Farming can be a high risk business and that is as true in ranching as it is in other agricultural sectors.
While 2024 saw some excellent highs in the cattle markets, Burke Teichert, a consultant, writer, and public speaker, says in this interview at the Western Canada Conference on Soil Health and Grazing, that these prices are not going to last forever and now is a good time for producers to jump out of their regular routine and learn to do different things because, “doing the things we’ve always done a little bit better is not going to be enough.”
Teichert, who developed a reputation early on in his career as someone who was capable of managing ranches well, discusses the importance of working on three important ratios in order to make or keep a ranch profitable. He recommends that producers should ask themselves what their cows per person ratio is, how many acres per cow they have, and what it is going to take to improve those ratios.
Sometimes improving these numbers can mean re-thinking an operation’s marketing strategy or looking at how adapted the cattle are to the rancher’s environment.
Teichert says, “(you) have to become a lifelong learner, and you can’t be engaged in paradigm lockdown… sometimes you hear people doing these stupid things, maybe those things aren’t so stupid. Maybe you need to go see what they’re doing.”
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