(SAN ANTONIO, TX) — As 2025 gets underway, there are plenty of items on the minds of cattlemen and women as they discuss policy priorities at CattleCon 2025.
With the new Trump Administration, there is excitement amongst members of the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association as they hope to work with the new administration on a number of key issues and priorities. Gene Copenhaver, current NCBA Vice President (and soon to be president-elect), shares that he hopes Trump 2.0 is similar to the first go round.
“Well, let me first say the last President Trump administration, he was good to the boys in the hats. Several of us got to White House and we’ve kind of been shut out of the White House the last four years. So we’re excited about him coming in and excited about maybe turning back some of the rules and regulations that’s cutting into our bottom line that this last administration put in effect,” said Copenhaver.
“And also the big, always the big policy thing we need to look at, is produce profitability for several things,” adds Copenhaver. “One big thing is to have that next generation ready to come on, whether it’s the first generation or fifth generation, whatever, is we got to continue with this family ownership of the beef industry. I mean over 90% of beef operations are family oriented and we need to make sure that continues in the future.”
Taxes are also another big priority for NCBA this year as many of the tax cuts introduced in the first Trump Administration, are set to expire in 2025. “2017, I was chairman of tax and credit for NCBA and I got to go to DC several times and everything turned out pretty good,” says Copenhaver. “We didn’t know at the time when we were working on it, but we got to change the way or we increased the levels for estate taxes. We got to keep stepped up basis. We got bonus depreciation, Section 179 deduction. And so what we’re looking at these because some of those things go away at the end of 2025, we want to maintain those and maybe get rid of estate taxes altogether if we could.”
And when it comes to passing on the farm or ranch to the next generation, Copenhaver says having good tax policy makes it easier when it comes to succession planning. “It makes it a lot easier to succession plan if we have a good tax regulation to do that. If you lower the estate taxes or make estate taxes more, then succession planning gets a lot harder,” says Copenhaver. “And it’ll put a lot of family farmers out of business. Stepped up basis is very important. It’s important to all size farming operations or ranching operations. And we need to make sure that’s always maintained.”
Copenhaver added that other priorities of NCBA in 2025 are making sure that beef is still maintained on the dinner plate with USDA. And making sure that a new five-year Farm Bill is enacted with key programs such as funding for the foot and mouth vaccine bank, LRP programs and voluntary conservation programs.
The Cattle Industry Convention and NCBA Trade Show runs through Thursday in San Antonio, TX. In 2026, the convention heads to Nashville, TN.
Hear the full conversation with Gene Copenhaver on Tuesday’s episode of Market Talk in Segment Four of the show: