Profit before Production

[ValueChainFX]

Quality of life and profit are always a part of the overall picture (even holistic) The challenge most in the industry have today is to make sure there is a total continuous supply chain. Be that a direct to the customer or through the supply chain. Checks and balances are required and if they are not there we are setting ourselves up for another big fall. What happens the first time someone links a direct-marketed product to an illness? Cowman is right on when he talks about putting more money in the producers’ pockets! You become a business when you set your own margins. At the moment we all know that our provincial plants are not doing the best job in the world. In fact they need to be looked after just to get them up to some sort of real standard. Also we all know that producers are doing everything they can to sell directly off their own farms (ie sell the animal live and kill it for their customer) this is not legal and we all know that. The rule is that these folks must either be a part of the family of the owner (direct family) or have owned the animal for 30 days! A long-term solution is needed and some of us are working on that!

[rsomer]

Cowman: I agree with many of your comments but my impression was that Don Campbell cares very much if he makes money and profit is important to his operation, based on his talk. He points out that quality of life is important in that we cannot compare our lifestyle to the lifestyle of someone who works on the rigs and makes lots of money but is away from home and living in camps. You said "A whole lot of people seem to enjoy playing farmer and living that pastoral life, no matter what the cost." My impression is Don Campbell is not playing farmer, he runs a reasonably large operation, but he does seem to take some time during the day to enjoy what he is doing.

"Maybe they need a business consultant to show them the real world?" Could be but I think Don Campbell could show the business consultant a thing or two at the same time. One business consultant will show you what a bad investment farming while another consultant would show you what a good investment farming is, depending on the consultant. I think Don Campbell would prefer to see farming as a good investment.

[cakadu]

Looking at profit before production means that you do what makes you money or can potentially make you money and you drop the rest. In Holistic Management, you look at the totality of what you are doing, not just in isolated blocks. They are strong believers in if it doesn't make you money then why are you doing it?

Rsomer is right - Don runs about 600 cows and the example he showed was that by feeding the cows in the field through a system of electric fence and bales, they saved $67,000 in feed related costs. What they do is put out enough bales for the cows to eat in 2 days and that way they are putting the manure and urine on the field for them, thus saving the cost of having to haul all the manure out and spread it. The cows are already doing that for them. Every 2 days the cows are moved. Yes, it's intensive, but the savings sort of reflect the effort.

They calve beginning in late April to May I believe it is and save on all of those costs too. It has to be working because it is supporting 3 families.

No, not everyone can go the natural route and for some reason as producers we want to "commoditize" the things we grow which inevitably drives the price down. The people who are good at selling their products direct from the farm gate, or even further into the system will receive the value for their efforts.

Its a matter of setting things up so that they work for you instead of you working for them.

[cakadu]

Looking at profit before production means that you do what makes you money or can potentially make you money and you drop the rest. In Holistic Management, you look at the totality of what you are doing, not just in isolated blocks. They are strong believers in if it doesn't make you money then why are you doing it?

Rsomer is right - Don runs about 600 cows and the example he showed was that by feeding the cows in the field through a system of electric fence and bales, they saved $67,000 in feed related costs. What they do is put out enough bales for the cows to eat in 2 days and that way they are putting the manure and urine on the field for them, thus saving the cost of having to haul all the manure out and spread it. The cows are already doing that for them. Every 2 days the cows are moved. Yes, it's intensive, but the savings sort of reflect the effort.

They calve beginning in late April to May I believe it is and save on all of those costs too. It has to be working because it is supporting 3 families.

No, not everyone can go the natural route and for some reason as producers we want to "commoditize" the things we grow which inevitably drives the price down. The people who are good at selling their products direct from the farm gate, or even further into the system will receive the value for their efforts.

Its a matter of setting things up so that they work for you instead of you working for them.

[cswilson]

Believe me Campbell's are a very profit oriented ranch operation but not at any cost. Not every thing they or anybody else will work for everybody everywhere but some of their management practices will. For example probably 12 years ago I spent three hours at a kitchen table debating Feb. vs May calving with Don-I was full of P and V and loved that winter calving-exotic high producing cow. Now I'm not sure exactly what I'm full of but were running 3 times as many british cows that calve in May and June. Our financial situation is much better and our quality of life is immeasureably improved. Calving is fun now not a death march like it used to be-I still don't necessarily agree with everything Campbell's do but our respective operations are alot more similar than they were 12 years ago.