How do you value your beef?

[ianben]

Cowman
Beef here is still the most expensive meat, Supermarkets maintain differentials between meats no matter what market price does. Our customers don't like fluctuating prices they say.
We had BSE of course so all beef on sale is still under 30 months old. Anything older is bought at about half meat value and burnt.
Red meat sales are falling as chicken and vegie is seen as healthier.
My son did a project on that fungus stuff. We ate it as a chicken casserole. It was pretty good I must admit
People are definatlely changing their eating habits so we will have to change to meet them.
Rice and pasta seem to be in demand, but our climate does not suit either.
We have reduced our beef numbers from 400 to 30 and our potatoes from 50 to 10. Can't seem to find anything I can grow which is in demand!!!
Jeff
I do not agree that our products are perisable today. Dry grain can be stored for long periods The old grain montains of the EU prooved that. Meat can be frozen also. There is a cost I agree but we should realize we no longer need to sell at any price.

The line about there always being someone who will sell lower is true,while we blindly market without knowing the other guys costs and the price the customer is willing to pay.
With the internet we can now ask if the other guy is making money at this level.

Multi-nationals employ thousands of people studying trends, estimating demand,monitoring prices,before they fix different prices for the same product depending on location.
A recommended price negociable to a point but it at least gives everyone buyer seller and competition the region trade can be done.
I dont see why with a little help from people like you farmers could not publish recommened prices for our products.

[topper]

I find it hard to believe that anyone would want to trade our relatively unregulated system of marketing for a beef marketing board just to make a few more dollars(maybe). Along with your newly acquired quota will be a list of rules for you to follow. A government inspector will come to your ranch and tell you what to do and when to do it and if you don't comply well there goes your quota. Not for me thankyou very much!!!

[wilagro]

Cowman...The next time that you take your calves to market...Why don't you put a 'suggested sale price' on them. If you don't get it...take them home.
When you take your grain to the elevator put a'suggested selling price on it'. When you buy a new truck there is a suggested price...and just about any mass produced hardware item. How come these marketers get their price but farmers don't have any say in what they get?

[cowman]

Why would we want supply management versus the free market? The times they are achanging. The world is literally awash with meat...a lot of it looking for a home. Now we are lucky because we live beside the strongest market in the world and we've had access to it.
But when it comes right down to it there is no way you or I will ever be able to compete with New Zealand or Brazil when it comes to beef. So realize in a true free market you are dead in the water.
Without supply management a commodity must be exported. Also in a true "free" market we must allow in imports...therefore you are out of business.
Wilagro: Okay, I take my calves into the mart. Put a price on them...say $1.75/lb. They run them through the ring. State the suggested price is $1.75. No one bids. I take them home. Now what do I do with them? Teach them to sing? Feed them for ten years until I get my suggested price or until they die?
Isn't supply management a "suggested price"? If the buyers won't pay that suggested price the govt. buys them and sends them abroad as food aid...reduces the quota to reflect the smaller demand. No other product enters the country so either the consumer pays the price or there is no product for sale. Seems fairly simple to me.

[pandiana]

I do not have a problem with the following statement. It is the establishment of an average price where 'most' farmers can make a living and know with some certainty that they will be able to maintain a reasonable standard of living.

Yes, we will still have weather, and some market forces affected by retail demand but adjustments can be made across the sector and not individually. "Looking at the dairy industry that is what they try to due is to regulate supply and restrict supply, this causes a shift in the supply curve and an increase in price. The catch here is to be in the dairy industry you have to pay for that right (quota) to produce. But again they can not set prices. Years ago when milk was in the public utility regulatory system prices were set based on averages of costs and returns for the dairy farm. Even then not all the dairy producers all made the same amount of profit."

Another problem with the beef industry is that, although a broiler chicken can hit the market in 49 days with only a couple of players (breeder and producer) involved, it takes 13-14 months to produce a steer. This lag time increases the risk, as we can see from the recent 'cattle cycle' where we should have been at the top of the cycle but are experience severe depression in prices. It is almost impossible to predict market forces this far ahead. With control of market supply we could, I think, more closely predict market demand and smooth out some of the extremes in the cattle cycle.

[ianben]

I think we can manage supply without quotas by just being informed of the supply and demand position.

To maintain a price of $1.75 market 90% of your calves as the market is over supplied by 10%.
So we all end up with a few unsold calves and we can all make our own individual decicions on what we do with them. Some will make better choices than others. Store them, finish them shoot them, reduce cow numbers or not? The choice you make will affect your income get it wrong to often and you will not survive.
Its is up to you but remember you made money on the 90%.
Even Brazil and Austrailia can't supply the world with beef. Who says they want to work hard to make cents/lb if they can make dollars/lb by using commonsence and matching demand with supply.

