What a Mess

[Guest]

Beef prices are through the roof (i.e. $70 for a beef roast) , cattle producers are getting less for their cattle. And those blood thirsty packers are taking it all . The producers are facing all time high feed prices/expenses, and those ignorant packers couldn't care less ??
meanwhile grain farmers are faced with a major drought , some next to no crop at all and inputs/expenses/machinery prices go through the roof??
even the SaskParty shitting on producers with their childish, inconsiderate , arrogant , funding threatening deficit comments ??
a lot of these arrogant pricks need to learn not to shit where they eat
maybe it is time for the great reset , only not the way Lieberals are thinking

[Herc]

Moe went bankrupt farming, maybe he wants the rest of us to do the same….

[jazz]

Not done yet Case, I fully expect another round of you know what related to that which will not be spoken about.

Farmers need to tread very carefully this year.

[shtferbrains]

I'm betting Cargill will cream off some good times and dump that plant when margins tighten up.
Move up the chain and just market and let someone else do the dirty part. Beef is the new coal.
Times are changing fast.
Too much socialism and government involvement.

[AlbertaFarmer5]

I've had this discussion with grassFarmer in the past.
Us farmers and ranchers are always complaining that the Packers are taking too big of a piece of the pie and making obscene profits on our backs.
But how come every time an independent attempts to enter the beef packing industry they go bankrupt.
We have had many attempts in this area. The margins are so thin, and meeting the regulations is so costly and onerous that none of them last.
No one has ever been able to explain this to me satisfactorily.
Could it have more to do with the fact that labor costs have gone up drastically during covid, supply chain issues have driven up costs, the risk of producing and exporting a perishable commodity I'm going up exponentially with the disruptions, those costs have to get built in somewhere.

[shtferbrains]

With the $70 roasts and $5 ground beef considered a feature how many cows would you have to calve to make a living today AF5?

Seems it's not working for many as beef producers are few and far between in this area.

[Sheepwheat]

Well crap. I need to raise our prices. Thanks caseih. “Wink”

[AlbertaFarmer5]

With the $70 roasts and $5 ground beef considered a feature how many cows would you have to calve to make a living today AF5?

Seems it's not working for many as beef producers are few and far between in this area.

I'm in the heart of beef country here. And I readily acknowledge that at these land and input prices the economics of beef haven't worked for years.
And the economics of the cost of beef don't work for the average consumer here, let alone those in developing countries.
And as I noted above, the economics don't seem to work for Independent butcher shops, so I don't think they are taking an unfair share of the profit year in and year out.
I really don't know what the answer is.
Beef cattle, the way they are raised around here is easily the most sustainable farming method there could be. Except it's not financially sustainable.
The best I can figure, if we want to have a resilient beef sector is to somehow bring back the mixed farm or encourage beef producers and grain producers to work together to efficiently use all of the byproducts and unproductive land, to lower the cost of production, because I don't think the market will bear any substantial increases in beef prices. And anecdotally, I don't think the middleman has margins large enough to close the gap between our cost of production and the consumers ability to pay.

If anyone knows of an independent packer who is making money hand over fist and can prove me wrong then please provide.

[riders2010]

What you’re talking about then is grain farming
To pay for the loss years in cattle? And vice
Versa? No thanks that kills you from ever making
Good on everything leaves you working your ass
Off for average returns. Average returns don’t work
With these inputs. It’s why agristupidity doesn’t work
But that’s why the conservatives as much or more
Wanted things this way. They want all of ag to be
Consolidated. And along the way the input caps
And other land schemes have made money off
The backs of farmers working their asses off.


What we have here is a situation where not enough
Government law has created only a handful of
Packing plants in the bigger scheme.
Too many micro laws for smaller meat shops in the smaller
Scheme.
And there you go no competition.

No way there isn’t price gouging and gov
Should have the authority to do something
About it. It’s not like grain where there is a
Shortage of animals. There is enough animals
Just price gouging and money not getting to
The producer.

Grain is just about there. Just watch the screws
Be put to us if there was a wide rain scenario
Half of farms would be broke.

[AlbertaFarmer5]

What you’re talking about then is grain farming
To pay for the loss years in cattle? And vice
Versa? No thanks .

