| EXECUTIVE CORNER |
Genetics
VS Hide Color
by Darrell Wilkes, Ph.D., International Brangus Breeders Association (IBBA) executive vice president It’s Been a Long Time in Coming . . . . My favorite speech 20 years ago centered on a prediction that the beef industry would stop valuing cattle based on “looks” alone and would move quickly to an objective scorecard that would include a score for genetic merit – not a guess, but a score based on data. In other words, buyers would start paying for what’s under the hide rather than appearance. I gave that speech at least 100 times and, if I didn’t convince anyone else, I darn sure convinced myself. At the time, I was consulting with feedlots that were feeding a lot of retained ownership cattle from ranchers. Packing plants were becoming more willing and more capable of returning carcass data back to cow-calf producers. We were at the early stages of selling cattle on a carcass grid basis rather than an average live price. We also started using EID tags and were able to efficiently gather individual weights on cattle as they entered the feedlot and when they were hanging in the packing plant. We suddenly had reams of individual animal performance data and carcass data. In short, we were overwhelmed with data that most of us had not seen before. The ranchers who were feeding their own cattle had a thousand questions about how to respond to their carcass and feeding results. My role as a consultant to the feedlots was to 16
FA L L 2022 F R O N T L I N E B E E F P R O D U C E R
help their cow-calf customers understand and respond to the data. Honestly, it was a lot of fun. My own learning curve was vertical. The data were overwhelming me too. I was seeing differences in post-weaning net profit from one herd to the next of over $200/hd – among cattle that looked very similar when they arrived at the feedlot. You have to put that $200 figure in perspective. This was when fed cattle were selling for 80-90 cents. So, an average 1200-lb steer was worth around $1,000. Even then, the profit difference from one herd to another was $200/hd. Some of it was health-related, but a huge chunk of it was due to -- you guessed it – GENETICS. Today, a 1350-lb steer is worth about $2,000. I’d bet a steak dinner than the post-weaning profit spread on cattle that enter the feedlot at the same weight and generally “look” similar is at least $400/hd. And, the major driver of the profit spread is the same as it was 20 years ago – it’s still GENETICS. When I witnessed those HUGE differences in actual value of cattle, I was sure that it would trigger a revolution and that the industry would move quickly to an objective way of valuing feeder cattle. After all, there are billions of dollars trading hands in the feeder cattle trade and one cannot just keep doing what you’ve always done in the face of this compelling data. Man was I wrong!