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LastweekwastheAmer- ican National CattleWomen Region VI meeting held at Lake Tahoe Resort Hotel, just across the line in Cali- fornia when California Cat- tleWomen hosted the meet- ing for 82 preregistered from Nevada, Utah, New Mexico and Arizona. Te- hama County Cattlemen and CattleWomen were among the sponsors of this event. At our opening session three long-time ranching families in Sierra Valley, Claudia Barnes, Betty Del- lera and Joleen Tori told the history of their ranches in the 120,000-acre, 5,000- foot elevation valley. Sev- eral of the families came in 1852 to start farming and having small dairies to make butter for the gold miners. The valley includes Beckworth Pass, Vinton, Loyalton, and Portola. Thenextgeneration Next morning, Dr. Dave Daley, Professor at CSU- Chico and California Cat- tlemen vice president spoke on "The Changing Face of Animal Agriculture - What will the next generation bring?" The last four years he has taught Agri 482, a required course for seniors. He found that how we/they view the world comes from parents and peer groups. The core values don't change. He developed a survey for the students by pos- ing challenging, dramat- ically opposing points of view and forced the student to choose one of two view- points. An example: ranch- ers are environmentally sensitive and 71% agreed, while 29% felt the ranchers were motivated by profit. 80% of the students con- sider themselves environ- mentalists, 88% felt that technology and science is our only opportunity to feed the world. While 12% felt that anti-antibiotics and genetically modified (GMO) were bad. 83% said we have a safe food supply, while 16% said big businesses makes food that isn't safe. 26% thought animal confinement was not humane. We need to say beef com- munity and not beef indus- try, because the consumer thinks of factories when we say industry. Sometimes we need to work on our mes- sage, to build trust and credibility. Dr. Daley concluded with "People don't want to be ed- ucated, they want informa- tion." Upcoming activities Melanie Fowle, ANCW president-elect from Etna, Siskiyou County, presented an update on activities that ANCW is involved in, since we are reaching out to the millennials, the generation between the early 1980s to the early 2000s. This month, Kern County will host Mom's Day on the Farm at the Rankin Ranch, and in July the Glenn/Colusa CattleWomen will host the young moth- ers at the O'Connell Ranch in Colusa where they will learn about farming, and why we produce a safe food supply. 200 Sam's Clubs across the nation will host retail demonstrations where lean beef and CattleWomen will be the stars, talking to the consumers about how we raise our cattle. Annalynn Settelmeyer of Minden, Ne- vada was in Las Vegas the previous week answering questions in a Sam's Club. The Florida Gator Col- legiate CattleWomen were selected to host the first of five campus events at their University of Florida cam- pus. Nearly 1,500 students were reached. Social media with Twit- ter, Instagram and Pinter- est "handles" have been created under the name "@beefpros" for use in our checkoff funded social me- dia activities. Twitter par- ties, photo contests, and more are being planned to connect with mom and mil- lennials in the social media world. Recipes, demonstrations ANCW learned from the past few years during our National Beef Cook-Off events how effective a dem- onstration and sampling ac- tivities featuring easy and delicious beef recipes prove to be at metropolitan cook- ing shows. Home cooks are inspired to cook with beef more often and recreate the sampled recipes after visit- ing with cattlewomen at the shows. In 2014 we plan on two events targeting 40,000 women through recipe demonstrations, recipe sampling and one to one visiting. I was in Washing- ton, D.C. last November at the Metropolitan Cooking Show. Very successful. The National Beef Am- bassador program is part of the Youth Development Focus Area. ANCW also has a Legis- lation Focus Area with pol- icy alerts and actions, leg- islative conferences, hill visits and policy and resolu- tions. We write the letters and make the phone calls when requested. Cattle and drought Karen Ross, secretary of the California Depart- ment of Food and Agricul- ture shared many interest- ing facts during her speech. I didn't realize she came from a family farm in Ne- braska, and still has ties to the farm. Naturally the drought was mentioned, since we don't have the snow pack again this year and 2/3 of the water comes from north of Sacramento, and 2/3 of the people live south of Sac- ramento. "People don't understand the emotional toll having to sell cattle. It takes a long time to rebuild the herd ge- netics. We need to tell our story, because it is a huge challenge to make people understand what a drought means to us" Ross said. 50% of California farm land is on drip irrigation now, to help conserve water instead of flood irrigation. Conservation is important, and using recycled water for golf courses is one way. Our export numbers show we sell healthy, nutri- tious food, and China now has a middle class popula- tion that wants to improve their diets. Agriculture provides 300 different career oppor- tunities for young people. It takes all of us to communi- cate to our consumers be- cause Millennials look for authentic experience. They ask hard questions, and we need to answer with stories of our families, land and cattle. We need to speak from the heart. We have doubled our population, changed to per- manent crops like orchards and vineyards, since the Central Valley Project was started 50 years ago. In the last decade, one third of the water has shifted to fish, and to improve health