Breaking Down the Numbers
The story behind 32,000,000.
Numbers are everywhere. They matter to a rancher, so they matter to the Certified Angus Beef® (CAB®) brand. A natural progression, CAB’s Black Ink team set out to uncover stories behind both common and irregular numbers that affect a cattleman’s future. From 120 million to -2.26, each one tells a story of how even the seemingly random and only slightly related are intertwined to impact profitability.
Every number has a story — take, for instance, 32 million.
Ever wished for a do-over? A closed-eyes-squint-really-tightly-and-ask-for-things-to-go-back-to-the-way-they-started kind of plea?
Time on earth isn’t exactly set up as such, but sometimes the opportunity for a fresh start — or in this case, a brand new green pasture — is.
Take the drought. While rainfall has since brought some relief to the Midwest, cattlemen in California and parts of Oregon and Washington continue to find ways to survive on dry ground.
That, along with periods of high feed and live-cattle prices, the advancing age of ranchers and grazingland competition with cropland, contributed to the nation’s smallest cow inventory in decades, says John Paterson of the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association (NCBA).
The thing about a bad drought year is that it’s met with quite the celebratory rain dance when moisture decides to make its mark.
Take Texas, Kansas and Oklahoma, three of the states severely affected by drought. Sixty-six percent of heifer retention is happening in that area alone.
“The hundred-million-dollar question is: Where is the inventory going?” Paterson says. “If we’re at 28 million, are we going to go to 31 million, 32 million?”
Paterson can’t say, though he’ll place his bets on the 32-million mark, citing some ground that will remain with crops instead of cattle.
The important thing is what ranchers do with the blank canvas at their fingertips.
“Rebuilding means a reshaping of the beef industry, a chance to drive the curve in the shape we best see fit,” Lee Schulz says.
Assistant professor and Extension livestock economist at Iowa State University, Schulz says that mentality gives ranchers a chance to make breeding decisions that combine traditional traits with established consumer preferences.
“High-performing animals are really adaptable to a lot of different situations in the industry and allow producers to mitigate some of the very high or very low times,” Schulz says.
“The drought led us to get rid of the low end of our cow herd, our less productive cows,” Paterson says. “Now we have an opportunity to build on quality. We have the genetics to provide what consumers want, so if we use the technology we have, the future is bright.”
In other words, cattlemen get a do over. Strive to make it a good one.
Editor’s Note: Laura Conaway is a producer communications specialist for Certified Angus Beef LLC.