Episode 79: Livestock Outlook with Garth Ruff
Join Garth Ruff, Assistant Professor and Field Specialist Beef Cattle and Livestock Marketing at The Ohio State University, as he provides us with a livestock market outlook live from AgCredit's 3rd annual Emerge Experience.
- Transcription
Speaker 1 (00:08):Welcome to AgCredit Said It, your go-to podcast for insights on farm finance and maximizing your return on investment. Join us as we talk to industry leaders, financial experts, and area farmers, bringing you skillful advice and strategies to grow your farm's financial future AG credit setting where farm finance goes beyond the balance sheet.
Matt Adams (00:37):Hey everyone, welcome back to another exciting episode of AgCredit Said It. We are still here at the 2025 Emerge experience. I'm sitting down with a lot of the key people in the industry and a lot of specialists out there, and I have the pleasure of sitting down right now with Mr. Garth Ruff. And Garth is an assistant professor in the beef cattle and livestock marketing field specialist for the OSU extension. He's a two-time graduate of the OSU Animal Sciences. He manages an extension program in beef cattle production systems, livestock management and farm level economics. He's the co-leader of the OSU Beef and coordinates the beef quality assurance in Ohio. So Garth, thank you very much for spending some time with us and welcome to our podcast, sir. So 2025 is a year of just a lot of different dynamics. There's a lot of excitement, a lot of unknowns out there, and your specialist in the beef cattle site. One thing I've talked to a lot of our producers and we are a beef cattle producer on my home farm is it's an exciting time to be in cattle right now. It really is when we look at our market and everything. So Garth, tell me what your outlook is for 2025 when we look at the cattle market, sir.
Garth Ruff (02:06):Yeah, I think there's a lot of reasons to be optimistic in the current cattle market and it's really a numbers game, right? You think about drought 20 21, 20 22 and the herd reduction that happened primarily in the west. Our three largest heifer and cow cow slaughter numbers are really the last three years. So we're working with the smallest beef cow since 19 60, 61, which has really led to this positive numbers game for those that are feeding cattle, especially on the fed cattle side. Certainly a lot of optimism. I think the biggest question and concern is what can we buy these feeder cattle for and what's corn price going to do as a cattleman? I feel kind of positive after listening to Barry Ward yesterday about four 20 corn. I know that's not what your row crop customers want to hear,
Matt Adams (03:03):But for us sitting with cattle in the pasture year, some dollar signs start flashing right there.
Garth Ruff (03:11):Yeah, I think there's certainly some upside when we think about feed costs. So generally four things start to go south, and I always give that caveat kind of black swan, big picture things could screw this up. We talk about tariffs, Russia, Ukraine, those type of things. Some uncertainty there. But generally before we start seeing an increase in this cow herd, a couple of things got to happen, right? We got to have moisture across the biggest part of the country in terms of pasture. The other thing I think guys are being patient trying to watch what interest does before they look to expand their cow numbers. And then the big thing is if I breed that heifer a day, I'm not going to change gestation length
Garth Ruff (04:04):At about nine months there and then another 12 to 18 months depending on genetics and inputs to get that beef into the retail space. So we're looking at another two years where things should be steady depending on the price of feed.
Matt Adams (04:21):And that's definitely a good point, Garth. When we look at especially our cattle industry, it's a long-term investment. I mean, to build these herds back, it's going to take some time and will that demand stay there? I think we see more of an increased demand for our product. But with everything you guys look at at OSU, what's your opinion? We talked about that the next two years. How long do you guys feel we're going to be in this upside market for cattle
Garth Ruff (04:52):Cycle? Similar to what typically considered a commodity? Supercycle on the cattle side of things, we run an eight to 10 year cycle traditionally, and typically our markets are very seasonal now really since covid 20 22, 3 and four, that seasonality has been upset. So our typical cattle cycle, we're not sure what that's going to look like going forward as far as year to year seasonality because of the short supply and numbers. But generally, until we see that there's some heifer retention and those numbers will be indicated by heifers in feedlots, when that number starts coming down, that percent of heifers on feed, that'll be in signal that the cow herd is going to expand. We'll see two years after that number changes beef on the retail. So should be steady for the foreseeable future I guess.
