20 minute read
23 Questions with Cody Jorgensen
Twenty Three for 2023
Cody Jorgensen Co-Owner/Operator
Jorgensen Land & Cattle
Ideal , South Dakota
Cody Jorgensen, Co-Owner/Operator at Jorgensen's Land & Cattle
photo provided by Cody Jorgensen
www.JorgensenFarms.com
facebook: @JorLandCat
email: info@JorgensenFarms.com
I'm an owner here at Jorgensen Land & Cattle, and we are a family-owned operation. My Dad, my uncle, my cousin, and I are the four owners. It's a diversified family farm and ranch. I like to say that our widget is the Black Angus Bull, and we'll market around 6,200 bulls this year. We have a large genetic footprint out there, as we get a lot of bulls out across the nation. We have 15 cooperator herds that help us raise bulls and we'll buy their weaned calves, bring them to our own feed lot, and then grow and develop them just like we do with our own.
Yes, we also farm about 15,000 acres with about 85% of those acres farmed for our own use. When you've got that many bulls running around, it takes a lot of feed throughout the course of the year. My Uncle Bryan oversees the Agronomy part of our business. We're always in deep communication about what our needs are as he oversees growing the feed for the bulls.
Then the third part of our business is what I like to refer to as entertainment. We have a hunting lodge called the Lazy J Grand Lodge. We take in hunters from September all the way through Christmas. We offer an all-inclusive three day, four night trip with a three day pheasant hunt. We'll have about 500 or so stay with us every year. To wrap that up, the way our family looks at an acre of land is, we want to do three things on that acre. One would be, obviously, if we can graze it at some point during each year. The second thing would be to farm it with soil health in mind. With all the no-till practices, we're trying to get that soil back to its most native state, yet still have something living on it all the time. The third thing would be to do some sort of entertainment on that acre. That's why we have pheasant hunting and we're blessed to have wild pheasants in our part of the world. So, we think if we could do all three things on each acre, then that keeps us sustainable for many generations. I know there's a lot of operations that can obviously do one or perhaps two of these, but we challenge ourselves to work on all three.
Well, my grandfather, when he was in business with his father, they thought it was important to be diversified. What that meant back in those days was you had a few hogs and you had a few cattle, maybe even some turkeys. We look at it today and think instead of running hogs and other animals, we find different way to market bulls, whether that's leasing them or just private treaty direct sales. Then, looking at our resources that we have available to us, we manage those to the best of our abilities. That's also where our soil health comes to mind. In addition, we're also blessed to have wild pheasants. Plus, it doesn't have to be pheasant hunting, it could be bird watching or something that is unique to your own part of the world.
Yes, we try to get out and see our clients as much as possible. We do sell a lot of bulls into the southeast, the gulf coast states and especially Florida. So, it's nice to get down into that part of the world just to visit with our clients. It's always better to put a name to a face.
Yes, I did, except when I attended college. Plus, I've never had another job elsewhere than on our farm. I currently live in the house that I grew up in, which we purchased from my mom and Dad so that we can raise our family here, on the farm and in the same house. In fact, until a few years back, we got to raise our kids right next to where my grandparents lived, until they passed away. So, they got to visit with grandpa and grandma for most of their childhood. It was an awesome thing and I hope someday my kids will look back and say that was pretty darn cool. Not many people get to do that. Living on the farm is just a great place to raise a family. Recently, our operation has been very busy so it's not quite as nice as it once was (he laughs). But what I will say is that it's still a great place to raise a family and have a great life.
My Dad is a partner here and he's 72 years old. He's doing his best to fade out his daily role here. It's time for him to slow down but he still plays a large role in helping us market bulls, especially in the southeast. He and my mom have a place down there and they stay during the winter every year. Then there's my Uncle Bryan, he's 14 years younger than my dad and only 10 years older than me. He's in charge of all our Agronomy since he's the farmer in the family. Then he has a son, Nicolas, who's 14 years younger than I am now. Nick has his Masters in Agricultural Economics and has a large role in our company as our CEO/CFO. He's extremely smart and fun to be around while also an excellent partner and a good guy to have on our team. My own role is Chief Cattle Operations Officer. I oversee everything that has to do with any of the livestock. As partners, we all have an age differential that we feel is an advantage and it works quite well for us. My wife, Abby, is an occupational therapist and spends a lot of time with kids and she contracts through the local school districts to help with kids that have special needs for any reason. Then there's my oldest boy Phillip and he's finishing his junior year at SDSU. My daughter Emma is a freshman there too and she wants to be a pediatrician. Our youngest is William and he's going to be a freshman in high school next year. The two boys have expressed interest in coming back and being part of our operation.
