Kerth
Animal sciences associate professor Chris Kerth was recently awarded a Fulbright Scholar Grant and will spend three months next year in Uruguay, South America.
While there, Kerth will spend much of his time presenting lectures and seminars.
He will also be conducting research at the National Agricultural Research Institute in Uruguay.
Kerth’s Auburn research has focused on grass-fed beef.
Kerth said most of the interest in grass-fed beef in our area stems from local producers looking for a new way to market their beef.
“In the Southeast, we are lucky to have an abundance of forages,” Kerth said. “By finishing cattle on grass and using a resource we already have, there is a greater potential for profit. As a country, we have been raised on grain-fed beef; grass-fed beef simply gives consumers another option.”
Uruguay is a good place for Kerth’s research, as the country’s entire livelihood is centered on beef.
“Uruguay is a small country, but beef is very important to them,” Kerth said. “Their method of finishing cattle is on grass, and my time there will be spent exchanging the information I’ve gathered through our research here at Auburn.”
Doctorate student Clint Rowe has assisted Kerth with research and feels there is potential in finishing beef on forages.
“With corn prices pushing $6 per bushel, diesel prices coming close to $4 per gallon and an increase in natural, organic and locally raised product, there is a clear need for research in the area of forage-fed beef,” Rowe said. “The Southeast has a lot of grass, but not a lot of feed lots, so the idea of using the resources that are local, rather than in another part of the country are not only warranted, but needed.”
Rowe said the profit potential with finishing beef on forages can be appealing to both consumers and producers.
“The market for forage-fed beef is there, it just has not been fully explored, and that’s part of the aim that Dr. Kerth’s research has,” Rowe said.
