In mid-December, Checotah FFA member Jade McPeak, her mother, Emmy McPeak and FFA Advisor, Zachary Ilbery, traveled all expenses paid to Las Vegas, Nevada for the Intertribal Agriculture Council Annual Conference after Jade was named as one of the top three finalists nationwide in the 2024 IAC Youth Essay Contest.

In her essay Jade spoke about being introduced to many different aspects of life, specifically agricultural life, and stated that she believed the Tribal Advisor Council should introduce a subcommittee that deals directly with livestock which would ensure that every aspect of agriculture in Indian County is well represented. She then went on and gave statistics that 75% of the 79,000 Native Americans involved in agriculture are directly involved in livestock production. This means that three quarters of all Native American producers are directly involved in livestock orientation and they face the exact same struggles that she faces raising livestock. She went on to explain that out of the six subcommittees only one has to do with farming and not one pertains to livestock production, trade or sale which greatly affects her family and others.

“I feel if we are going to completely bridge the gap between the government and Indian Country we need to involve all aspects of Native agricultural production and see how the laws and policies are actually implemented in Indian Country,” Jade said.

In this essay over the Tribal Advisory Committee (TAC) for the USDA, Jade made recommendations to include farming and ranching subcommittees and then during a virtual meeting she made a public comment about how the committee claims to ‘bridge the gap between the government and Indian country’ yet they don’t have a livestock subcommittee to represent the Native American producers because there’s a difference in farming and the production of crops and ranching and the production of livestock. Then Trenton Kissee, who works at the Creek Nation and on the TAC board, told methatbecauseofmyinput they made a new subcommittee for ranching, which was pretty exciting because that was the whole point of my essay.”

Jade went on to say how it was great to be heard by TAC and awarded this special trip where she had the opportunity to interact with over 1,400 federal employees, native producers, and FFA staff.

Ilbery, who currently serves on the Board of Directors for the Intertribal Agriculture Council and Akiptan, is proud to serve Nativeproducersandtribes and was extremely proud of Jade’s accomplishment at this conference. Both were able to attend workshops relating to Native agriculture, USDA programs, and FFA presentations.

“Jade was able to make important connections for her future and for her current SAE project through the FFA,” Ilbery said. “Some of these connections included Zach Ducheneaux, Farm Service Agency Administrator for the USDA; Gary Matteson, Senior VP for Beginning Farmers and Ranchers Programs and Outreach for Farm Credit; Terry Crosby, Chief of the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS); Marcia Bunger, head of the Risk Management Agency (RMA) as well as several other notable individuals. Jade also got to explore Las Vegas with other youth from Oklahoma and was grateful for the opportunity to attend an amazing conference.”

Jade stated that her favorite thing in Vegas was going to the National Finals Rodeo.

At the end of December Jade also went to the Arizona National Livestock Show and placed 1st in Prepared Public Speaking and 5th Goat Showman Intermediate. In her speech she spoke in detail of how genetic testing in the cattle industry is affecting really just the show cattle industry.

“There are 89.3 million in cattle breeds, yet if we add up the active herd books of the five largest breeds, it totals one million,” Jade said. “So based on those statistics, only 20 percent of each cattle breed carry one defect and I can phenotypically recognize those defect carriers.Yet instead of giving breeders the choice to test, we are required to test and that’s my main point. It’s frustrating because the industry overcharges for the testing and they make multiple tests for the same defect but in different breeds of cattle, which the scientists can do because every breed has a different genotype. For example if I have a Maine-Angus heifer I have to test her for TH and AM even though it’s the same defect but TH in the Maines and AM in the Angus. So now I’m double paying for something that I can already tell she has because she has a huge ridge in her forehead and tons of hair.”

Jade went on to say that even though feed costs are high and drought hit a lot of ranchers pretty hard, right now cattle prices are high so selling is profitable when three years ago it was not. Yet prices probably haven;t been good for long enough to really see the effects in production.

Jade’s next competition will be the county livestock show coming up January 18 and she encourages everyone to come out and support their FFA students.