Feeding Angus at Jorgensen's Cattle
photo by Derek Sample, Derek@ABPmaga.com
Well, specifically about our cattle, there's more. We focus on Black Angus here and we run about a thousand mother cows. My grandfather started breeding cattle in the early fifties and I've taken that over probably since the mid-nineties. I've basically kept the same breeding philosophy that my grandfather had. I studied the way he bred cattle and how my dad did too. The good thing about it is that we have the ability to go back and look at these cattle on paper and identify where their strengths and weaknesses were. I just took that same breeding philosophy and tweaked it here and there, using the data that's in front of me. By keeping our cowherd as pure and line bred as possible, this has allowed us to use that as a parent stock herd to create all the bulls that we market today. So, it's really a unique scenario compared to other breeders, in that we have lots of history behind our program. On top of that, we have tons of animals that help us create more data, which in turn helps us make better breeding decisions.
aerial view of Jorgensen's cattle operation
drone photo by Derek Sample, Derek@ABPmag.com
Yes, we've identified our five paternal lines in the Angus breed, and we think about 95% of all Angus cattle fall on these sire lines. We also use color tags to identify them out in the field. Yellow is Eldorado, orange is Traveler, black is the Rito line, purple is Emulation and white is our Emulous sire line of cattle. This way we know exactly what the expectations are and what kind of results we'll get when breeding cattle. Then we're using DNA to help us go down that path and really interpret it and understand our ability since we have our own genetic evaluation as well. All that data comes from the phenotypes of the 6,000+ bulls that we raise annually. This all gets put into our evaluation and we're able to use those phenotypes and tie them to DNA markers, which helps us create predictions. So, the thing about having your own genetic evaluation is that you can study it and then make decisions that move us forward and get everybody on the same page. Right now, we've got some things that we're studying that I think is unique to the industry and hopefully, some exciting and even game changing things are to come.
Yes, we really like Vence's virtual fence and will be using it a lot in the future. We find the only challenge is keeping the collars on the animals, since cows tend to rub on things. Other than that, we really like it so far and we'll be using it through the summer to help maximize that acre of grazing. As far as the 701x e-tags cattle management system, they don't control the animal, but they do let us know where it is and where it's been. With our leasing program, there's great value in using their tags so we can monitor exactly where our bulls are. It even lets us take another step and use it as a customer relations tool. Let's say you get an alert that a bull hasn't moved in a couple of days, we can call that customer and tell them what we've learned. The 701x system could help get that bull out of a situation such as being caught in a tree down the canyon or similar. Basically, if there's no activity on the tag, we can sound an alarm and we might help save the bull.
This is what the Jorgensen's use, as mentioned in the above paragraph
701x Autonomous Rancher
Yes, it's a real high rate of repeat buyers, around 85 to 90%. That's also probably the case with our private treaty and our leasing clients too. It's such a convenience for these guys to know that these aren't just bulls we're putting together, but that they have a genetic backbone behind them. Once our clients understand this, and that they just need our bull on their place for 60-90 days, it's an easy sell. When you look at opportunity costs for every bull that you winter at your place, you could be running probably two more cows as much as they heat. Let's just say, south of us in Cherry County, Nebraska, if you need 30 bulls on your ranch we could just send 'em to where you need 'em, then pick 'em up when you're done. That would allow you to run 60 more cows on the same resource and those cows could probably generate enough gross revenue to pay for your lease. So by leasing bulls, you can really reduce your breeding costs.
What we'll do up here is we'll lease the bull as a yearling in our five-state area around South Dakota. Then we'll lease him again as a two-year-old. Once that bull gets fully developed through this process, as a 30-month-old or three-year-old, we sell that bull to a cattleman generally in one of the gulf coast states. We call these bulls our 'SmartBulls'. They spend two breeding seasons up here, then that SmartBull works well down in that southern environment where that grass is so wet and washy with plenty of rumen expansion to eat enough grass to get its nutrition. Whereas with a young bull, we're asking a lot of him because he physically can't eat enough grass to satisfy his nutritional requirements. Then you're asking him to breed cows in addition to maintaining his condition. So, we've got an advantage since we're sending an aged bull down there after we've already captured two leases on them up here, which makes for a very competitive pricing standpoint as well.
Well, it's probably changed a couple of times in my lifetime. I would say when I was younger, I wouldn't be able to leave the house without my pliers. Not just any pair, but my own pair. These days, it's totally different. Most of my time is spent here in the office, so my favorite tool today has got to be my cell phone, an iPhone.
Well, it's interesting. I really feel that there's a very large disconnect between the meat case and the cow-calf producer. When we start talking about specific markets, we as producers have, in some cases, backed ourselves into corners by trying to identify certain products that are, for example, hormone free or antibiotic free. I don't think our consumer ultimately desires hormone free beef, in fact, there's no such thing. I think what they really desire, and we're just not getting it right, is that they want to know a bit about where their food comes from, just a little knowledge, such as how was it raised or something that would peak their interests.
Here's where I try to make a difference doing just that. For instance, I told you that we bring in 500 different pheasant hunters from across the nation. When they arrive for their trip, I make it mandatory that we take every one of them on a farm tour. I used to make it optional but now it's no longer an option. It's amazing how much they enjoy it. They're so inquisitive and when they get back to the lodge after the tour, that's all they talk about. They say how cool the farm was, and they had no idea where their food comes from. They're so removed from agriculture anymore and they just had no idea. Here, they get to see all the technology that we are using, and they are truly amazed. Our farm tour is always one of the highlights of their trip. So, to sum it up, that lack of communication with the consumer is one of the biggest challenges in our industry.
