1912 Clay St., North Kansas City, MO 64116 PAID - American ...

Lowline Logistics
By Neil Effertz
Three big questions:
1. How many customers do
you have
2. How many customers does
the Lowline business potentially
have
3. How do we get to those
potential customers
Ranch Management
Consultants’ mission is to
help farmers and ranchers
improve their land, their lives
and their bottom line. In his monthly newsletter, Ranch
Management Consultants’ Dave Pratt says:
“Since 1970, input costs have risen 5 times faster than cattle
prices. From that same time the price of oil has increased 8 times
faster than cattle prices. These trends have resulted in more
reliance on off farm income and a significant reduction in the
number of family ranches in the past 10 years.”
He talks about the “Agriculturally Insane.” He cites
“Conventional Wisdom” as a leading source of security for most
ranchers but also as a reason so many of them keep the same production
practices and expect the results to finally come around
next year. Here is what Dave has to say about the...
AGRICULTURALLY INSANE
“I was recently asked if it was possible to lower production costs
and reduce the capital intensive nature of ranching. My answer
Sure. There are examples all around the world. There are individuals
scattered across the U.S. who have been doing it for years.
They are usually pretty easy to recognize. They probably drive a
Toyota into town instead of a dual-axle 1 ton. They understand
why they shouldn’t borrow money when their banker thinks they
should. They tend to have smaller cows than your other neighbors.
Their neighbors think they’re nuts.”
“If we take conventional wisdom as the definition of sanity, they
are nuts. But conventional wisdom says that ranching isn’t profitable.
Steven Covey defines insanity as doing the same things
over and over and expecting different results. So, who’s more
nuts, the rancher who does everything right (according to conventional
wisdom) and expects things to come around, or the guy
who’s doing everything “wrong” and making money”
of these people depend on cattle for their livelihood. For many
their cattle are more a hobby than a business. But profitability is
not the driving motivation for many larger scale ranchers either.”
Dave’s article is encouraging to Lowline breeders while also posing
some challenges for us. We all know how easy Lowline cattle
are to raise for smaller operations. Getting our message across to
those “Conventional Wisdom” guys, who for the most part really
don’t want to hear about it and are not that profit motivated is
certainly a challenge. That the profitable cattle operations have
“smaller cows than their neighbors” is a very promotable fact for
the Lowline business. The 950,000 people (95% of the beef cowcalf
producers) with less than 50 cows represent an enormous
marketing opportunity if we can get our message across to those
folks. Beyond that are the very large scale operations that could
really benefit from the cost cutting, labor saving advantages of
using Lowline bulls on first calf heifers while simultaneously
bringing cow size down to lower inputs and improve maintenance
cost efficiency.
I recently loaned my neighbor a fullblood bull to breed his cows.
This year, by his choice, he calved a little later than he normally
would... mostly in May. Those May halfblood Lowline calves
weighed an average of 498# the last week in October. Most were
heifer calves, out of first calf heifers. One of the late April steer
calves out of a 4-year-old cow weighed 576#. My neighbor was
happy and made me a good deal to buy the calves. He will do
some awesome word of mouth advertising locally for me and the
Lowline breed! One small step to answer question number #3 but
it is a start.
Go to all of the local cattleman’s functions, feed store meetings,
extension service seminars in your area and spread the good
word about Lowlines and their cost cutting attributes. I think you
will find a warmer reception this year when the entire nation is
focusing on cutting costs in all of our operations.
One cross with quality Lowline genetics will cut production costs
quicker than with any other breed!
There is a great big market out there for Lowline genetics.... let’s
get after it!
“Why then do so many ranchers adhere to conventional wisdom”
“One reason we cling to conventional wisdom is that the US livestock
industry is not a for-profit industry. Of the approximately 1
million people who own beef cattle, 950,000 own fewer than 50
cows. They produce nearly 40% of the nation’s beef but very few
Winter 2009 • The Lowline Ledger 15