For once I must respectfully disagree with the double Duck. Now I don’t have a site, but growing up raising beef cattle in Alabama, I learned a bit about the business as it was of interest to me at the time. There are alot of folks growing corn that keep a tight eye on the livestock prices and corn prices to determine whether they can get more selling that corn or from buying a 400 pound calf, running said corn through calf, and then selling the 1000 pound result.
While that information may not pertain to the argument at hand, I think it does. The price of corn and all other feed grains and the price of livestock are forever linked. This being the case, the production of livestock the amount of feed grain which is sold should be taken together. It was a long time ago when a corn farmer figured out he might get more money for his corn by running it through a cow before he sold it. Now I am not going to read all these links to see just how relevant it is in this argument, but I think it does matter, since in most all cases it does.
My opinion on the OP: The great thing I learned while on a tractor was that I had to find a way to get the hell out of that hayfield, which is why I am sitting in an air conditioned room full of computers at this moment. While I have much respect for the full time farmer and part time farmer alike, I sure don’t want to be one. Being a former member of the farming community, I see nothing at all wrong or funny about this choice of Sec. of Agriculture. Agriculture in this country is a complex thing, If I were still up to my knees in cowshit, I would be happy to have anyone who knew the hard work involved and understood the complexity of farming as the Secretary of Agriculture. Ms. Veneman is surely more qualified than most.
I have a 20 year old son who wants nothing more than to be a farmer. He is a Jr at Southern Ill University in the Ag program.
I would prefer to have an Ag secretary that knows and understands more than California Ag. I am trying to show the differences in Ag in California and the Ag most of the nation knows. Like cattle production.Bet you didn’t let your cattle roam free did you.?
Here is a biggy for you
Carrots are grown in California. About 75% of all carrots are grown in California.
I suggested earlier that there may be someone that is better qualified. As I see the many differences in Cal Ag I am more sure there is.
Agriculture in this whole country is the place where Joe Farmer in overalls meets Dr. Biotech. I would think any person who was successful as the head of Agriculture in California has an appreciation for the broad scope and diverse needs of farmers everywhere. If you disagree, fine by me. I have zero knowledge of her performance in her past post, I only assume Bush appointed somebody successful, but politicians and logic don’t always mix well, if at all.
The reason I posted was to point out that livestock reports are relevant to alot of people who grow “crops”.
BTW here is something else I found when searching for info on BLM in Califirnia.
Grazing use is measured in units called Animal Unit Months, or AUMs. An AUM is defined by the federal government as the amount of forage and/or browse required to feed a cow and her calf, a horse, or 5 sheep or goats for a month. The AUM concept is somewhat arbitrary and malleable, so in practice AUMs vary from 600 to 1200 pounds of herbage (leafy plant material of any kind). Most fall between 800 and 1000 pounds, so an AUM averages roughly 900 pounds (USGAO 1988).
In another search I found a mention of $1.35 per AUM. Sorry I’ve spent the last 45 minutes trying to find that site but to no avail.
A guy could make some serious money if thats all it cost to feed a cow calf pair.
Guess I better explain how the beef cattle industry works for you.
The calves aren’t usually born where the good feed grows. The land for growing good corn (an example, and one of the best things for fattening up beef) is used for growing good corn. It is best to have nice grassy pasture land for the breeding part of this equation, and that doesn’t really work well in the bread basket. That land can be put to better use. Now fattening up cattle takes little land, you don’t want them to walk around anyway.
