Condensed BQA Manual Available

Digital field guide is handy reference with core BQA practices.

The digital Field Guide has 10 chapters that cover everything from behavior and handling to transportation to emergency action planning. It allows producers to assess their management decisions in a way that recognizes a responsibility to the animals, consumers, the environment and the larger beef industry.

A condensed version of the Beef Quality Assurance (BQA) manual is available to BQA followers in digital or print form. The BQA Field Guide is a compact version of the manual that can be used as a convenient reference piece. It covers the key points of the BQA program without program background and other information that may not be useful in the course of day-to-day operations.

The BQA program is managed by the producer education team at the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association (NCBA), a contractor to the Beef Checkoff Program.

The digital Field Guide has 10 chapters that cover everything from behavior and handling to transportation to emergency action planning. It allows producers to assess their management decisions in a way that recognizes a responsibility to the animals, consumers, the environment and the larger beef industry.

The digital Field Guide contains embedded links and videos that allow producers to interact with various elements of BQA. The digital guide, the print version and the larger, more in-depth manual represent the foundation for training and certification programs offered nationally and by many states.

“We’re committed to creating tools for producers that allow them to follow practices that reflect the most responsible cattle industry knowledge today,” says Kim Brackett, an Idaho cattle producer and chair of the BQA Advisory Group. “This new BQA Field Guide will be useful for immediately accessing this kind of helpful information while working with cattle.”

The BQA program is a cooperative effort between beef producers, veterinarians, nutritionists, extension staff and other professionals from veterinary medical associations and allied industries. Its goal is to assure consumers that all cattle shipped from a beef production unit are healthy, wholesome and safe; their management has met Food and Drug Administration (FDA), USDA and Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) standards; they meet quality requirements throughout the production system; and they are produced using animal well-being, worker safety, and environmentally sound production practices.

BQA recommends the use of common sense, appropriate management skills and accepted scientific knowledge to deliver the highest levels of animal stewardship and the production of quality, healthy and safe products. Each aspect of the program is economically logical and part of good business management.

Both the digital and print versions of the BQA Field Guide are now available. To find out more about them or the BQA manual, or to become BQA-certified, visit BQA.org.

Editor’s note: This article is from BQA.