This is right where Kimberly Ratcliff was born to be, surveying the Bermuda grass and cattle of Caney Creek Ranch in Oakwood, Texas.
“Just like life evolves, agriculture is evolving and I’m excited for this new evolution in agriculture,” Ratcliff said with a smile.
The 2025 Top Producer Women in Ag Award winner says her journey back to the Texas Plains began with big dreams in the Big Apple.
“I ended up going to college in New York City and I really thought New York City was what I wanted,” she says. “I really thought that was the lifestyle I wanted.”
Working at Bloomberg in marketing and public relations she found herself being pulled back to commodities and her days growing up on the ranch.
“That hit me hard because I realized I needed to go back home,” remembers Ratcliff. “I had enough knowledge of how these financial institutions work, but I don’t think the community understands how that affects them.”
Her father and the ranch’s owner, Wesley, remembers the phone call following a recent visit.
“When she got back [to New York], she said, I want to join you. I said, ‘No, no, no, no, no, no’,” he says. “I can’t pay you even close to what they’re paying up there. She said, ‘That’s not your problem.’”
He also asked her about ranching and whether she understood that aspect of the business. Kimberly had a solution. She entered the Texas Christian University ranch management program and became the first African American to graduate. Then, she moved home and went to work.
“I would get people driving up to the house and they wanted to put their eyes on me to see that I had really come home,” Ratcliff says. “People always say they want to come home, but they never do it.”
“My daughter coming back here honestly, was not something that I was thrilled about,” Wesley said with a half-smile and twinkle in his eye. “She is kind of bossy and I had one boss already: her mama. Now I have two bosses.”
Ratcliff started Ratcliff Premium Meats, a direct-to-consumer beef business, with a story to tell.
“Being a woman in this industry and being a black woman, I think the No. 1 thing I have honestly is the best support system here in my community,” Ratcliff says. “They’re the ones pushing me.”
“I’m happy to see her venture out and try to do something different,” Wesley says. “I would never get into the meat business, but she wanted to. I didn’t have a problem with her getting into it.”
Today, it’s a family affair as she’s also getting help from her brothers.
“In five years, my goal is to have my family - all of my family - working for us,” Ratcliff says.
As demand grows, this family operation is expanding and helping more in their community.
“In the ag community, I need cattle,” Ratcliff explains. “I need them to keep their land. I need them to have healthy cattle. I need them to have great grass and great soil. I need them to have all those things that will make me successful. So, how can I help them with their success?”
She’s sharing that success with local and state food banks.
“The first thing I support is my local food bank,” Ratcliff says. “Every week, every month, I make sure they are stocked with every protein I can provide. I don’t want them ever to have to worry about buying protein externally.”
It’s that kind of heart for others that’s helping her honor this opportunity and her mother, who passed away from breast cancer in 2019.
“She was just fighting because she saw the success that I was having and she wanted to be here to say, ‘I’m proud of you’,” says an emotional Ratcliff. “I know she’s still proud of me.”
A mother who is proud of the work she’s done and difference she’s making in the lives around her.
“This job is really taking us back to the root of what our culture is about,” Ratcliff says. “It started with the small and the large all working together to feed the world.”
