Demise of the Family Farm

[Stocker Steve]

I found the 2004 World Bank article you seem to have quoted. They showed very low Brazilian feed costs, and cow calf returns that were 38 to 51% of revenue. I also would expand rapidly in that situation.

A hundred fifty years ago there was alot of cheap land in the western US and Canada. Then much of it was converted to growing beef. Did we go wrong somewhere?

 

[gcreekrch]

Cows that raised heifer calves this year left $200 in our piggy bank. The cows that raised steer calves doubled that amount. Should we cull the poor producers carrying heifer calves in 2020?

Kids don't want the place and it is for sale.

 

[Jeanne - Simme Valley]

g - sorry to hear that. You have a beautiful farm/operation. Do you sex your pregnancies? Or do you mean the ones that calve a heifer? I guess that would be a wise choice, if you don't need replacements.

 

[Ebenezer]

So our future in USA is to export tasteless pork and chicken, but import grass fed beef?

China gets imports of US produced pork with different genetics than you and I see in the grocery store. Their pork is called "silky pork" and the same looking hogs in the same type commercial farms have different genetics to make their pork to be much more tasty due to the fat in the meat being almost like marbled beef. But here in the US, we want the healthy, tasteless, lean stuff or at least that must be assumed to give us that type product.

 

[Dave]

Cows that raised heifer calves this year left $200 in our piggy bank. The cows that raised steer calves doubled that amount. Should we cull the poor producers carrying heifer calves in 2020?

Kids don't want the place and it is for sale.

I knew a guy who kept and bred all his heifers. Had them ultra sounded. He kept those that would calf first and have a bull calf. A management decision. So if you had a list of potential culls because of their performance. Have them ultra sounded and sold the ones carrying a heifer. A tool for management decision which could result in making more profit. However, I wouldn't want to attach my name to them when selling if selling as bred cows. The buyer might be disappointed when he got all heifer calves.

 

[CG1]

So our future in USA is to export tasteless pork and chicken, but import grass fed beef?

China gets imports of US produced pork with different genetics than you and I see in the grocery store. Their pork is called "silky pork" and the same looking hogs in the same type commercial farms have different genetics to make their pork to be much more tasty due to the fat in the meat being almost like marbled beef. But here in the US, we want the healthy, tasteless, lean stuff or at least that must be assumed to give us that type product.

The pork products in China are unreal. I spent a month in China a few years ago and it is true. It is better. Berkshire piglets are their go to.

I actually find American meat and dairy to taste and look a lot different from what we have in Canada and what I've seen around the world. Everything is so super sized. We ordered chicken wings to hotel room last night and I couldn't even imagine the sheer size of the animal that came off of.

 

[Brute 23]

I dont think the demise of the family farm has any thing to do with he economics. It's just another thing falling in the US due to the lack of family values, morals, and screwed up priorities of the modern American.

 

[Stocker Steve]

Cows that raised heifer calves this year left $200 in our piggy bank. The cows that raised steer calves doubled that amount. Should we cull the poor producers carrying heifer calves in 2020.[/quote)

In theory - - you would cull all the poor producers.
In reality - - it depends on your other options. Sell hay, sell grain, work out, trap beaver, graze yearlings... ?

 

[gcreekrch]

Cows that raised heifer calves this year left $200 in our piggy bank. The cows that raised steer calves doubled that amount. Should we cull the poor producers carrying heifer calves in 2020.[/quote)

In theory - - you would cull all the poor producers.
In reality - - it depends on your other options. Sell hay, sell grain, work out, trap beaver, graze yearlings... ?

I was actually being a bit sarcastic in that the heifer producers weren't generating the same profit. In 2015 these cows left an average on $800 in our pockets. Was a fun year.

The instructor who taught the RFP school I attended had quite a time with an operation that had iron that rusted and depreciated and made a profit. I sure didn't fit the mold they wanted in the classroom.

 

[Stocker Steve]

Even if it is an 800 Loonie gross margin, you are doing very very well. May want to open your own xxxx For Profit class?

 

[gcreekrch]

Even if it is an 800 Loonie gross margin, you are doing very very well. May want to open your own xxxx For Profit class?

