What a Mess

[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.

[blackpowder]

Doesn't look like much has changed in the cattle game in the last few decades.

[WiltonRanch]

Doesn't look like much has changed in the cattle game in the last few decades.

Lol. SSDD.

We have always kept cows and don’t intend to not. That said I run a lot less than previous years. Always hauled a bunch away to pasture and made out okay for a while. Built herd up and acquired a large pasture for reasonable cost. In the last 10 years it seems that thing even with reasonable priced grass has become almost unprofitable. I don’t know how anyone does it renting at some of these high rental rates. I cut back my numbers to what we could comfortably handle at home. Only time anything is hauled is to the stockyards. Cows graze stubble and non cropable areas. Been working up old hay and grass and seeding new stuff. Getting clean oats off grass breaking and amazed at soil tests off fields which were in grass for a period of time. My goal is for the cows to complement my grain operation. I just don’t see them being profitable any other way in my situation. I like to do as much myself as possible as I know margins are thin, and having too many cows to handle yourself or poor facilities sinks you.

[riders2010]

The elephant in the room is what is your
Government going to do? Is your market
Local or are you relying on the export market?

Everything your government does affects your bottom
Line one way or another. Your trade deals determine
What other countries can send to your country. Are
Your competitors in those countries supported by
Their governments? How does that support compare to
Your support or not?

Even local production. Is affected. For example I cannot
For the life of me understand why I see in the local
Co-op grocery pork ribs from Germany? And they are
Cheaper than the local produced? How does it make
Sense environmentally and global warming wise
To ship pork from Germany here when we are exporting
Out? How does that make sense on several fronts?
But some idiot somewhere made a trade deal
That not only allows this but requires it. Perhaps
The only reason I can see is if our canola or some
Other product is accepted or required in Germany?
The bottom line is you have to understand what
The rules are going to be not just short term.

And by the way I tried one of those rack of ribs,dried
Out shoe leather taste. Freezer burnt. But somehow
Still sells.

[sumdumguy]

Chinese cook was fined for using cardboard soaked with chemicals and pork flavouring. This filling was used in steamed buns. And have you heard of gutter oil? I am really looking forward to innovative “processed foods” imported into our grocery stores. Talk about disgusting.

[TSIPP]

Trudeau wants 30% Less fertilizer and I’m pretty sure he wants 70% Less cows.

It’s pretty easy blaming Trudeau, he’s an easy target.

[TSIPP]

We just need to google “packing plant profit margins” holy s h I t, the packers are raking it in, lots of articles of record breaking profits.

[Old Cowzilla]

The elephant in the room is what is your
Government going to do? Is your market
Local or are you relying on the export market?

Everything your government does affects your bottom
Line one way or another. Your trade deals determine
What other countries can send to your country. Are
Your competitors in those countries supported by
Their governments? How does that support compare to
Your support or not?

Even local production. Is affected. For example I cannot
For the life of me understand why I see in the local
Co-op grocery pork ribs from Germany? And they are
Cheaper than the local produced? How does it make
Sense environmentally and global warming wise
To ship pork from Germany here when we are exporting
Out? How does that make sense on several fronts?
But some idiot somewhere made a trade deal
That not only allows this but requires it. Perhaps
The only reason I can see is if our canola or some
Other product is accepted or required in Germany?
The bottom line is you have to understand what
The rules are going to be not just short term.

And by the way I tried one of those rack of ribs,dried
Out shoe leather taste. Freezer burnt. But somehow
Still sells.

That ship works both ways 8000 pigs cut up and sold overseas ( Japan) everyday from a plant 30 mins from my door. The only way you can get a pork loin from that plant is from employees who work there. The chops are better than anything you buy from a store ,and don't last long around here ! Huts supply the barns, Philippians cut up the hogs, Japanese enjoy the pork.

[Old Cowzilla]

Work, security, work is a good way to describe a mixed farm. Cattle support grain when it sucks and vice versa. Crop failure is suppling over 1/2 my feed this year and most my neighbors lots of straight cattle guys selling cows. Grain guys hook on to camper between seeding and spraying while mixed farm guys truck cattle and fix miles and miles of fence. Gee wonder why kids don't want to mix farm

[Blaithin]

I think there’s way more people trying to get into farming livestock than crops. Most are kids who’s parents left the farm and want to get back to it or urbanites leaving the city and wanting to be more self sufficient. Livestock is more easily accessible and doesn’t require the equipment investment. Plus they can’t use crops as much. This is why you’re seeing so many market garden attempts and eggs and chicken for sale privately.

Many more trying to make a go of small mixed farms (minus crops). Livestock, veggies, even flowers.

The thing is they’re small and bigger farmers tend to call them “hobby farms”. Which can be slightly ironic since some of those hobby farms hit on income streams that allow them to clear more than a farm of thousands of acres.

The ways to have a more successful farm these days seems to be either go really really big and specialized or stay small and more flexible. This is where I think the big guys can help along the smaller guys and vice versa.