of the delta, we need to find steps to improve the amount of water for people and agriculture. Ross concluded with: " the courts are a win/ lose, where collaboration is needed. The water situation should be a bipartisan so- lution." Our final speaker was Dr. Frank Mitloehner, an expert for agricultural air quality, animal environ- mental interactions, and agricultural engineering. More about his talk next week. Historic ranch The ranch tour on our final day was to Minden, Nevada and the Bent- ley Ranch. They have pur- chased the Hunter and Hawk ranches from the Owens Estate, west of Red Bluff for winter feed for their cattle. Matt McKinney, gen- eral manager told us that due to the drought they sent two truck and trailer loads of hay to feed the cattle in Red Bluff this winter, and sent only half of the cows last fall. To cut their numbers, the re- placement heifers were sold this year. They have 1,500 mother cows that graze on BLM land to the east, and USFS in the Sierra Nevadas on the west dur- ing the summer months. The ranch processes 6 to 8 head of cattle per month and sells it as grass fed,natural to three restaurants, at the ranch office and on the Internet. Our hotel, Lake Tahoe Resort Hotel will be featur- ing Bentley beef starting this week, the bartender told us. It is slaughtered at the University of Nevada - Reno plant. Mr. Bentley bought the Dangberg Ranch in the Carson Valley in 1962, with 1852 and 1854 water rights. He loved technology, and that is why there is 35 piv- ots and underground irri- gation on the 6,000 acres of alfalfa. They recycle the effluent water from Lake Tahoe, Minden and Gard- nerville with a 75-year con- tract. The Dangbergs used to feed 5,000 head of cattle, and there is still the origi- nal scale house and the Vir- ginia City Railroad yards were on the ranch. I wish you could have seen the beautiful 2x10 planks of wood that were recycled from the com- post yard to make the feed bunks in the feed lot. This ranch is fascinating because they have a large compost area where they take yard waste, shrub and tree plus lawn clippings. Old wood from the Tahoe Basin and surrounding ar- eas, and a chipper comes in once a year to grind the clippings and wood. They get the biosolids from 5 nearby towns, and the compost is put back on the fields. It takes 90 to 100 days to make compost. The ranch recycles bal- ing twine and a full bin is worth $ 300 which they give to the local FFA. The old feedmill is being made into a craft distillery, and last week a master distiller was hired. They are plant- ing oats, barley, rye and corn for that. In a year or so, Bentley Heritage will be available. Vodka, gin and bourbon. They are plant- ing a herb garden of basil, thyme, lemon balsam, choc- olate mint to flavor the gin and vodka. In Nevada, they can sell 20,000 cases per year. They will feed the distillery grain in the feed lot. There is 6,000 acres of alfalfa, and the majority of the hay goes to California for dairies, in four cuttings a year, five ton per acre. The wheat hay yields eight ton per acre. The beef is certified hor- mone free, natural, third party verification with IMI Global and GAP certifica- tion. A buyer from Nebraska bought 1,000 head of calves on Western Video Mar- ket that will be harvested this week, and the beef will be going to Europe. They put the EID tags in the ear when they wean the calves in mid September. They are backgrounded for six weeks before shipping, with more vaccinations and learning to eat from a hay bunk and water from a trough. The ranch makes a mil- lion gallons of bio-diesel a year from used cooking oil. They run all their trucks and equipment on bio-die- sel, which was hard when it was zero during the winter. The fuel was slush. There are 40 employ- ees on the ranch, with 25 full time and 15 seasonal. A very fascinating, interest- ing ranch, we were so lucky to visit. Report from Region VI meeting in Tahoe JEANBARTON COURTESYPHOTO American National CattleWomen and spouses visiting the Bentley Ranch in Minden, Nevada during the Region VI meeting at Lake Tahoe. Matt McKinney, general manager of Bentley Ranch is in middle of the second row of ranch visitors. CattleWomenmeet to discuss past, present and future of the 'community' By Laura Vozzella TheWashingtonPost. RICHMOND, VA. China lifted its seven-year ban on Virginia poultry Monday, a move that the state's last three governors had sought ever since an avian flu out- break at a single farm cost commonwealth turkey and chicken farmers access to the fast-growing Chinese market. Gov. Terry McAuliffe, D, announced China's decision to lift the ban, saying that it could boost the state's poul- try exports by $20 million or more a year. China imposed the ban in 2007 after turkeys at a farm in Virginia tested pos- itive for avian flu. Virginia officials have been work- ing since then to convince China that the case was isolated and that the "low pathogenic" strain discov- ered did not pose a risk to humans or poultry. The ef- fort started with then-Gov. Tim Kaine, D, and continued with his successor, Robert McDonnell, R, before con- cluding under McAuliffe. Virginia's congressional delegation has also been in- volved, with House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., raising the issue with Chi- nese officials on a trip to the country last week. The ban had excluded Virginia poultry farmers from one of the world's big- gest and fastest-growing markets. WORLD Chinali sseven-yearbanonVirginiapoultryimports Servicingyourdisposalneedsin Tehama County, and the City of Red Bluff including Residential, Commercial, and Temporary bin services. GREENWASTEOFTEHAMA A WASTE CONNECTIONS COMPANY 530-528-8500 1805 AIRPORT BLVD. 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