We hope you all had a merry Christmas and now a great new year. Cattle movement was slow before Christmas; packers were buying for short weeks, winter weather kept some fed cattle at home, and feeder cattle auctions were, for the most part, closed.
With lower production, boxed beef cutouts were much higher at $269 at midweek. This is also the week when prime ribs are on full display. Safeway had them priced at $4.77 a pound and Kroger had them at $5.69/lb. for member shoppers. This is the biggest lost leader of the year for grocery stores.
I had an interesting letter from one of our readers in Arkansas; he is a regular writer to us. In his last letter, he was seeing a parallel between the stories we run inWLJ and the hit TV program, “Yellowstone.” Writer Taylor Sheridan does seem to touch on all the current events facing livestock production and resource use in the West.
(“Yellowstone” spoilers discussed ahead). In the last episode of “Yellowstone,” the newly elected governor of Montana, John Dutton, cancels an airport and land development project that was to be on his ranch. Of course, he does not want to see his part of Montana become the new plaything for the coastal elites. So, he places his ranch in a conservation easement. He will protect the ranch, but he also hamstrings his family for any further development of the asset.
Then Dutton’s son, Jamie, who is the attorney general for the state of Montana, is the outcast of the family and is pro development. He asks his female friend about it, who is there to guide his thinking and who also works for the development group that wants the Yellowstone Ranch. She points out that the largest packer in the U.S. is a Brazilian company that tears up 10,000 acres of rainforests to raise cattle, and that in 20 years, cattle ranching will be a thing of the past in the U.S. I beg to differ, but that is their story.
Then, brucellosis hits the Yellowstone Ranch from the nearby Yellowstone Park bison herd and infects some pastures. John Dutton starts feverishly looking for lease ground for 5,000 head. His daughter, Beth, starts doing the arithmetic on putting the cows on lease ground, and asks her dad how much they would sell for. Dutton said a yearling steer would sell for $1.50 a pound at 750 lbs. Beth says, “Perhaps we should sell beef instead of calves,” and her dad barks back and says, “We’re ranchers, we sell feeder cattle, not beef.”
She responds by saying that their little valley is full of hobby ranches and vacation homes—if the ranching business is that good, why aren’t there more working ranches in the valley? We all know the answer to that question. All assets move to the highest value, ranches versus golf courses and homes. Then again, I know a lot of ranchers who would like to have that golf course nearby.
Beth, the businessperson in the family, does a little research and tells her father that they should be selling beef from their cows because they would earn much more revenue. Like I said in my last column, producers should get closer to consumers and sell some beef. Ironically, she sees the 6666 Ranch’s beef program online, calls them up, and finds out they are selling 8 million lbs. of beef a year. They charge $40 for a single ribeye steak. And they do it all through the internet.
Coincidentally, Taylor Sheridan was one of the buyers of the 6666 Ranch, which sold just a couple of years ago. The relationship between the Yellowstone Ranch and the 6666 Ranch has become strong, at least on TV. I would not be a bit surprised if we start to see other legacy ranches show up in the program.
(Spoilers over). The Yellowstone program is bringing new eyes and ears to the fragility of Western culture, Western resource use and social issues. Let’s face it, those of us associated with Western culture, land and resource issues are different from the coastal elites. We all have our ideological biases, and think we know what’s best for Western issues. Westerners think differently than East Coast people, and especially those in Washington D.C.
We all must advocate for our Western culture and lifestyle—most of us like it the way it is. However, those who are attracted to the West must also respect it. We have lots of political issues to deal with and most ranchers just want to make a decent living while doing what they love.
John Dutton is trying to make the statement that is real: Do not use my home as your playground. Remember, economics precedes everything. —PETE CROW
