News
Small Nebraska cow/calf producer says opportunity for profits are few-far-between
An East Central Nebraska cow/calf producer says it’s becoming more difficult to make a profit. “The struggle is to raise cattle and do it the right way and not cut anything out. You’re pretty lucky to hit a breakeven a lot of years.”
Jake Ruth of Rising City says the current market isn’t providing enough revenue for him to pay rising input costs like feed. “You have the create a lot of demand on that side for our stock to offset that. Our other struggle right now is with fertilizer so high we’re getting to this time of year where we’re fertilizing pastures as well. With increases in that, we’re looking at pasture rent climbing, so it affects your bottom line as well,” Ruth says.
He tells Brownfield one solution is to keep his family’s small Simmental herd efficient by continuously improving genetics. “You know the ones that breakeven, send them off to other programs so they can be successful but really try to utilize cattle that work in our system and put us in the green,” Ruth says.
He says his biggest concern is pasture availability because his area is mainly row-crop farmland.
