BQA. That’s Beef Quality Assurance.
To some of you, that might not mean too much. Beef Quality Assurance is a national program that provides guidelines for beef cattle production. The program raises consumer confidence through offering proper management techniques and a commitment to quality within every segment of the beef industry.
Each state has their own protocol and contact person for BQA certification. For more information, visit http://www.bqa.org/statebqa.aspx.
Curt Pate, whose blog we’ve talked about before, teaches Stockmanship & Stewardship classes with BQA training.
In one of his more recent blogs, Beef Quality Assurance, he share the reason why he saw the importance in BQA.
“I used to think all this shot placement was a bunch of malarkey until I saw a demonstration of a steer posted (euthanized) after a bunch of different meds were administered improperly to him a day or to prior to the posting. I was totally shocked at the results (bruising, scarring, and general damage to muscle tissue) of misused and misplaced injections.”
Later in the blog he says, “I travel the country wearing a cowboy hat and with ?Eat Beef? stickers on my bags. When I visit with people I want to be able to honestly tell them that they can trust me and the people I represent. There is a man sitting behind me as I write this that came up and shook my hand and thanked me for raising beef. He has two young daughters with him. I owe it to this guy to do the right thing. You owe it to this guy to do the right thing. We owe it to those pretty little girls.”
Pate is right. We owe it to the consumers of beef, to deliver a safe, nutritious product with every calf we take to the butcher, every pot load of fat cattle we send to the kill floor and even every cull cow who will be hamburger somewhere.
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| Photo courtesy of livestockandenvironment.org |
Have you taken a BQA training course? What did you learn?
P.S. – For those of you in the pork industry, there is also PQA training available. For more information, click here.