[cowman]

I can see your point Ian but I doubt it would ever work...at least not over here. It seems there are so many people who are willing to work for nothing in the cattle business...or worse pay to work! I've often wondered how come we have so many dumbies raising cattle.
Anyway I've decided to no longer be a part of the problem and am retiring from the cattle business. I was going to run some grass cattle but have a very good offer,to rent, from a PMU operator(horses). Money up front and he takes care of the fences. So after this year I will be doing my part to reduce the supply. Might still raise a little hay for export or the horse trade. When the hay fields get a few more years on them I'll rent them to my cousin for grain and canola production.

[mbfarmer]

The whole things comes down to... my 250 cow/calf and your 100 or 150 cow/calf are so little of the big picture that unless we can get all cow/calf operators, for that matter the whole cattle industry, on the same wave length...we will be and are at the mercy of the cattle buyer... and ultimately the consumer. If you got 50 farmers in one room, you would have 45 different solutions. Until we can come up with some sort of common ground, every one will be out to protect number one. By the way, the sky is red in my "perfect" world!!!

[ValueChainFX]

At the moment the industry sure does need a change! Being in a room full of producers is an experience, but someone just has to bite the bullet and make the system change and then those that like it will take part those that don't like it will watch. Trouble is we have to change the whole structure to make the thing happen, and one change is hard enough, but staying the same is ... well staying the same and that is just not working???

[cowman]

Value chain: It is sort of working. As long as you have producers who don't car e if they make a profit. Think they are John Wayne or something. Sort of works, as long as we can export our product to the richest market in the world. I mean there are very few markets that can afford our luxury product(grain fed beef). The U.S., Europe, Japan? Isn't that really about it(other than a small market to other SE asians)? And of course our domestic market? We can sell the garbage and the guts to Mexico and the Caribean.
Europe has effectively froze us out. The U.S. dominates the Japanese market. So basically that leaves us the U.S. market.
If the door ever slams on that U.S. market we are in big, big trouble! If that happens (foot and mouth 1952) then all we have is the domestic market.
Our best bet would be to have a very secure access to the U.S. market. How could we do that? Well one way would be to become part of the U.S.? Or have our major packing houses(American owned) be declared American property and have USDA inspection rather than Canadian? I think Cargill and IBP floated this idea a few years ago?

[ianben]

Cowman
Hay for horses is where my acres have gone too.
Haylage actually.
Baled a day before hay then wrapped in plastic film.
Ideally should be like tobacco when opened no dust whatsoever.
Horse people very impressed with it!!!

WILL PAY A PREMIUM!!!!!!

Has it arrived in Canada??

[ianben]

mb
I agree you dont want farmers meeting and trying to solve the problem.

Sitting in front of their computer and reading advice that is good for them and everyone else.

Could it be most of them would follow it?

That prairie sky is something to behold swop you anytime!!!

[dalek]

Ianben there is a farm near here in Ontario that has been doing that for at least 5 years now, up to about 800 acres now I think. They ship to the southeastern US as well as mideast for racehorses and possibly Asia. We generally sell some hay to racetracks in Florida or Pennsylvania through a broker every year but the market is down lately.

[cakadu]

The recently released Stats Can figures showed that farm inputs went up from 84% in 1996 to 87% in 2001, which sort of puts a crimp in the bigger is better theory. It has been shown time and again that the bigger you get, the less efficiently you use your inputs. Part of the problem in pricing beef is some people don't incorporate all of their costs of production when calculating what has been spent vs. what has been made.

Supply management only works for domestic supply, so that throws beef and grain right out the window because we need the export markets in order to sell all that we are producing. Supply management was intended to preserve the family farm or the smaller holder, but those are slowly being squeezed out and overtaken by the bigger guys who can afford to outright buy the quota or lease it from someone else who doesn't fill what he has.

I agree that we have to start making changes out there, but they are going to come slowly and until we can actually work interdependently, we're going to be stuck on the treadmill for a good long while yet.

You're right Jeff about the taste of chicken (or lack thereof). It doesn't matter if you buy from any of the bigger grocery stores they all have tough skin and virtually no taste. Free-range (otherwise known as the way chicken used to be grown) does have great flavor etc., but the price is a lot dearer and if you're feeding a family of 4 or 5, which are you going to go with?

We might not like the taste of grass fed beef, but there are a growing number of people who do and if you're looking to get into the export game like Argentina and Brazil, you're going to target those countries that have many mouths to feed and are looking for protein sources. Many of them have been raised on grass fed beef - when they can get it - so the taste isn't going to be as foreign to them as it is to us in Canada and particularly Alberta, where we are so used to grain fed beef.

Australia is cleaning up in the beef arena because they are prepared to give customers what they want. What can we do to start giving customers what they want to buy versus what we want to sell, which is boxes of beef?