| | Animal Science 474 - Cows, Kids, Profs and Specialists.
(Excerpted from" Alberta Crops and Beef Magazine", November 2003)
In the fall, there's no better place to be than on campus at the University of Alberta. It's been a while since I was there as a student, but along with some of my colleagues at Alberta Agriculture, I went back to school. The only difference was that this time we were at the other end of the classroom.
The occasion was a Faculty of Agriculture course called Animal Science 474 - Applied Beef Cattle Science. Since the fall of 2000, a team of Alberta Agriculture specialists have collaborated with University of Alberta professors to create a unique learning experience for third and fourth year Aggies.
Under the guidance of Dr. Erasmus Okine (Faculty of Agriculture, Forestry and Nutritional Sciences) the students learn the ins and outs of the cow/calf industry from a series of guest lecturers, plus small teams of students are paired up with individual beef producers. These cooperators tend to have a strong commitment to continuous improvement, and they value the enthusiasm and the connection to the University that the students provide.
One of the key course assignments is a comprehensive financial and economic analysis of the cooperators' cow calf enterprises. The teams (usually two students working together) meet with their cooperators, visit their operations and collect information. Production records, inventories and financial statements are gathered, sorted and otherwise massaged into the proper formats. Back at the university computer lab, the students use a combination of Alberta Agriculture's CowProfit$ software and AgriProfit$ cost and returns research data to do a detailed analysis. These apprentice consultants soon find that tasks that seem simple in the classroom can quickly become incredibly complicated, and that no two farming operations are alike.
After a couple of long lab sessions, some late nights and a few frantic phone calls, the students narrow in on the cooperators' critical numbers. High on the list is the total cost per pound of calf produced. This indicator is the culmination of the entire analysis, since it's directly comparable to the calf price actually received by the cooperator. A positive margin suggests that the cow calf enterprise was profitable; a negative one points toward a loss. The analysis is also directly comparable to an array of AgriProfit$ benchmarks, enabling an examination of the business' strengths and weaknesses. Students and cooperators meet once again (sometimes by phone) to validate the results and discuss the final report.
In my opinion, this award-winning collaboration has been a tremendous success. It's brought students, producers, specialists and University staff together in a way that has seldom been achieved before. For the students, it's helped create a better understanding of cow/calf operations and an appreciation for the people who manage them. For cooperators, there's the opportunity to take a closer look at their businesses and at the same time meet some of the bright young men and women who are the future of the industry.
For University staff and Alberta Agriculture specialists, it's a chance to tell our story. In the beef cattle business, becoming a low-cost producer is a key management strategy: a strategy that will become even more critical as the industry works through our current difficulties.
Ted Darling
Agricultural Risk Specialist
Phone: 403-948-8524 Fax: 403-948-2069
Ted.Darling@gov.ab.ca |
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