Farmer Focus: Glad I started weaning the business off nitrogen
Daniel Mushrush © Kandace Griffin The year 2021 continues to be one of complete contradictions.
Inflation on commodities has arrived with a vengeance. Virtually everything is now at a five-year high, although inputs, at the moment, are outpacing the beef price.
I am ever so thankful for our decision to move to a more regenerative farming system which is less reliant on inputs. My plan was to wean the business off nitrogen over the next few years, but it appears that the fivefold increase in price is going to make it an abrupt change.
See also: How to calculate nitrogen use efficiency on-farm
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On the Covid-19 front, it is honestly as bad now in terms of cases as it has been in the past two years here… and no one seems to care.
Some people are still scared about it, and some have grabbed some power out of lockdowns, but most people have learnt to keep their mouths shut.
The other morning, while my kids were being quarantined and having to do multiple Covid tests to play middle-school basketball, I got on a plane to fly to Mexico.
I am going to attend several cattle events with the Kansas Department of Agriculture to promote livestock genetic exports. It’s been a good opportunity for me in the past and I look forward to it, but the fact that the government is paying for me to leave the country while it locks other people down is really something.
Apart from the contradiction, I am truthfully really looking forward to my short time on ranchos (ranches) in Mexico. Maybe I will sell genetics and maybe I won’t, but I hope to gain perspective.
In some ways American producers have “suffered” from stability in recent years. Our currency was stable, our inflation and interest rates were predictable, and markets functioned, whether we liked the prices or not.
As Covid (and politicians) changed that equation, we were caught flat-footed.
Producers in emerging economies are used to these sorts of disruptions, and I wonder if they won’t be better equipped for the 21st century than the soft, coddled economies of North America and Europe.