Matt Adams (05:58):And it's one of those I always keep in the back of my mind when we look at the packer with inventories down demand high, are our packers going to be able to sustain this lower inventory by possibly not running at a full production cycle that when we do get there in two years where we do have bigger herds again, are our packers going to still be there and be able to take on that demand?
Garth Ruff (06:22):Yeah, we're not running at a hundred percent shackle space now, especially those plants that kill cow cows and bulls. Just what's happened in the last three to 40 years. So I think the shackle space is there. We keep hearing about some of these regional processing plants and it's a real tough to be in their position, those that are killing 2,500 head a week type of thing. Yeah, I think that the capacity is there. As long as we don't see a bunch of plants come offline, I'm not too worried about that in the long term.
Matt Adams (07:00):So Garth, let me ask you on the OSU side, we talk about beef quality assurance. What do you guys have out there and what do you have coming up in the future for our producers, namely our Ohio producers, but for all of our listeners out there, what do you guys have coming in the future to help our producers be ready for that next level and sustain for the future?
Garth Ruff (07:22):Yeah, so from a programming standpoint, in a state BQA coordinator role, we're looking to revamp our Ohio BQA program. I keep telling our educators at at program, we got to get past this idea of this is how we give a shot and really provide some information, dollars and cents things that are going to be beneficial to growers from a risk management standpoint. I think animal health is a big part of
Speaker 4 (07:48):That.
Garth Ruff (07:49):If I can keep these animals healthy and keep 'em alive, it don't take very many dead ones to upset the apple cartt in today's calf values. So focusing on that, focusing on call cows, how can we look at them as a revenue source versus true call animal if
Matt Adams (08:08):Correct. Correct.
Garth Ruff (08:09):Yep. And we've got quite a bit of research happening in the beef space really looking at beef heifer development. What does it cost to develop a beef heifer? Our dairy counterparts know that within so many dollars. Most of my beef clientele have no idea. So really looking at that, looking at how we maximize fertility genomics, I think in the beef space is an area that we've got a lot of work to do in, and we're going to start looking at that in some of the OSU herds, looking at some research in that area, genomics, and how can we use that genetic information to improve not only carcass quality, but really look at fertility. Every open cow that we have, or every time I delay the breeding of that cow 21 days, 21 days times if that equals 50 pounds, 50 pounds times $3 a pound, right? I mean, that's real
Matt Adams (09:05):Money from the crop side, the cattle sites, it's like what does that return on investment? What does this costing us? And I think one of the great things that OSU does, okay, when we talk about why we give vaccination and making a better health quality animal for our consumer out there, when we look at what the other livestock industries are putting up with right now with the poultry disease and the hog diseases rolled through, that's a big question on consumer's minds is how's this animal, how is it taken care of before it sits here on my dinner plate? The better information we can have to our producers, they can educate the consumer out there. It's just going to make us stronger industry for us. Absolutely. Well, Garth, I appreciate you sitting down with us today, sir. If our listeners like more information on your department and what you guys probably, what is the best way to get in contact with you, sir?
Garth Ruff (10:01):So there's a couple ways. We manage a website for OSU beef extension beef.osu.edu, and through that website we put out a weekly newsletter, the Ohio Beef Letter, 30 some years, probably one of the older longest running newsletters from extension. So that's available every week. My email address, rough 72, always encourage folks to reach out if they have questions. Pretty easy to get ahold of.
Matt Adams (10:32):That's awesome. And we will display that information on our website with the notes from this show. Well, Garth, I want to thank you very much today for sitting down with us, sir. It's been truly a pleasure.
Garth Ruff (10:42):Yep. Appreciate it.
Matt Adams (10:44):So thank you guys very much for tuning into another episode of AgCredit Said It and be sure to, if you want more information, look up Garth Ruff with OSU. Truly a great partner for Ohio Beef production and everything that we can do as producers, having partners like OSU and Garth's team is what really takes us next level, makes us a standout in the industry there. Again, thank you guys very much for tuning in and we'll catch you on another episode of AgCredit Said It. Be sure to like, subscribe, share, tell all your friends, look up AgCredit Said It. Hope you got something from this and we'll talk to you again soon.
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