{"id":135,"date":"2014-01-09T14:56:45","date_gmt":"2014-01-09T21:56:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sdprairiewriter.com\/?p=135"},"modified":"2014-01-09T15:00:40","modified_gmt":"2014-01-09T22:00:40","slug":"the-money-cow","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sdprairiewriter.com\/?p=135","title":{"rendered":"The Money Cow"},"content":{"rendered":"
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It\u2019s the closing of the year and oh, what a year it was. \u00a02013 will be a year for the history books you can be sure. What will you remember from the year? Will it be when you finally saw your pastures climbing out of drought? Or the day you sold steer calves for record prices? For many it will be the October blizzard.<\/div>\n
A rancher told me he would likely remember the early 2000s just like he can remember the mid-80s. Sure the events happening at the time were different \u2013 the 80s it was economic crisis; the 2000s it was more weather related \u00a0\u2013 but none-the-less the impact to a person\u2019s emotional being is the same.<\/div>\n
At the South Dakota Cattlemen\u2019s Association in early December I heard Don Schiefelbein speak. He is part of his family\u2019s farming and cattle operation in Minnesota. There are nine brothers and two nephews that work together in operating a crop, cow-calf, seedstock and feedlot operation.<\/div>\n
He was a young man in the 80s and he says the message producers were hearing then was how they needed to become \u201clow cost producers\u201d. It\u2019s a mantra those who survived the 80s farm crisis find hard to shake from their heads, but Schiefelbein is trying to replace it with a message of his own.<\/div>\n
\u201cIf it was as easy as cutting expenses how easy would it be to be in a business,\u201d he asked of the crowd.<\/div>\n
Instead Schiefelbein spoke of the \u201cMoney Cow\u201d. A fan of the movie Money Ball, because of its emphasis on data impacting the game of baseball, he says data (aka knowledge) can mean the same for your own cattle operation \u2013 wins.<\/div>\n
He gave several examples where his family chose to make large purchases \u2013 spending major dollars to improve their feeding facilities, upgrade their tractors, buy feed or use technology in their cattle herd. And you can be assured the purchases have not been for used tractors, cheap feed and mid-grade cattle pens.<\/div>\n
Why go into that type of debt when you are trying to support 11 family members? Each purchase was made after thorough research showed data supporting the buy.<\/div>\n
\u201cIgnorance purchases on price and knowledge purchases on value,\u201d says Schiefelbein.<\/div>\n
With each purchase the family tries to see how it can benefit them in terms of added value, saved time, and a decrease in getting nickled and dimed.<\/div>\n
\u201cYour operation\u2019s profit is driven by day-to-day operations, not your overhead,\u201d he summarizes.<\/div>\n
It does go against what was taught in the 80s and it is good food for thought as we enter into a new year. What are your farm and ranch resolutions for 2014? Would being a spender make sense this coming year?<\/div>\n
\u2013 Codi Vallery-Mills<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s the closing of the year and oh, what a year it was. \u00a02013 will be a year for the history books you can be sure. What will you remember from the year? Will it be when you finally saw your pastures climbing out of drought? Or the day you sold steer calves for record […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[7,17,6],"class_list":["post-135","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-httpsdprairiewriter-compage_id58","tag-cattle","tag-minnesota","tag-rancher"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sdprairiewriter.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sdprairiewriter.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sdprairiewriter.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sdprairiewriter.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sdprairiewriter.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=135"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/sdprairiewriter.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":138,"href":"https:\/\/sdprairiewriter.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135\/revisions\/138"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sdprairiewriter.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=135"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sdprairiewriter.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=135"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sdprairiewriter.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=135"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}