Got Beef?

New technology ‘beefs up’ cattle care

We’ve all been there. You show up some where new, and try to find a group where you fit in. As it happens, cattle aren’t all that different.

“Cattle perform a lot better when they’re in groups with similar cattle—those of the same size or frame,” said Emily Folkestad, ’08 and ’11.

She knows from experience. Folkestad has been the Chief Financial Officer at Beef Northwest, Oregon’s largest cattle feeding company, for 10 years.

The company uses new technology to sort cattle into appropriate groups when they’re received at the feedlot or headed to market. Folkestad said they’re one of few cattle companies that has invested in individual radio frequency ID tags for each animal in the feedyard. The pricey technology allows Beef Northwest to attend to specific needs and identify trends.

“Everybody thinks of cattle as a herd, but we track each animal as an individual,” Folkestad said. “We can track their entire journey: their weight, what they’ve eaten, any vet care including medicine or treatment, all the way to the characteristics of our finished meat products.”

She explained that raising cattle is a low-margin business—like most types of agriculture—but there’s increasing demand from consumers and retailers to trace where their food comes from. Plus, the data helps Folkestad’s team make informed decisions to improve efficiency and quality.

Folkestad works at the company headquarters in North Powder, Oregon, but she grew up in an urban environment.

“When it was time to go to school I wanted to get out of the city, so I picked Eastern,” she said. A part-time job at Beef Northwest has become a decades-long career, and Folkestad is in good company. Five other EOU alumni work alongside her: Kathryn Wilson (ne’e Pointer), ’10, Celena Hefner, ’16, Adam Sullivan, ’11, Katelyn Smith (ne’e Hefner), ’11, and Taylor Folkman (ne’e Robinson), ’20. They work in a range of jobs from IT to human resources, to financial analysis.

One of EOU’s newest degree programs, Agricultural Entrepreneurship, acknowledges this diversity of roles in food production businesses. Folkestad said the degree meets a growing need.

“Ag has a stigma for being disconnected from the modern world, but we have to be fiscally and ecologically sustainable,” she said. “There’s a lot of room for entrepreneurial people to come into ag and treat it like a business or career: I’m living proof of that.”

Folkestad spent three years riding hunter/jumper horses after high school, and changed her major several times before landing on a Liberal Studies degree. She completed much of her coursework through distance education services, and returned for an MBA in 2011. Eager to give back, Folkestad recently joined the EOU Foundation President’s Circle with a gift of $1,000.

“Ag has a stigma for being disconnected from the modern world, but we have to be fiscally and ecologically sustainable…”

– Emily Folkestad

She said Beef Northwest uses a range of technology for cattle and cattle health. They’ve completed trials with automated heavy equipment, and they use drones to manage surface conditions in pens or measure piles of corn.

The company has grown since Folkestad started as a receptionist. Beef Northwest sources cattle from the Pacific Northwest, cares for them in feedlots in Eastern Oregon and eastern Washington, and provides beef products to retailers across the country. She said they produce about 250,000 cattle each year. Beef Northwest cattle become steaks, roasts and burgers on American dinner plates, while products like tongue, oxtail and liver are exported overseas where they’re more popular.

From farm to market, Folkestad’s role offers a peek inside the food system and shines a light on the individual people and animals behind so many meals.

“It’s not a typical consumer business,” she said. “But that’s what makes it fun because it’s definitely a challenge.”