Adam Torres and Jarrod Montford discuss Texas FFA.
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Show Notes:
Listen to coverage from the 96th Texas FFA State Convention in Houston, Texas. In this episode, Adam Torres and Jarrod Montford, Owner of JM Beef, explore the FFA and convention.
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About Jarrod Montford
Jarrod Montford is the fourth-generation rancher on one side of the family and the fifth-generation on the other side. He received a degree in animal science from Tarleton State University in 2004 and became a sales representative for Genex Beef in 2014. Shortly after, he went to the International Embryo Technology School.
His wife and Jarrod married in 2017, when she joined in on the family operation. They started breeding a pasture to plate program for the public in 2017 and had our first freezer beef processed in 2020 as it takes a minimum of 30 months from conception.
They have had a relationship with Tarleton State University’s Meats Lab since he graduated from Tarleton in 2004. As a student, he helped process beef and saw the value of the educational side of the meat lab. Ever since, TSU’s meats lab has processed our beef. He quickly learned that by choosing the university to process our beef, versus choosing a local processing plant, we are providing more opportunities to students to learn and grow in their passion.
Full Unedited Transcript
Hey, I’d like to welcome you to another episode of Mission Matters. My name is Adam Torres and I am at the Texas FFA convention in Houston, Texas. And my guest today is Jared Mumford. Jared, first off, we met a couple of years ago. It’s good to see you again. Welcome back. Thank you, sir. Good to see you.
What was it? No, Waco. I think in Waco. Or no, was it, what are we? Dallas. Dallas. Also, it was last year we met. Okay. I don’t know why I thought it was two years ago. So just to get us kicked off here. One of my goals with this series and this interview series is to introduce people outside of Texas, outside of FFA to what’s going on.
Like what’s the big deal. Why do I fly here every year for the last three years? Why, why be here for the next, next year, the year after? Why do I keep coming back? So just to kick, get us kicked off here, Jared, what keeps you coming back year after year? What keeps me coming back here is just the phenomenal list of.
The youth being in agriculture being a fifth generation cow care producer We don’t have good quality youth coming up they just there We have so many students that Don’t have the work. I think they need they don’t have the the personable skills and they don’t have the ability to say You I want to do X, Y, Z, and then they do X, Y, Z that lacks until you get here.
Yeah. And when you get here, these students, they have drive, they have motivation, they have the want to, they have the desire. Mm hmm. These students here will be the ones that follow in our footstep. Yeah. That do what we’re doing now. They’re the ones that. We’ll carry the next generation for these are the leaders.
And when you get to, we have to realize that, that, that Timothy had Paul. So we are the Pauls to these Timothys. Yeah. We look up to those that are older than us and we’re their Timothys. They’re our Pauls. They’ve taught us so much about the industry. And and how the industry is progressing forward with technologies And we’ve got to get these students brought up today and we’ve got to bring those students in into the the ag world and into the ag sector and these are the guys that Gives you that future that brightness that hope that hey, you know what we’re going to live another day We we have we have the students and that’s what this organization Of the texas ffa and the national ffa in every other state You That’s what they bring is they bring those quality students into the next workforce, where they go to college first or where they go to the work first one.
It doesn’t matter. They’re coming to take our place. They are coming to fill our shoes, according to George Jones. Yeah. What’s been one of your favorite parts of convention so far this year? Just to get to meet the students, to shake their hands, to, to get to share hugs, to get to know that That I am here as an industry representative talking, you know, about what I do to realize that there’s students that’s gonna That’s gonna come and take our place There’s students that have the want you to desire to do what I do that I can be a mentor of But man, just just see the kids talk a little bit about what you do.
You might show fifth generation Like that’s a little bit about so at home. I’m a fifth generation calc F producer Mm hmm, and we run a I would say a pasture to play programs It’s raising and selling beef directly into consumers. But I’m going to say that we have a caveat in that. That’s that, that I’ve kind of missed.
They’re a really big part of our program. We raise beef for Charleston state universities, meat science center to have beef for those students in the college world to cut up to see the high school students that are going into the the meat science judging contest. Getting more and more popular. I had two, two students on the show this week about that are in the end of that program.
