Follow Up to Yesterday's Post

11/12/2013

I peruse the New York times website daily, and it's a big deal to featured on the front page. Today this article was featured with the title, "An Accidental Cattle Ranch Points the Way in Sustainable Farming."

Yesterday I talked about New Money farms. This is the granddaddy of them all, as it's owned by BILLIONAIRES! This is my favorite paragraph:

"While Ms. Taylor says, modestly, that it is hard to know how profitable the business is, her husband said it had outperformed his expectations. “We could sell 10 times the amount we raise, in 10 minutes,” he said."

One owner notes that she doesn't know if her 120 head herd of cattle on 1800 (!) acres of land in Coastal California (!) is profitable. The other says they can't meet demand. Well, let me tell you something: if I had a billion dollars and 1800 acres, I could probably sell 60 cattle a year no problem as well, but I sure as hell wouldn't be suggesting that I was the farm model of the future.

Rant over.

7 Comments

Cathy

11/12/2013 04:36:13 am

Saw this article yesterday and certainly agree with you. From what I could see nothing revolutionary going on here. Rich people dabbling in things that are already trendy. Who can't sell beef in this environment.

bruce king link

11/12/2013 01:52:01 pm

The property that they run the tomkat ranch on last sold in 2002 for $7,000,000. It's probably worth more now. 60 calves sold at typical auction retail (600lbs at 1.45/lb) = $870 each = gross revenue of $52,200. Lets imagine that they sell their cows at $4/lb hanging, which ends up being about $3200 a cow. that's high, but doable in the bay area. that's $192k a year gross revenue.

That doesn't cover the property taxes on a 7 million dollar property. much less the staff (some of whom are pictured in the article) and various costs. a 1% return on that property would be $70k. Mr Steyer would have any investment manager who made that return fired instantly.

I'm not sure what this is a model of. But sustainability it isn't. How about you come up with a farm model that actually allows the farmer to pay for the retail value of the land used? that's a very hard problem that I haven't seen anyone solve.

Mrs. Johnson link

11/13/2013 06:42:41 am

A fiber/meat sheep flock run on 5-7 acres could generate 50-75k/year in gross income from meat and wool sales. House/barn/acreage around where we bought is 150k on the low end (fixer on 5-7 acres) and 400k on the higher end (nicer house basically).

However, I don't know of anyone running a fiber flock who really gets into maximizing the meat sales-- there is a breeding trade-off between fiber quality and carcass quality.

George

11/13/2013 07:00:06 am

I thought I read somewhere that the fiber market has really dropped out, and to command the highest prices is really hard to get the wool so clean and fine fibers?

I'd like to see some real life examples of a sheep flock on 5 acres making 75k on the wool. Carcass weight on a ewe isn't that much, around 100 or so lbs if I remember right, you're talking maybe 50-60lbs of salable meat, at $7/lb is $350 a head. That's a long way to 75,000.

Mrs. Johnson link

11/13/2013 07:36:18 am

At 90/lb for specialty wool, which is the highest price I've seen, those ewes are generating about 1k/ewe in wool sales alone, not counting what their lambs will sell for as meat.

George

11/13/2013 04:01:31 pm

Right.. but you're not going to generate 100% of high end $90/lb wool from every head, every time. Not to mention you're talking about someone who knows how to handle and process that much wool.

Stocking density on 5 acres... would be around 10-15 ewe per acre, per month, IIRC they are somewhat heavy and picky grazers, fescue foot is an issue.. Again, I just don't see a real world example of your 75k farm example.

Bill link

11/24/2013 08:33:37 am

Too often a farm is called "sustainable" as long as it is being farmed using sustainable farming practices. But a farm is not sustainable unless it is economically sustainable. "Sustainable" farming will not be a viable career option unless it can be economically sustainable.

Follow Up to Yesterday's Post

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