That's not at all what I am talking about.
I am basing this on the numbers from my own area.
If I went out and bought land at market value fuel, equipment, inputs etc., That built all those costs into the finished product and tried to sell my beef at a profit based on that, no one anywhere could afford my product. We are competing with areas with far far lower cost of production such as South America. If we hope to have any beef sector in the future, we have to lower our cost of production to compete with them. The only way I see to do that is virtually free feed and virtually free pasture.
The simplest example I can offer is grain farmer has a piece of land and a portion of it isn't fit for grain farming, therefore we'll never contribute to paying for that land.
while the cattle farmer has a a piece of land and much of it is productive farmable land, worth far too much to ever pay for itself raising grass.
So through some sort of an arrangement they work together the cattlemen pastures the poor land and gets access to straw, stubble grazing, chaff, off grade grain, salvaged/ Frozen/ hailed /flooded crops, and in exchange, the grain farmer gets the production off of the better Land from the cattle farmer.
In most areas in the prairies, the amount of livestock that could be ran for the cost of some fences and water on the waste on all of the straight grain farm land, is mind blowing.
Keeping in mind that our competition in the southern hemisphere have grass growing year around, we will never compete with that while putting up high input feeds on high priced land when we feed our cattle with high priced machinery and high energy costs in a cold climate where we get to feed for more than half the year.
We have no control over what the consumer can pay our only hope is to control our costs.

[riders2010]

What is poor land? On wet years past the hilltops
Were considered good in dry they don’t produce crop
Or forage.

Theoretically yes some kind of arrangement
Working together but good luck getting on
A grander scale people actually working together
Like this. Even if it clearly meant better for both.

We re almost past this already. Too many mega
Farms that can just buy people out whether it
Makes sense or not financially short term.
Long term land will be fought for and not
With a bid backed by someone else’s money but
Rather who has the best guns.

[AlbertaFarmer5]

What is poor land? On wet years past the hilltops
Were considered good in dry they don’t produce crop
Or forage.

Theoretically yes some kind of arrangement
Working together but good luck getting on
A grander scale people actually working together
Like this. Even if it clearly meant better for both.

We re almost past this already. Too many mega
Farms that can just buy people out whether it
Makes sense or not financially short term.
Long term land will be fought for and not
With a bid backed by someone else’s money but
Rather who has the best guns.

What if crop insurance went back through your records, and aerial images and refused to ensure anything that was too far below average more often than not, and insuring the remainder was contingent on making arrangements to make the best use of the rest of the land with livestock.

[riders2010]

Crop insurance can’t even send out in time
a small amount of money to help
Ranchers survive never mind sort through
Something like that. Lol

[GDR]

I agree with AF5 on the packer thing, although it seems crazy prices in the store, unionized wages, building codes and regulations just take away the margins. However it is amazing all the byproducts the big packers have to market, it's not just the meat.

As a mixed farmer I completely see how one side of the farm compliments the other and I actually prefer average profits to huge losses and huge profits from year to year. If you look only at one commodity at a time the economics aren't great. Livestock this year is/will be horrible. Other years it turns light or damaged grain, slough grass, hailed crops into profit and spreads out cashflow. The only reason farms have become specialized is because it's easier and provides a better work /life balance, it was never about economics.

As the trend to straight grain farms continues the last 10 yrs, everyone has to remember it wasn't very long ago grain prices were quite unprofitable and I'm betting the next few years might be a little rough too.

[Blaithin]

As disease pressure and fertilizer costs increase I think there’s also increased opportunity for putting livestock into rotation with crops.

A handful of arable guys still practice having a few fields down to hay for 2-5 years before breaking it back up again. There’s no reason this model can’t also include livestock. Same with using cover crops to try and boost N or fight compaction or whatever use the farmer is planting it for. Many plough it under as green manure. Why not graze it first, then plough?

The average 3-5 crop rotations aren’t always cutting it anymore. More variety and space needs to be added. That is fairly easily answered with hay/grass/cc/livestock.

The biggest hurdle is fencing and water. It’s a sad scene to see all the fences just falling apart when they could be up kept and easily accessible for these kinds of uses.

Especially in falls like this year when regrowth was better than the summer growth. Livestock clean up crew to save on fall herbicide applications.

People just can’t seem to be bothered to try and set up this kind of working relationship with neighbours. They’d rather ponder and complain about how it’s impossible to farm with a profit anymore. Meanwhile most are selling their land to the highest bidder while saying nobody wants to farm anymore.