One, one young lady, she goes to, I think, Texas A& M. Yep. She’s in their program. So we are helping that Charleston State University as a university, giving them quality beef for them to raise or not to raise, but for them to process and turn into retail cuts for those students to either say, Hey, I want to be in the meat science industry or Hey, I I don’t want to be in the media science industry, but now I better consider it.
Yes. So that is what we do at home. We raise we’re about being the fact that Tarleton is a university and not a USDA facility with USDA grading and marketing. The, their facilities. Would be equivalent on a grading scale because it’s an educational scale. So we’re 80 to 85 percent prime graded carcasses Which is a feat that maybe only 10 percent 12 percent of the nation’s cowherd can attain.
Wow. So we’re running an 80 to 85 percent carcass kill rate on that aspect and that’s what we do at home and then my day job is I’m a Do a lot of things but anyway My main day job, I’m a cattle embryologist. I do embryo work in cattle. Do AI work in cattle. I sell semen for ST Genetics. And then I teach AI courses as a ministry or I pick that, Answered prayer up coming out of a trip in Paraguay.
When you come to my AI classes, that is 100 percent ministry focused. And I try to intertwine scripture with cow management to the best of my ability. Scripture with Cal Management and AI. How do you, what, what, how does this work, Red? I’ll be on, I’ll be straight up honest. It is not Jared doing that work.
Yes. That’s 100 percent me saying, God, you’re in control. Speak through me. Give me the scriptures that tie to these management and make that work. When we serve my memory, if this is, if I’m telling my memory might be off on this, but we talked about, did you have some TikTok going or something like that?
Oh, no, no. I hadn’t got in the TikTok world. Okay. That’s what, okay. I thought, I don’t know why I was thinking that you were doing some of this on TikTok too. Not yet. Okay. Facebook is the full time job as it is. Ah, I got it. Okay, okay. I just didn’t know where to send them. Like, how do people follow your work in general?
Like, how do they do that? You can follow Montford Cattle Service on Facebook. Yep. You can follow JM Beef on Facebook. Mm hmm. There is a Jared Montford. We can be friends. There’s Jared Montford on Facebook. And then I have a public figure on Facebook. Jared Montford public figure. Yep. Be careful of my personal account.
Yeah. One of them has 4, 000 some odd friends, but it was hacked. So I had to start all over again. So if you see the one that I’m doing actively That one’s me. If you see the one that hadn’t been touched in a year, that one is no longer me. So what do you got? What do you got planned for the rest of the year?
Like what’s up for you? So the rest of the year we’re beginning, even though we’re a full time trade show right now. It’s actually slow seasons for me. That’s why I’m hitting the trade shows. That’s why I’m here with the students and the ag teachers. So we start breeding hard in breeding cattle hard in Thanksgiving, sorry in March We roll until June and then we hit this stuff in July.
We’ll hit this stuff in August dude more trade shows We’ll get back to the house in September. I’ll give all my cows out first of September and into the middle of October Mm hmm. So I have a 45 day Kevin season while that is going on. I will actually go on a Sales trip with ST Genetics. They take all their top semen sales reps on trips every year.
And I’ve earned that the last six years in a row. So I will spend a week in Nebraska with them guys, and then be back at the house, finished calving out cows. And then I’ll take a little bit of the end of October off, a little bit of the first of November off. And then we go right into full fledged breeding season, starting around Thanksgiving, we’ll breed cows heavy from Thanksgiving all the way through December, all the way through the middle of January.
And then I’ll have a slow season again from middle of January to the middle of March. I mean, it will pick up again. So I run a pretty seasonal top business. And then when you get time to break, get time to be at home, you’re at home. That’s amazing. Well, Jared, man, great to see you again. Great to great to have you back here.
And thank you for coming on the show. First time I’ve done this kind of setup here. So. I’m pretty excited to open this up and I’m already making plans for next year and how I’ll do it next year. So we’ll keep it going. And to the audience as always, thank you for tuning in. Hope you had a lot of fun tuning into this and listening.
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So you get that notification and Jared again, appreciate you making some time for us today, man. Yes, sir. Thank you. God bless you, brother.