John Matsushima is a slight man, maybe 5 feet tall in cowboy boots.
But within the beef industry, few stand taller.
That’s because Matsushima, a retired Colorado State University professor, researched and implemented many of the methods used by cattle feeders across the country. Through the Fed Beef Contest that he started at the National Western Stock Show four decades ago, he has done much to perfect the art of raising cattle to produce the most and best meat.
Matsushima literally wrote the book on beef. It’s called “A Journey Back,” and within its 200-some pages, it recounts the history of cattle feeding in the United States and the efforts by Matsushima and others to study and improve the beef industry.
“A living legend,” is how one rancher describes him. A 1967 Denver Post article dubbed him “genius of the feedlots.” CSU and the National Western have feted him with honors.
“Within the state of Colorado, you couldn’t talk to any cattle feeder who isn’t aware of him and some of his ideas,” said Myron Danner, a rancher from Nebraska who has five times received the Matsushima Trophy as winner of the Fed Beef Contest. “In fact, most of them probably utilize some of his ideas.”
To understand the impact that the 86-year-old Matsushima, who grew up on vegetable farms in Lafayette and Platteville, has had on the beef industry, you must understand one thing: Cattle look different on the outside than on the inside. Elegant body lines don’t necessarily mean a tastier steak.
“When you put a large amount of fat on a live animal, they look pretty,” Matsushima says. “But until they’re slaughtered, it’s difficult to know what’s under that hide.”
Hence the idea for the Fed Beef Contest. Cattle feeders enter a group of animals. The feeders know everything about the animals on the outside – what they look like, what they’ve been fed and how.
Then the cattle are slaughtered, and the feeders and contest judges get to see what they look like on the inside. Judges look for things such as how much fat there is around the meat, how much fat is interspersed within the beef, which is called marbling, and how much usable meat the carcass produces. In the end, the results are scored, and the winner is the feeder who produced the best cattle carcasses.
“It’s beneficial to the feedlots or the producers knowing just the kind of carcasses that these animals produce because it helps them in their decisions and their genetic breeding program,” said Chuck Sylvester, who retired in 2003 after 25 years as the stock show’s general manager.
Without the Fed Beef Contest, Matsushima said, it is very difficult for feeders to ever know whether the cattle they raise produce good beef. Sylvester credits the event and the awareness it created in raising the quality of beef in the United States, making it leaner and higher-grade.
Matsushima’s accomplishments don’t stop at the contest. He also has done significant work in coming up with more cost-effective and nutritious feed for cattle.
“He would be described as a living legend,” Danner said.
He is, however, one with humble beginnings.
Matsushima, the son of a Japanese immigrant, first went to the stock show when he was 10. He showed steer and won a few prizes, then attended CSU on scholarship.
Throughout the years, Matsushima said, he has seen the show change and grow. More people attend, and they come from farther away, some even from overseas. More breeds of cattle are entered. The technology is more complex, and the science is more ingrained.
But mostly, he said, the show has stayed the same. It is still a place for competition, for education and for old friends to say hello.
Matsushima says he makes it a point to attend every year, even though he has retired from running the Fed Beef Contest, and now he brings his grandchildren, as well.
“It’s kind of nice to have an event like this where the people have an opportunity to see different things,” he said. “It’s not just a rodeo or a livestock show. It’s a place where there’s an accumulation of knowledge.”
Staff writer John Ingold can be reached at 720-929-0898 or jingold@denverpost.com.
