ANGUS Youth 2017 scholarship recipient Samantha Neumann has had many “pinch yourself moments” in the past six months in the United States Midwest.
And even though she still calls the Barossa Valley home, she says the staff and students at Kansas State University have become her second family.
Ms Neumann, Angaston, has returned from the Semex Kansas State University scholarship, where she immersed herself in the US beef industry.
Her program, from January to May, included spending a semester at one of the US’s best agricultural universities, but also visiting ranches, feedyards and packers.
“In Montana they were feeding cows in spring in 1.2 metres of snow and Texas, where they have (1320-millimetre) rainfall, they have to supplementary feed because the feed grows too fast and has no nutritional content,” she said.
She also spent a couple of days at the American Angus Association – which she says was valuable in her role as e-commerce coordinator in Elders’ national livestock team – learning about its marketing strategies and how it reaches its 25,000 members digitally.
Ms Neumann said the scholarship was an incredible opportunity to push outside her comfort zone, through first-time experiences from artificially inseminating cows to ‘doctoring’ cattle into feedlots through tattooing, drenching and vaccination.
Another highlight was spotting bids at KSU’s bull sale, although she admits it took a while to adjust to the US auctioneering style and patter.
Unlike Australia, they call the bids they are looking for rather than what they have.
In her time in the US she attended many bull sales, but says it was incredible to witness the Vermillion Ranch sale where 500 bulls grossed more than $3 million.
“The auctioneer was taking 36 seconds to knock down a lot and at lot 300 they were still clearing $10,000,” she said.
She was also in awe of the scale of some US operations, including the Sooner Land and Livestock Company in Oklahoma, where she saw 2800 feeder cattle in a 400-hectare paddock.
“And they all came to the gate,” she said.
Ms Neumann was also privileged to spend a few days with veterinarian Tom Noffsinger visiting feed yards through Colorado, including driving past JBS’s 100,000- head feedlot.
Dr Noffsinger is highly respected for his low stress stock handling principles and identifying and treating diseases.
“We did a lot of lung health and listening to a beast’s breathing as opposed to just taking its temperature,” she said.
She is indebted to the many KSU graduates who opened up their businesses to her, especially Galen and Lori Fink, Fink Beef Genetics, Manhattan, Kansas, and Larry Melhoff and his family from Sheridan, Montana.
“They (the Finks) bought one cow in 1989 and grew their business by putting embryos in other people’s cows and buying the calves back,” she said.
“There was a point they were selling 300 bulls and the only reproductive land they had was (120ha) of rented land.
“It challenged everything I thought I knew about business.”
She was impressed by Mr Melhoff’s business acumen and how he involved all three of his children in the 2000- cow Red Angus operation.
Ms Neumann says she will be forever grateful to Angus Australia, Semex and KSU for the experience and the tremendous contacts she made, including many she hopes will be lifelong friends.
“I have a renewed enthusiasm for what I do and can bring to the table in terms of technology applications and the options we (Elders) can offer Australian producers,” she said.
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