Jones Looks Back On Year As USMEF Chair
Idaho cattle feeder Cevin Jones is wrapping up his one-year term as chair of the U.S. Meat Export Federation. He notes while 2020 has been challenging in a variety of ways, they were able to come up with innovative ways to communicate with international consumers and industry stakeholders. Jones added the coronavirus not only impacted individual markets where USMEF does business, but the pandemic moved many of their face to face meetings and trade shows on-line.
“And I think that’s one of the big things that we’ve done at USMEF that’s been really successful not only now, but going in to the future, we’ve had to adapt as an organization and I think that moving forward that will strength us.”
Jones said despite the challenges USMEF members have remained committed to keeping U.S. red meat on the world’s table. Going forward, international trade must remain a priority.
“97% of the world’s population lives outside of the U.S. borders. I mean, it’s very important that we continue to focus on those markets and where we can move our products into and where we can create a profitable environment for producers all over. And we’re seeing really a true value for beef producers. When I talk about it, roughly $300per head added value in those export markets.”
Jones will wrap up his term as USMEF chair during the upcoming virtual Federation Strategic Planning Conference, scheduled for November 10th through the 13th.
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