 seconds)
Tom says he’s proud of the work the Beef Board has done to protect and enhance the checkoff and that the Beef Board is really the only group that can truly protect this worthwhile national checkoff program. Thus, he begins his year as chairman with passion and conviction.
Jones 2: “My goal without any equivocation is for people to have enough confidence in this checkoff that when this industry makes a decision to make the checkoff better, that producers will know that it’s a valid program that they can support. We have to do a good enough job with the checkoff that the one thing that can’t be asked when there’s time for improvements to this thing is, ‘Is it worth it?’ We have to have those questions put behind us.” (26 seconds)
For information on efforts being funded with your beef checkoff investment, visit MyBeefCheckoff.com.
The Beef Checkoff Program was established as part of the 1985 Farm Bill. The checkoff assesses $1 per head on the sale of live domestic and imported cattle, in addition to a comparable assessment on imported beef and beef products. States retain up to 50 cents on the dollar and forward the other 50 cents per head to the Cattlemen’s Beef Promotion and Research Board, which administers the national checkoff program, subject to USDA approval.
Funded by the Beef Checkoff.
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