Mark Curry (989) 984-7027 Route services and sales Sue Palen (989) 277-0480 Semen order desk/ Products manager Greg Palen (989) 277-6031 Certified Seed specialist/ AI Refresher training
Michigan Livestock Service, Inc "For the Best in Bulls" and Digestible Forage Seed 110 N Main St (PO Box 661) Ovid, MI 48866 phone (989) 834-2661 website: www.michiganlivestock.com email: greg@michiganlivestock.com
What is supporting the current premium prices for deacon calves?
A knowledgeable marketer suggested recently that the volume calf buyers already have contracted feeder calves to feedlots, contracted their feed supplies, so know their costs before they buy the calves. They buy until those contracts are filled.
It is easy to forget -- that a couple decades ago we had a national Beef cow-calf herd around 45 million momma cows. Add to that, 11 million dairy cows producing deacon bull calves. We had 280 million people to eat their fed-out calves. Today we have under 30 million momma cows.... a million fewer dairy cows.... And closer to 320 million people, eating just as much beef now "per capita" as we did then. Beef protein is unique, and plant-based substitutions are not satisfying the consumer market (other than die-hard vegans, not too many of them).
Among the uber-nutritional-conscious, grassfed beef is creating an entire new premium sales opportunity for those with grazing land available. It is easy to overlook how all these specialty categories (beef and milk both have grassfed growth trajectories) actually aid in reducing basic commodity grade food production volumes on which the market prices build---that production is all marketed directly. While Dairy has an alleged oversupply problem with butterfat driving down pay prices, no similar issue exists in the Beef industry, now or in the foreseeable future.
How might the national cow-calf herd regrow? Probably from Beef-on-Dairy deacon heifers... which might get raised by commodity grain growers who choose to recycle grain acreage back into pasturage acres. Joel Salatin (editor of "Stockman Grass Farmer") suggested this in recent editorials he writes for that widely-read publication. This scenario is likely to grow cows at cost cheaper than you can go out and buy a full Beef breed cow or heifer to expand your herd today. A percentage of such farmers, after losing $100 per acre on soybeans last year, will pursue grass fed rather than design a grain-based feeding operation, and reduce overall farming expenses.
Michigan Livestock Service, Inc "For the Best in Bulls" and Digestible Forage Seed phone (989) 834-2661 email greg@michiganlivestock.com website: www.michiganlivestock.com
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