U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack recently appointed Kansas beef producer Brittany Howell of LaCrosse to a three-year term on the Cattlemen’s Beef Promotion and Research Board, which oversees administration of the national Beef Checkoff Program.
Howell participated in new-member orientation in Denver in January and was seated for her first meeting of the full Beef Board at the Cattle Industry Annual Convention in Denver in February, becoming one of 106 producers and importers nationwide representing all cattlemen by making recommendations about how to invest national beef checkoff dollars.
Howell teaches courses in cow-calf, feedlot and dairy production as an associate professor of animal science at Fort Hays State University. She was nominated to the Beef Board by the Kansas Livestock Association, Kansas Cattlemen’s Association, Kansas Dairy Association and the Kansas Farm Bureau. Brittany is a member of the Kansas Livestock Association, Kansas Farm Bureau, Kansas Beef Council, National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, and several teaching organizations. At the university, she is an advisor and national officer for the Block and Bridle Club and serves on various university committees.
The mission of the Cattlemen’s Beef Board is to build demand for beef through promotion, research and information programs of the national Beef Checkoff Program. During recent orientations and their first Board meeting in Denver, Howell and other new Beef Board members learned about their volunteer checkoff role during the next three years -- including their work on checkoff committees to prioritize strategies aimed at leveraging beef producers’ checkoff dollars on the research, educational and promotional efforts that they believe offer the biggest return on producers’ investment and to make annual recommendations for checkoff funding of specific programs.
For more information about the Cattlemen’s Beef Board and the Beef Checkoff Program, go to www.MyBeefCheckoff.com.