From the hills of southwestern Virginia, Gene Copenhaver is using his national platform to advance the concerns of the beef industry. Copenhaver is serving this year as the vice president of the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, a position that Eastern cattle producers don’t often attain. In his role, Copenhaver is speaking to decision-makers in Washington on everything from the Farm Bill to environmental regulations. His work, of course, begins on the farm. Copenhaver and his son, Will, 31, run a 1,500-head stocker operation near Abingdon. Copenhaver buys mainly steers in the 400- to 500-pound range and sells them at 900 to 1,000 pounds. Grazing at about 2,000 feet above sea level, the cattle thrive on cool-season forages such as orchardgrass, bluegrass, clover and fescue. In the winter, Copenhaver tops them up with 3 pounds of concentrate. “We get tremendous gains on those cattle once we turn them out in the spring and all the way through December,” he said. The cattle raised over the winter Copenhaver sells from late May to October, mostly to cattle feeders in eastern Iowa and western Illinois. He gets most of the cattle through three buying stations in his region. Over the past 20 years, Copenhaver said, Virginia has burnished its reputation as a producer of feeder cattle. Many beef farmers in southwestern and Southside Virginia used money from the tobacco buyout to invest in bulls and facilities. They joined a nationwide movement toward improved genetics that raised the rate of choice and prime from 55% to 80%, Copenhaver said. Virginia farmers sold $700 million in cattle in 2022, meaning the state’s industry is similar in size to Pennsylvania’s and twice the size of neighboring North Carolina’s. As big as those numbers are, the industry is much bigger in the West. Texas sold 11.7 million cattle in 2022, which was 11 million more than Virginia sold, according to the Census of Agriculture. It’s no wonder, then, which part of the c ountry produces the most members of NCBA leadership. “I think I’m doing something right in the industry because being on the East Coast, you don’t always get the positions that you would if you were from the West,” Copenhaver said. Copenhaver is in his third year on the association’s nine-person national officer team. He served the past two years with the Policy Division. Before that he served with the committees on trade and tax issues. With the Farm Bill being reviewed in the House Agriculture Committee, NCBA is looking to protect and increase funding for the national animal vaccine bank, which protects against foot and mouth disease. The cattlemen also want continued support for voluntary conservation. And the group wants increased funding for risk management and disaster relief. Copenhaver is particularly keen on Livestock Risk Protection. “It fits all sizes of operation, and it’s been a great thing for us,” he said. To promote these goals, Copenhaver met with House Speaker Mike Johnson in January and has talked several times with Rep. Glenn Thompson , R-Pa., the chairman of the House Agriculture Committee. “I don’t know if people in Pennsylvania understand what a great asset they have there for agriculture in Mr. Thompson,” Copenhaver said. “He is great.” Beyond the Farm Bill, NCBA is pushing for a variety of policies, from broadening beef export opportunities to strengthened control options for calf-killing black vultures . One of the biggest challenges Copenhaver sees facing the beef industry is activist groups that want to end animal agriculture. “We have to fight them on a daily basis,” Copenhaver said. “They have a lot more money than us.” NCBA also wants labels for plant-based and cultured meat to say how the products are made and what’s in them. “We’re not afraid of competition, but at the same time, we want to be on a level playing field with that industry,” he said. The Supreme Court gave ag groups a big win with a narrow interpretation of the Clean Waters Act last year. An expansive reading of the law could have increased the situations in which farmers needed to get permits to put in ponds, access roads and irrigation systems, according to NCBA’s friend-of-the-court brief. Instead, “we got about 85% of what we thought we needed, and we’re still negotiating in court with the other 15%,” Copenhaver said. Some Trump-era tax policies are set to expire next year, so the organization is looking to preserve favorable rules for the estate tax and for stepped-up basis, which exempts assets held until death from capital gains taxes. “We want to make sure that we can continue on with the next generation, transition these operations and not let tax be a burden to this next generation,” Copenhaver said.
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