Managing Prosperity In The Beef Industry

May 04, 2015

An Alberta Agriculture specialist says, as the cow-calf business continues to provide strong margins, and producers look at where to invest their positive margins, the question becomes what to invest those positive margins in. In a presentation now available from Cow-Calfenomics risk management series, Rick Dehod, farm financial specialist, recommends producers first know their business costs with a goal of reducing those costs, not only when the farm is losing money, but also during the good years when margins improve.

Interview with Rick Dehod (3:29 minutes) (1.60 Mb)

Source : agric.gov.ab.ca

Video: Evolution of Beef Cattle Farming

The Clear Conversations podcast took to the road for a special episode recorded in Nashville during CattleCon, bringing listeners straight into the heart of the cattle industry. Host Tracy Sellers welcomed rancher Steve Wooten of Beatty Canyon Ranch in Colorado for a wide-ranging discussion that blended family history and sustainability, particularly as it relates to the future of beef production.

Sustainability emerged as a central theme of the conversation, a word that Wooten acknowledges can mean very different things depending on who you ask. For him, sustainability starts with the soil. Healthy soil produces healthy grass, which supports efficient cattle capable of producing year after year with minimal external inputs. It’s an approach that equally considers vegetation, animal efficiency, and long-term profitability.

That philosophy aligned naturally with Wooten’s involvement in the U.S. Roundtable for Sustainable Beef, where he served as a representative for the Colorado Cattlemen’s Association. The roundtable brings together the entire beef supply chain—from producers to retailers—along with universities, NGOs, and allied industries. Its goal is not regulation, Wooten emphasized, but collaboration, shared learning, and continuous improvement.