The problem- While many advancements have continued to change and evolve Kentucky's beef industry, there are basic management practices that are vitally important yet are sometimes overlooked for various reasons. Such practices might include providing a complete mineral supplement, use of a controlled breeding season, crossbreeding for commercial cow-calf producers, etc. 

The educational program response- This program is led by Dr. Les Anderson, and includes contributions from the entire Beef Extension Team, as well as the Forage Extension Team. The program includes 11 farms located throughout Kentucky, these farms were enrolled based on communication and recommendations from ANR agents throughout the state. The goal is for beef extension specialists to conduct initial farm visits and identify basic management practices that can be implemented on these farms and assist the producers with making these changes. Some changes are fast such as changing the mineral supplementation being provided (or providing mineral supplementation if none is being provided currently), whereas some may take several years to implement such as developing rotational grazing systems, or developing a controlled calving season. As part of the program, producer's agreed to having field days hosted at their farm throughout the process so that their neighbors and cattle producers in the region could attend and see the practices that are being implemented with the goal that these practices would then be adopted on other farms. One of the back to basic's farms is located in Marshall County and hosted a field day this past fall to show some of the initial practices that were being adopted. 

The participants/target audience- The target audience was beef cattle producers in and around Marshall County

Other partners (if applicable)- Dr. Caleb Jenkins- a large animal veterinarian in western Kentucky

Program impact or participant response. Program participants were given a post-program survey to fill out at the completion of the field day. Participants were asked to rate their knowledge on a scale of 1 (no knowledge) to 5 (very knowledgeable) before and after the session on each of the topics that were covered at the field day which included: pink eye management, using total AI systems, developing water systems, pasture development, and stocking rates. The average pre-program knowledge across all subjects was 2.9 compared to after the program at 4.1 or a 41.4% increase. Additionally 50% of survey respondents indicated that they were likely or very likely to make management changes based on the information they received from the field day, with these changes estimated on average to create a $500-$1,000 economic impact. Furthermore on a subsequent farm visit to this farm, the producer stated that several of his neighbors and fellow cattle producer's have reached out to him to learn more about the changes occurring on his farm and several producers reported already having made changes on their operation based on the example being set at this Back to Basics farm. These changes included adopting the use of vaccines for management of pink eye and use of artificial insemination in the cow herd.