Hard to do when people want to build their own wheel in this part of the world. Lots have come and few have left with their shirt on. If there ever was a place that Mother Nature was boss, this is it. Few want to work with her or her whims.

 

[Aaron]

Cows that raised heifer calves this year left $200 in our piggy bank. The cows that raised steer calves doubled that amount. Should we cull the poor producers carrying heifer calves in 2020.[/quote)

In theory - - you would cull all the poor producers.
In reality - - it depends on your other options. Sell hay, sell grain, work out, trap beaver, graze yearlings... ?

I was actually being a bit sarcastic in that the heifer producers weren't generating the same profit. In 2015 these cows left an average on $800 in our pockets. Was a fun year.

The instructor who taught the RFP school I attended had quite a time with an operation that had iron that rusted and depreciated and made a profit. I sure didn't fit the mold they wanted in the classroom.

I see the iron you use in your photos. Pretty sure if you don't fit the mold, I would be barred from even entering the room.

 

[gcreekrch]

I was actually being a bit sarcastic in that the heifer producers weren't generating the same profit. In 2015 these cows left an average on $800 in our pockets. Was a fun year.

The instructor who taught the RFP school I attended had quite a time with an operation that had iron that rusted and depreciated and made a profit. I sure didn't fit the mold they wanted in the classroom.

I see the iron you use in your photos. Pretty sure if you don't fit the mold, I would be barred from even entering the room.

LOL, I am the only student from that class the instructor hasn't visited. He was invited.

 

[Stocker Steve]

What made the investment in iron profitable?

 

[Stocker Steve]

Maybe you should repeat the class. :nod:

 

[gcreekrch]

Maybe you should repeat the class. :nod:

Owning anything that rusts, rots or depreciates doesn't fit what they push. Their idea is to bring feed in and put those nutrients into your soil. I explained I could make hay in my locale cheaper than buying it and paying $2000 a load for freight. It was suggested that I maybe shouldn't own cows and should venture into tourism instead. When I asked the instructor how many of his friends would like to commune with nature in cold, mosquito infested swamps he had no reply.

As far as paying money to go again, maybe if they ever did another in western Canada. I never would have attended the one I did had my wife not put my name in a draw box. Don't get me wrong, I did learn a bunch there during the first three days of business, personal and personnel management. The last four days of buying not enough hay and expecting cows to turn a profit on promises didn't wash for my area of the world.

 

[Stocker Steve]

I agree that RFP has alot of good business management messages, but their operational advise seems a bit shrill, and one size fits all.

I saw bios for some of their top graduates. Don't think you were included, but Dave might fit in. ;-) They all were either leasing some land and/or leasing alot of cows and/or grazing yearlings to increase ROI. Sound familiar?

 

[Stocker Steve]

RFP did a series of half day infomercial overview sessions across Minnesota last winter. We could have snuck you into the back of the class. :dunce: One part of it was a small group project on how to approach a theoretical grazing situation. It was amazing how ignorant many people are...

 

[Aaron]

There is one neighbor here that buys nearly all his feed. Owns no hay land at all, has close to 100 cows. Cuts a few bales of his own on rented land. Does a pile of custom hay, enough that he runs a pretty line of JD green equipment.

He struggles each year to find enough feed, so I wouldn't be too keen on that amount of stress in my life.

 

[Dave]

That whole buying hay as opposed to making it really depends on where you are located. I am located in the middle of thousands and thousands of acres of irrigated hay. But it still depends on the year. Some years there is extra hay and it gets real cheap (3 years ago). Some years there is a shortage and it gets real expensive (last winter). Where Gcreek (also named Dave) is located it makes no sense at all. Any purchased hay is a long ways away and the cost of freight is a killer. Some years back I went to a grazing workshop out of Ellensburg, WA. We toured a ranch (also owned by a man named Dave) that bought all there hay. But they were right by a huge hay export yard. They bought the export kick out bales cheap. They don't export anything with a blemish but cow eat it just fine. He had a 3 year rotation on feeding hay on his pastures. Between legumes and imported hay he purchased no fertilizer and had great looking pastures. Anyone thinking that one size fits all is totally wrong. It is a big world out there with lots of differences. One bit of advise I picked up from another grazing workshop is that everyone has an unfair advantage. The challenge or secret is to figure out what your unfair advantage is and capitalizing on it.