FROM PASTOR TO PASTURE
Plan Ahead
Storms have been brewing for the last several years in various sectors of U.S. agriculture, but for the last few months, the winds have really begun to blow and the seas have become turbulent among those who make their living in animal husbandry. No one has felt the effects more than our cattlemen and ranchers (especially cow/calf operators), dairymen and pork producers. In the current environment, even chicken farmers (broilers and layers) are feeling the pain, as are fruit and vegetable produce farmers who cannot harvest their crops. Social media is full of chatter about the price discrepancies between retail prices and what growers are getting for their animals on the farm. Sad to say, pigs and chickens are being euthanized, eggs are not being hatched, milk is being dumped, and cows and stockers are being backlogged on farms and in feedyards. There is nowhere to take the animals and products to sell at 70
Cooperative Farming News
a price that is equal to or greater than what it costs to produce them. However, for many, the sale price (minus the costs of production) is a producer’s income for the entire year! Row crop farmers, and I am not one, have their own problems, but their challenges are somewhat unlike those in animal husbandry. It may not be profitable, but it is possible to bale and hold cotton. They can temporarily store most nuts, beans and grain in hopes for better prices within the next year. What one cannot do is continue to hold live animals on the farm where they require feed, water, space, care, treatment and other resources on a daily basis – especially when the next crop of offspring have already been born or are on their way – or for the dairymen, the next milking is coming this afternoon! Sad to say, the media is also full of the misguided ideas and fallacies that people have about animal hus-
