Tucker Brown, sixth-generation rancher from northern Texas
We sat down with Brandi Buzzard, Nikki Callison and Tucker Brown, three ranchers from Kansas, Texas and Oklahoma, respectively, who not only raise crops, critters and kids but also make it a priority to share their ranching story on social media.
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BB: I was a student at Kansas State University. That’s where I got my undergraduate and my master’s degree, and there was a student journalist writing all these op-eds that were pretty anti-meats and anti-milk. I was just so aggravated and, finally, I had to do something about it. I wrote a reply like a letter for the editor, and it ended up being around 500 words long. Unsurprisingly, they did not print it. But there was a journalist at Drovers — Chuck Jolley — who I really respected. I emailed him and asked him what I should do. The next thing I knew, he ended up publishing my column online. And I thought to myself, “Well, that was cool. I could do this.” That was 2009.
NC: In 2018, I had more and more people coming to me to buy beef directly, so we started small — but that encouraged me to share our story on social media to show people what we were doing on the ranch. The more I did that, the more I found that it just really fit. I’m a fourth-generation rancher and former history teacher and I love photography, so sharing our ranching story on social media suited my skills. I really enjoyed interacting with my audience, and it just continued to develop from there.
TB: I have always enjoyed sharing our ranch’s story for as long as I can remember, but a turning point for me was in 2021 at the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association (NCBA) convention. I watched them present their annual Advocate of the Year award. The young lady was very impressive — a first-generation rancher from California. It really opened my eyes that I was not doing my part to share the deep agricultural history of my family and to share the truth about the beef industry. If we don’t tell our story, then someone will tell it for us.
BB: My favorite part is getting comments like “Thank you for clearing this up. I appreciate that. I didn’t know that about cattle. I didn’t know that about beef,” or things like that. I always screenshot them and save them to a file on my computer called “You’re doing a good job.” That’s why I got started in advocacy. I didn’t get into it to try to get rich or anything, I didn’t get into it to have millions of followers. I got into it because I don’t want people to be afraid of their beef. I don’t want people to be afraid of their food or where their food comes from. I don’t want people to be afraid to eat anything from the grocery store.
NC: I have met some incredible people, from other social media influencers to the people who follow me. I love answering messages personally and sharing the lifestyle that I grew up with. I like the people, I like the lifestyle and I like learning.
TB: My favorite part is developing the ideas for videos. Trying to create videos that are entertaining yet informative is a challenge that I love taking on. The other thing I have really enjoyed is meeting all the people who are sharing the same story that I am. Agriculture has some of the best people in the world.
BB: To preserve this lifestyle and preserve our ranch for future generations. I want my daughters to be able to ranch here if they want to and then, if they want to have kids, I want our grandkids to have the opportunity to do the same if they’d like. But if there’s no need for beef, there’s no need for any of us.
NC: There’s a lot of negative noise surrounding agriculture and food that I don’t think is legitimate. Being on social media gives me an opportunity to say, “Hey, we are professionals. This is what we do every day. This land means more to us than just ownership. It means sustainability.” There’s a huge interest in rural lifestyle in general, and I get to show people what our life is like on the ranch and show them that we want to feed fellow families great beef.
TB: The ag industry is already facing an uphill battle when it comes to public perception. Our industry has stayed quiet and to ourselves for far too long. That allowed other people to share our story for us — a story that I see as inaccurate. Many see government policies as a future challenge, and to make sure that doesn’t hinder our industry down the road, I believe it is important for us as ranchers to share our way of life.
BB: Be authentic. The person that you’re talking to right now is the exact same person I am on Facebook, I am on my ranch and I am on stage speaking at an event. I don’t know how to be anything else — this is who I am. Be empathetic. Empathetic doesn’t mean weak. It means the ability to put yourself in someone else’s shoes. People make food decisions for all sorts of reasons, whether economic, nostalgic or something else. For example, I use Ivory dish soap, and I will always use Ivory dish soap, because that’s what my grandma used. It could be $100 a bottle, and I’d still buy it. People make decisions about their food that way also. We don’t ever know the internal drivers that are making people question their food choices, making people feel confident in them or making people feel scared about them. We don’t know that, but what we can do is imagine.
NC: Don’t underestimate your audience. They are interested. They are intelligent. They have common sense. You don’t have to preach the message of agriculture; you just have to show them what you’re doing. People are also extremely curious. They just want to see what it is that you do. In sharing your day-to-day lives and explaining things like what’s a cattle trail or why do we put the cattle through the chute, then your audience feels like they got their information from the source. They feel like they have been educated and influenced, not preached to.
TB: The first thing I wish our industry could improve on as a whole would be our ability to communicate to our end customer. I had to learn how to tell my story in a way that was interesting, factual and easy to understand for those separated from agriculture. I suggest going through the Masters of Beef Advocacy class online — not because it helped me learn more about the beef industry, but it helped me learn how to tell its story.
BB: I can’t image being in a role or a job that I didn’t have passion for — how miserable that might be. One of my favorite quotes by Mia Hamm is “If you don’t love what you do, you won’t do it with much conviction or passion.”
NC: My uncle always used to say, “No talking, no laughing, no loping your horses,” when we’d go gather cattle, and that always reminds me to be calm. Another one of my favorites is “You can’t do great things on an empty stomach.”
TB: I have heard my dad say many times, “We don’t have to change, but we have to compete with those that do.”
Brandi
Tucker
Nikki
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