Wagyu sale set at Reeves ranch

The history of Wagyu cattle in Japan dates back thousands of years, but the history of the native Asian cattle on the Bar R Cattle Co. ranch near Pullman dates back only about 25 years.

“We registered our first Wagyu half-blood calf in 1990,” said Jerry Reeves, a local rancher whose main pasture is along the Snake River.

Reeves, proprietor at Bar R Cattle Co. and former professor of Animal Sciences at Washington State University, was part of a team funded by the International Marketing Program in Agricultural Commodities and Technology (IMPACT) to travel to Japan in 1989 to evaluate the cattle...