Grain or cattle

[Hopalong]

In our local area of eastern Sask, last ten years has seen significant shift of acres from grass and forage into straight grain farming.
Do not see these acres going back into grass without some kind of cattle market shift to provide incentive.
Do not see any major government policy shifts coming like end of Crow rate and subsidy that helped convince many of us to stay in cattle.
See lots of complaining about grain transportation and handling at present but does not seem to have increased optimism for cattle.
Are there areas where cattle numbers are increasing?

[farmaholic]

I seem to remember the government encouraging livestock production. ....then came BSE and they turned their on them. It's amazing anyone mixed farming whose land was grainfarm-able stuck it out.

But to stay on topic. ......fewer but bigger producers. Haven't heard of a new startup for many many many years...in fact I can't think of one.

Alot of people probably can't afford too much beef in their diet...pork and chicken are cheaper factory farmed alternatives

[seabass]

Dad said this happened in the seventies. Everybody tore up alot of their grass and seeded it to some type of crop. Some wet falls and the eighties changed that in a hurry. Not saying it will happen again but who knows the way things are now u never know.

[makar]

Cow farming as we knew it is gone, it is to much work, and in 2000 an acre land you cant cry about 40 dollar bales.

[Tucker]

I rented out a quarter of pasture one year. 45 pairs x $100 for the season. $4500. The next spring I ripped out the cross fences and direct seeded flax. Sold $45000 worth of flax seed. The rest of the cows left that fall and we finally took a week vacation to Mexico that winter. Not sure what it's going to take to get me back into cow-calf but the current prices aren't in the ballpark yet. Hell they aren't even playing the same ****ing sport.

[makar]

I rent my moms land one third share, seeded a gumbo patch to alfalfa, offered it to my cow neighbor, offered me 70/30, so i would have to give my mom 3/ 1/3 more than i got from them and the crop was mine, hooked onto the offset disk the same day.

[Tucker]

I've sold a lot of high quality hay in the past. Never made much or really anything selling the rained-on stuff to cow guys. Sold the whole hay shed full for well into 7 figures one year to Saudi Arabia for racing camels. Local cow guys bitched and probably still do years later that it was Manitoba hay and should have stayed here. Be sold to them for nothing I guess. You cow guys are squeezing the wrong end of the teat here. Demand more for your product and maybe we'll still grow you some feed.

[GDR]

In our local area of eastern Sask, last ten years has seen significant shift of acres from grass and forage into straight grain farming.
Do not see these acres going back into grass without some kind of cattle market shift to provide incentive.
Do not see any major government policy shifts coming like end of Crow rate and subsidy that helped convince many of us to stay in cattle.
See lots of complaining about grain transportation and handling at present but does not seem to have increased optimism for cattle.
Are there areas where cattle numbers are increasing?

Cow dynamics changed here last 15 years, less cows in country, older generation got out after BSE years, most young guys don't want the work and lifestyle of it. Lots of acres plowed up here too, I think some guys will be sorry, not all land is good farmland. Not many 160 acre farmable quarters here, I see a huge waste in the 5/10/20 acres left idle now as not large enough to be pastured but not farmable chunks. Guess it makes wildlife habitat.

Other change I see is guys with cows are bigger and guys that had to buy feed got out due to the price swings in feed costs.

We are still mixed, got 75 cows, calf prices good again this fall. I like the financial stability of a mixed farm. Would be nice not to have to deal with cows at seeding and harvest times but the rest of the year gives me a reason to get out of bed.

[GDR]

I've sold a lot of high quality hay in the past. Never made much or really anything selling the rained-on stuff to cow guys. Sold the whole hay shed full for well into 7 figures one year to Saudi Arabia for racing camels. Local cow guys bitched and probably still do years later that it was Manitoba hay and should have stayed here. Be sold to them for nothing I guess. You cow guys are squeezing the wrong end of the teat here. Demand more for your product and maybe we'll still grow you some feed.

Maybe you are looking at it backwards, you maybe didn't make much on your rained on hay but at least you had a market for what the export guys didn't take. How much would you have made if you threw a match on it.

Cattle and other livestock have a huge impact on grain prices even if you don't sell feed grains, all about supply and demand. All the feed and feed grain acres get switched to hard red, canola and pulses then where would prices be. And don't forget about limited rail capacity.

[AlbertaFarmer5]

In our local area of eastern Sask, last ten years has seen significant shift of acres from grass and forage into straight grain farming.
Do not see these acres going back into grass without some kind of cattle market shift to provide incentive.
Do not see any major government policy shifts coming like end of Crow rate and subsidy that helped convince many of us to stay in cattle.
See lots of complaining about grain transportation and handling at present but does not seem to have increased optimism for cattle.
Are there areas where cattle numbers are increasing?

This is a discussion I have with myself a lot.

This used to be the heart of cattle country. Most crop acres went back to grass in the 80's and 90's. But now, I think the horses outnumber the cows, literally. The remaining 80 and 90 year old cattle guys are slowly retiring, their sons don't want anything to do with it. Have one neighbor my age (just young bucks, only half way to 80) who is passionate about cows, as is his son, and they are doing really well with them, and earn every penny. He just discovered that his manure is a hot commodity too.

