Approximately 70 people attended, representing cattlemen, ranchers, cattle feeders, bankers, commodity brokers and CPAs. The keynote speaker was New Mexico State professor, Dr. Lowell Catlett. The seminar also featured Larry Doyle, Chief Executive Officer of Farm Credit Bank of Texas and Josh Winegarner, Director of Government Relations for the Texas Cattle Feeders Association.  Also presenting were Rob Gunther, Senior Tax Manager at Frost, PLLC, and T.J. Boyle, Senior Audit Manager at Frost, PLLC and Heath Wilson, Vice President of Great Plains Ag Credit.

During his presentation, Catlett termed this “the Golden Age of Agriculture."  He said that currently farmers and ranchers have the “best debt to equity ratio” possible. He cited the fact that 9 percent of income is currently spent on food and the U.S. uses the least percentage of income on food in the world. Catlett emphasized the fact that this is the Golden Age, because “the world has more money to spend on food and the U.S. has more money to spend on better food."

Larry Doyle spoke about “using collateral, but not owning collateral.” He stressed the importance of keeping good liquidity and access to capital, because big equity with no liquidity can be trouble.”

Josh Winegarner talked about the federal government’s GIPSA pending rules which effect cattle operations as well as other livestock operations.  Additionally, he discussed potential defunding of the Obama health care legislation and rescission of the 1099 reporting requirements.

Frost CPAs T.J. Boyle and Rob Gunther spoke about the optimal utilization of benefits made available to beef producers by Congress such as cash basis accounting, as well as other farm- related tax benefits.

For more information about the conference and/or to receive information about the 2011 conference, please contact Rob Gunther, rgunther@frostpllc.com or T.J. Boyle, tboyle@frostpllc.com.