With respect to production, agriculture and anything that is regulated in any fashion, I hope that they take all considerations into the issues we face every day. I know there are some things that need to be regulated, but in most cases, with respect to food, we just really need to pay attention to that. With our state and local governments, they need to make sure that our infrastructure, like our roads, stay in tip top shape. This is where I think our country has the advantage over a lot of different countries. We compete and we cannot let the infrastructure get in bad shape. It seems like all of that is on the back burner these days.
pheasant hunters out beyond Jorgensen's Lazy J Grand Lodge
photo by Derek Sample, Derek@ABPmag.com
I go to NCBA every year and I think it's a great conference. I'm not going to sit here and say that I agree with everything they do or say, but I think they are an organization with some pull, so I really like being part of it.
I'm a ribeye guy, medium rare.
When we travel, I try to find different places to eat that are known for good food. Since I cook our own beef at home, and being a connoisseur at that, I'm able to pick it apart and interpret it. But a lot of times, I don't order beef since we have such high quality at home, and I'll end up being disappointed. So, I eat a lot of seafood.
I'm blessed to not have any major accidents per se. But I will say that this last December, we had a strong series of blizzards. There were three in a row about 2 or 3 days apart. We have 25 employees that work for us here and one of the evenings it was between blizzard one and blizzard two. We just got done moving a big bunch of snow away from the feed yard and it was time for everybody to go home. Just then the wind came up and turned everything into a white out. We had four or five employees that went into the ditch and got stuck. They were about nine miles away from our operation, so I took our big tractor out and wow, it was crazy weather, but we rescued everybody. We couldn't get them pulled out that night, so they all ended up coming back with me in the tractor and spent the next three or four nights at my house. It was so bad they couldn't even get home for days. When we finally got back outside to check on their cars, it took a payloader to get them out. It was just a huge mess.
My Dad, obviously, is number one for me. Then there's my uncle, though he's more like a brother to me than he is my uncle. But he was also the best man in my wedding. He's basically my big brother and we have a great relationship. Of course, I must throw in my grandfather too. In fact, both grandfathers. They were different men in different ways, but they both mentored me and taught me a lot about life. My grandfather on my mom’s side was an outdoorsman and every chance he got, he took me hunting and fishing and taught me a lot about the outdoors. My grandfather was such a pioneer in his day with the Angus cattle and even one of the first to start selecting cattle based on performance. There are so many things I learned from him and some that he doesn't even know about.
Yes, we do. The biggest thing for my wife and I is that we have a permanent campsite setup about 45 minutes from our house. So, it doesn't take a lot to get there, and we have a boat over there on the lake. That's what we do to escape. We spent 63 nights in our camper out there last summer. During the winter months, we like jumping on a plane and going down to see my folks in Florida. Other than that, there's a lot of meetings and travel dates for us to go to as well. We start calving the first week in February and we're just now finishing up, so we're heading down to Florida this week to catch up with my folks.
Historically I've been a Chevy guy. But lately I've been driving a Ford since the capital leases are a better option for our operation. It probably doesn't matter too much, but deep down I'm a Chevy guy.
Well, that would put me at 57. I would say that I should have one son back and in the operation. The second one, very close to being back in the operation. I'm really looking forward to that since I really miss them when they're in school. I better have some grandkids too! As far as work, we started our own genetic evaluation about 4 years ago and I'd like to see that progress. I really look for our Ideal Beef Evaluation to be extremely strong and I hope that it's gained enough steam and is widely respected across the industry. So that's something I'm going to devote the next 10 years of my life to. Not only this evaluation, but also what we call the Ideal Beef Genetics Ecosystem. All inclusive, it means that everything we do in terms of marketing bulls all the way to a potential buyback. We are really making strides to help some of our southern producers market their calves and even have some ownership in those calves. The idea would be that we can use genomics to really enhance their product. Then, potentially, we could help the consumer gain more knowledge about the beef they're purchasing at the counter. I feel the only true way we're going to do this, is by tracking it through traceability, through DNA. So, I envision a standing meat case and picking up a package of meat that says it came through the Ideal Beef Genetics Ecosystem. It'll have a QR code on the package they can scan and learn all about it. It might even bring up a 20 second video of that animal or its origin. That's a big nutshell there, but that's what I'm looking at here. The hardest part of the job is the marketing. If you add it all up, there's roughly 240,000 calves that are directly influenced by our bulls in just one year's time. So, to answer your question, in 10 years, I'd like to have our arms around a large percentage of those calves, even if it was only half of them.
I would say it's just being involved in a multi-generational family business. Some people take that for granted and I think you really need to stop and think about the accomplishments. I'm fourth generation and my kids are fifth and that's really something to stop and think about since most don't make it past two or three.
Just make sure you want to do this. You must have the heart, the desire and the passion. Also, make sure to align yourself with someone that has a lot of experience in our industry. This is critical. Learn from them and do your best to stay aligned with them and maybe you'll benefit from each other. There's going to be a lot of things sneaking up on you that you had no idea about, whereas you could have a simple answer from someone who's already dealt with it. The more mentors, the better.
