From the Fields - Joe Fischer

By Joe Fischer, Cattle rancher in Placer, Nevada and Yuba counties

We’ve had lots of precipitation all at once. It’s been an absolute windfall, but it presented a lot of grazing and management challenges here in the foothills. This colder pattern is making it so grass growth isn’t happening. There’s not enough power in the grass for the cattle to gain weight and grow. It’s been one of our more challenging years in terms of weight gain. Our calves are lighter than they’ve been in a while. We need warmer days. I’m looking forward to an opportunity to sit outside and listen to the grass grow.

After the January storms, we’re going to be cleaning up for years with the amount of downed trees and ranch roads that were impacted—just in employee hours and getting out into the field and fixing fences and all of that stuff. It’s had a huge impact. The biggest issue is uprooted and broken trees. Everywhere I look, I see work.

Labor has been one of our biggest challenges. The economic value of a quality employee has outpaced the willingness of people to partake in the romance of agriculture. Finding people that have the unique skillset and are willing to do the work at an affordable rate is a huge challenge.

On top of that, hay prices for cattle are crazy because of all the water cuts. Most ranchers know those numbers don’t work on a balance sheet. They just don’t want to give up on the equity in their cow herd. They’re waiting and hoping for better days. I recently heard of people selling calves three months early because it’s so expensive to run a cow. That’s completely unprecedented in this region.