Story & photos by Livestock Marketing Association

Forty leaders from across the livestock industry convened at the Common Ground Summit April 21-23 at Denver’s Brown Palace Hotel. Their shared mission: to safeguard rural communities, ensure America’s food independence and preserve a way of life central to the nation’s agricultural heritage.

Participants described the event as a breakthrough for industrywide collaboration. Attendees achieved consensus on policy priorities designed to fortify segments of the livestock industry. These priorities address urgent threats — including regulatory burdens, labor shortages, tax challenges and barriers to entry for the next generation — that jeopardize the sustainability of family operations and rural economies.

Turk Stovall, a rancher and cattle feeder from Billings, Mont., served as the summit’s moderator and commented on the event’s importance.

“The power behind the Common Ground Summit is these are real producers from across our country that represent a lot of different segments of the livestock industry,” he said. “This goes beyond any one organization. It’s all of us as cattle producers saying, ‘These are the things we really need — and we really need them now.’”

Turning challenges into solutions

The three-day summit tackled a stark reality: America risks losing its capacity to feed itself independently, a situation with profound implications for both national security and the agricultural sector.

Participants engaged in focused discussions on topics that were identified as being most pressing to achieving these shared goals. Through intensive dialogue and collaboration, attendees successfully identified key priorities and actionable solutions to drive progress in six critical areas:

• Ag-Friendly Tax Policy. Extend and enhance key provisions like transfer tax exemptions, step-up in basis, and accelerated depreciation to support agricultural families.
• Risk Management Tools. Improve programs like Livestock Risk Protection to better serve producers.
• Access to Labor. Streamline and expand H-2 programs to address labor shortages.
• Flexibility for Livestock Haulers. Exempt livestock haulers from restrictive hours-of-service (HOS) rules and the electronic logging device mandate.
• Support for Young and Emerging Producers. Expand USDA loan programs, incentivize land transfers to younger producers, and foster interest in agricultural careers.
• Innovation and Sustainability. Champion technologies and programs that enhance livestock production efficiency and sustainability.

Barb Downey, a rancher from Wamego, Kansas, who took part in the inaugural event, agreed.

“I’m pleasantly surprised that we are setting aside differences and moving forward on actionable items that we can work towards together,” she said. “You’ve got some really amazing people in this room, and we’ve all adopted the attitude that we’re going to work on what we can agree on and get that done.”

And that “we’re all in this together” attitude will be the key to success, Greg Ibach said. The farmer and rancher from Nebraska previously served as USDA’s undersecretary of agriculture for marketing and regulatory programs and as the director of the Nebraska Department of Agriculture.

“We seem to have more divergence of opinion on how things should take place, even within the beef industry,” he said. “Bringing together members of different organizations that sometimes diverge on policy opinions and trying to find some uniformity, I think, will help us be more effective in Washington, D.C., if we can go back with a unified ask, at least on certain topics.”

A call to action

Stovall said the group — and the industry as a whole — must strike while the iron is hot and invites others to join the charge.

“As land goes out of production, as producers don’t come back to the farms, at what point do we wake up in the morning and we find out we can’t feed our country, and it really becomes beyond a livestock industry issue?” Stovall asked. “It becomes a national security issue. And so right now is the most important time for us to be talking about these things.”

The Common Ground Summit stands as a testament to the power of collaboration, charting a path forward for America’s livestock industry.

Bringing together stakeholders from diverse backgrounds, operations and organizational involvement, the summit demonstrated the livestock industry’s collective commitment to preserving America’s agricultural land for future generations while strengthening and expanding the livestock producers who rely on it to feed the world.