Limited profits for cow-calf producers

With the fall calf run underway, cow-calf producers are rejoicing over the dramatic improvement in prices. However, there is still very little profit. The Western Beef Development Centre has been doing an extensive cost of production analysis with producers and they’ve just published the 2008 results. A total of 18 Saskatchewan herds were used for the analysis. The average herd size was 241 cows. The average weaning weight was 545 pounds and the average weaning percentage was 89 per cent. The average price back in 2008 was only 97 cents a pound. The breakeven point if you include the value of unpaid labour was $1.21 a pound. Thus there was an average loss of $110 per cow. Taking unpaid labour out of the mix, the loss per cow was still over $70. Prices this fall are a lot better than they were in ’08, but assuming the costs are similar, producers are on average going to be making a profit of only a few cents per pound. Higher cost producers will still be losing money. Producers need even better values for their calves to be making much money. Check out the cost of production analysis on the website of the Western Beef Development Centre (www.wbdc.sk.ca). I’m Kevin Hursh.