Texas cattle rancher Michael Vieira seeking investment opportunities St Vincent
Michael Vieira of A Legacy Genetics is currently in St. Vincent and the Grenadines (SVG) assessing opportunities increase cattle production in the country. Vieira has been involved in the cattle industry for the past 40 years and is well-connected with major US cattle stakeholders.
Minister of Agriculture, Saboto Caesar and Vieira visited several cattle farmers over the past two days. Vieira expressed that he was indeed impressed with the quality of cattle on the island.
Vieira became chapter FFA (Future Farmers of America) President for two years, District IV FFA Secretary, won numerous awards, and was the high-scoring individual on several state livestock judging competitions.
During his teen years, he built the first state-licensed squab and rabbit processing facility in Washington state, developed his own squab market and supplied squab from his own breeding stock. This project earned him the coveted Star State Argi-Businessman Award.
After graduating high school, he went to work full time as a herdsman on a dairy farm that he had been milking at before graduating but he still had the desire to start a dairy farm of his own, so he continued to work, taking a job as the assistant manager of a 250,000 laying hen operation. While working on the egg farm he was able to purchase his first small 20-acre farm.
The farm had an old milking parlor that he immediately started remodeling, in order to start milking goats and bottle grade “A” raw goat’s milk. He continued to raise beef cattle and purchased a custom meat processing facility.
The facility processed beef, lamb, goat, pork, and allowed him to market his grass-fed beef directly to the consumer. He made sausage, jerky, bacon, smoked ham, cut and wrapped all custom cuts and orders. After several years of cutting meat he was being called back to the dairy farm.
This time he decided he needed to take control of the marketing and processing aspects as well. This required him to not only relocate to a larger market and build a new parlor, but to also build a federally licensed milk processing plant and drug testing lab. After years of growing the business and developing a strong new milk market he decided to sell out yet again.
The local farm fresh market he had developed, was a highly desired and valuable business. The last years on the farm he developed an interest that later turned into a passion for Tropical cattle genetics. Cattle can perform and be profitable in the hottest and more tropical regions of the world.
His company A Legacy Genetics continues to gain recognition from around the world. Through these global relationships, he was able to purchase the world’s first homozygous “slick” Holstein bull from Puerto Rico. This bull put Legacy Genetics on the map. Soon thereafter all three of the largest dairy publications did a story on “Sinba”.
Puerto Rico also received a ton of notoriety! About this same time the University of Florida announced that they would be selling their Ona White Angus, a breed of beef cattle developed by the university over the past 50 years to be heat-tolerant while still being high percentage Angus, therefore, retaining all the traits that Angus are best known for. Superior taste and tenderness, calving easy, growth and hardiness. It is widely known that “Angus, are the business breed”.
In 2016 A Legacy Genetics was able to make a deal with the university and purchased the Ona White Angus herd in its entirety. Since then, he has sold semen around the world, including much of Central and South America, the Caribbean, Australia, and Thailand. Wanting to focus on A Legacy and his specialized cattle genetics his family purchased a ranch south of Houston, Texas. Houston is the hub for this type of genetics.