After many threats and promises to sell them, I still keep 100 + low maintenance cows, just enough to remind me why we got out of cows in the first place...
Other reasons:
-Have some contigious lowlands that are never going to be productive cropland, but make excellent pastures. Renting it out proves to be as much work as running my own cows on it, so very little cost(or lost revenue) to summer pasture.
-Between extending grazing, salvaging hailed crops, grazing stubble spring and fall, and feeding good straw and hay that isn't pretty enough to sell, my costs to winter the cows is very low. No big fwa or bale processor or big fuel bill required, contrary to popular belief.
-Cows have never been hailed out, that is a big one in this area.
-Don't carry crop insurance, consider the cows to be my insurance policy,
-I use them to convert ~ 20 acres a year of my worst farmland into my best by feeding in feeders and bedding them there with lots of windbreaks. Basically stealing the nutrients and fibre from elsewhere that can afford it, to improve somewhere else.
- Have all the facilities, tools, fences, equipment haven't spent a dime on any of these items for probably a decade, so again fixed costs are low. As they depreciate beyond repair, this is requiring a rethink.

Unfortunately, we calve at the same time as seeding, ( too muddy to calve in spring, and not ambitious enough to calve in winter), so that is a lot of work, can't postpone helping a calf suck or treating a calf, but have to postpone seeding sometimes. Harvest is also when cows need moved more often, bales picked, cropland fences patched up to stretch the pasture out longer.

When I look at Google earth, or drive around the prairies, I often wonder how many cows or sheep or goats etc. could be integrated into most grain farms on non producing land for virtually no cost. Many quarters are easily half sloughs, and nothing has used them for decades. Obviously things aren't as bad as some grain farmers would have us believe, at least not bad enough to want to work that hard.

[AlbertaFarmer5]

The hay business can't be that bad. Neighbor used to be the biggest grain farmer in the area, and is now 100% hay, no livestock either, sold all the grain equipment, farms some of the best land anywhere too. Claims to be doing quite well at it, and the numbers they tell me will gross as much or more than a canola crop, with a fraction of the inputs, and a much shorter season. Quite a few straight hay operations around here. The feed market is feast or famine. The horse market is nothing but fun ( unless you happen to enjoy getting paid). And the export market is about like Russian Roulette. Years like 2016 remind me why I'm not big into hay anymore. When it rains every day for the entire summer, the hay isn't very marketable.

[burnt]

Interesting posts, AF5. So many similarities to here.

I've thought the same - the amount of "wasted" space that are growing grass or weeds could carry a lot of cows.

[farmaholic]

Grassfarmer seems to have a pretty darn good model.

I wouldn't want to winter calve anymore...been there done that. Scour outbreaks aren't fun.

Most of our land is grain farm-able. The sloughs are nice and clean and our neighbors enjoy salvaging the hay out of them at a real reason-a-bale(reasonable) cost.

Nobody says you can't seed grass on grainland to pasture and hay it....I just chose to go the grain route....with the lack of help here I just didn't think I would be doing either enterprise justice... some of the busy seasons overlapped too much.

I can't say I hated cattle....I even worked part time for 9 years in a stock yards after grade twelve.

[smcgrath76]

I think the cattle thing is disappearing strictly due to returns. Our Provincial Agriprofits report shows a loss of $160 per cow for 2016 and only one "good" year in 2014 across a group that I think are probably some of the better managers. The challenges of gaining economies of scale in cattle is a lot more difficult than in grain. As grain acres expand it is possible to upsize equipment - 20 to 40 to 80' drills are now fairly common. It is tough to upsize cows in the same way, while still employing close to the same amount of labour. We are seeing cows disappear at a fairly rapid pace from our neighbourhood and it is strictly a math problem.
While there are ways to reduce the workload, a lot of that requires a significant mental adjustment and that seems to be easier said than done. With cattle, sometimes doing what appears to be less is actually more. I am currently fairly concerned at the moment about getting to the point where we lose infrastructure in Canada and are exposed to even higher levels of risk where we might not be able to process our own product.
There is room for growth with better grazing models. I also agree that the folks I still know that are in cattle are expanding either through design or necessity. $600,000 quarters do not make for good grazing, unless it is after you harvest a crop of grain. We have seen pasture land trade here for a hefty price this summer. My math shows that the interest cost for debt service on that ground for 5 months of grazing would be $1000 per cow, unless there was a serious managed grazing plan in place (there isn't).

[perfecho]

I stay in cattle because I like it....the returns don't really justify it, but it helps my tax situation...;-)
Have neighbors who will rent the land reasonably, they really don't want everything broke up, fences and trees taken out and sloughs drained. But, I do realize that could change...and that would make my decision for me. there is not enough return to compete. However, there has always been a swing back and forth with cattle and grain, problem is, putting up fence and seeding pasture is getting quite expensive and time consuming.
Like Sean, I do worry about losing our processing and infra structure...part of it is we have an economy that does have higher wages and life style than some competitors growing beef....