Sheep Industry News October 2022

President’s Notes SUSAN SHULTZ ASI PRESIDENT

Sheep Industry Travels

M ontrose, Colo., Spencer, Iowa, Columbus, Ohio, Cookeville, Tenn., and East Lansing, Mich., were all host towns to outstanding sheep educational or promotional events that I was able to participate in these last few months. The information offered was current and informative and the speakers pushed the attendees to adopt new practices and new technologies to increase the quality of our products, create a focus on sustainability, and provide our customers/consum ers with a consistent and premium lamb and wool experience each and every time. A small sample of the many takeaways from these events: • The continuous need to produce and promote quality lamb in order to increase demand; • The opportunity to distinguish your flock by certifying wool clips through the American Wool Assurance program; • The numerous strategies that are available for flock im provement through adoption of genetic technologies, handling

systems and data collection equipment; • The vast opportunities available for our sheep industry in solar grazing. Speaking of solar grazing, I added a new word to my vo cabulary - agrivoltaics. It is the dual use of solar for both solar photovoltaic power generation and agriculture. Speakers from California, North Carolina and Texas all spoke of the untapped potential to expand our sheep numbers by providing sheep as grazers in these solar array settings. The variety of excellent speakers at these diverse events were impressive, and even more uplifting was the number of young producers, researchers and educators that were featured and are in the forefront of helping our industry to embrace change and work together to address our challenges. An additional special bonus were the energized new and young producers that chose to take the time to participate in these events, as they are the future for our industry. My best.

Members of ASI's Young Entrepreneurs group who attended the 2022 Lamb Summit in East Lansing, Mich.

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