Specialization is profitable. There are those that raise the calves and those that just fatten them up. Why should an expert in growing corn learn the best ways for breeding cattle? Usually they don’t. I used to be on the calf end of the equation, but I know what happened after we sold them. We usually killed 1 or 2 ourselves for some good old farm raised beef, great stuff, beats the hell out of the grocery store. At the peak of our operation, before my father abruptly died, we had 75 full grown cows, and usually 3 bulls. Our operation was based on each cow having one calf per year, calf living 9 months and growing to a weight of 350 to 500 pounds in that time. Cows do stupid things, cows die, cows get Brucellosis, etc. You can’t make any money if your always calling the vet, you gotta learn how to take care of most things yourself. So the gameplan would usually result in roughly 70 calves a year at $400 a head coming in. Cost of ferilizer, diesel fuel, vaccinations, tractor repairs, replacing old cows, etc. we made a few hundred or maybe even 2000 dollars in some years. My family did this because they enjoyed it and would rather lose money farming than lose money to the IRS. You get nice tax breaks and end up with something to show for it. My father and my uncle both maintained full time and well paying jobs to support the farming hobby. Now just how widespread this type of activity is, I can’t say for sure but its common in the south on land that isn’t great for anything, but decent for raising cows. In great years, if you took the profit from farming and compared it to the hours of hard labor performed by those of us farming you would see that you were paying yourself maybe 50 cents an hour.
What happened after we took them to the stockyard. Well most of the calves of this type were bought by your large cattle brokers, you need a good one if your gonna fatten cattle with your crop. These brokers would sit down on the front row and would be buying cattle for 5, 10, 25 different companies or farms. After the sale was finalized they would communicate which pen they wanted the calf in via hand signals. At the end of the day, they would load the large cattle trailers in a specific order depending on where each pen was going to be delivered. The bigtime operations were in Texas, Oklahoma, and maybe Kansas.
Bigtime operation of fattening up cattle. You get a big pen or 8 and you have a large mound in the middle where the water will not stand so the calves can lay down without being wet. You provide ample water. You provide all the food any animal could ever stand. I assume you provide adequate vaccination against any disease that could become serious in such a cramped environment. You sell (send to slaughter) them when they get to the weight that the amount of food being taken isn’t providing an adequate return.
Now lets summarize this here in your case of making serious money from just fattening up beef. First you have to buy the calf. I have no idea what the current prices are, lets use 1988 prices and say a 400 pound calf a dollar a pound, 400. Then you gotta pay the broker who you hired to buy you what you needed, then the trucker for getting it from wherever to your land of feed. Then you gotta hope they didn’t die on the way from heat exhaustion (I think you can buy insurance for this). You gotta have land in a fairly warm place, you gotta make sure your pen is in good order, your water pump don’t break, your well don’t dry up, etc. You gotta do something with all that cowshit, possibly sell it, but probably not for much money since others around are going to do the same thing. You gotta hope they stay alive. You gotta hope the market don’t turn south just before you sell it to the slaughterhouse. I left out alot of things, but you can get an idea here.
Now for the guy who grows alot of corn, he might make some money doing this. I imagine there are those who make a decision each year depending on the price of beef, price of corn, and what kinds of deals can be struck up with the guy at the slaughterhouse. I am sure many sell some corn directly and allocate some to feedpen operations, and the percentage will vary from year to year.
Now I am nowhere near an agricultural expert, but I have more insight than a very large percentage of the population in this country. Farming is big business in many ways, and in many other ways, it is not. I still see no problem with the selection of the Secretary of Agriculture, its easy to appreciate the diversity of the agricultaral community in this country. Now if your still pissed caused you think this lady don’t give a rats ass about you in Ill. that is your right. However, I would bet my daddy’s whetrock that she understands the big picture better than you or I do. Now whether or not she cares, is honest, fair, and hard working, well justwannano, she is a politician too. In my pessimistic view, be ready to be disappointed no matter who you get.
I like to apologize for a hell of a hijack, I thought it was appropriate. If anybody cares, I can enable my email by request and continue this discussion/debate. Just let me know.
I understand your comments.But will the new Ag secretary???
If you read my previous post you will notice the words (cow calf ) that means both together. If they are providing feeder calves then they sell the calf at about 500 pounds.Your $1.00 a pound is still ballpark. Imagine that.
Since the BLM land I was reading about had to be adjacent to the farm there was no trucking to pasture. Since the land was not owned by the farmer there were no taxes.Since you can’t borrow money on land you don’t own you have no worries about losing it to the bank.
Sorry for your bad feelings about farming. I’m trying to keep a young mans dreams alive and don’t want some official whos ag practices are dependent upon the government to be making decisions that he will have to live with.