Marketing

Are you interested in learning more about production, processing and selling your pasture-finished product to diverse market channels? Would you like new ways to manage risk in your meat business and improve your profitability? If the answers are yes, then you’ll want to check out the Western Meat School. The Western Meat School is organized […]

As I was talking to Blake about this piece, he told me about something Gordon Hazzard had once written. He said it went something like: “We are grass farmers, and we need to remember we are selling grass and water wrapped up in a cow hide.” Blake’s take on this is “Grass makes us our […]

I pulled this information together with Charlotte based on her website and conversations we had. I added additional notes to help you start building an email list, and find additional avenues for selling your products. We are in trying times, right now aren’t we? The Corona virus is affecting all of us, all over the […]

I was reading an editorial the other day in a major beef magazine that got my attention. The author was telling livestock producers that they should feel pretty darn good about making $50 a head on their weaned calves. Really? How in the world do you make a farm payment, buy groceries, pay for insurance, […]

About three years ago, I decided I would try my hand at raising some purchased stocker calves. I had kept brood cows on several different farms around my part of central North Carolina for over 10 years, and I was ready to try something new. I had run the numbers on stockers several times over […]

Cull cows – every operation has them. They’re the cows that are not pregnant at weaning time. The typical strategy for many spring-calving cow-calf operations is to cull and sell these cows immediately in the fall. The problem is that they’re generally in poor condition and are head to market at a time of year […]

What starts out as a bar conversation becomes a lesson in what to do if you want to make more money farming or ranching.

Fifteen years ago, it was unheard of for a small farm to sell beef to a supermarket. But today, thanks to Diana Endicott and several projects supported by Sustainable Agriculture Research and Educatioan grants (SARE), over 100 farmers in the Kansas City area supply 30 supermarkets, with meats, fruits, vegetables and specialty goods. Diana and […]

We all prefer trusting and being trustworthy, but sometimes things just don’t work out without a contract of some sort to clarify expectations. Here are some examples of problems that could have been prevented by having more than a handshake.

On Pasture author Jenn Colby was one of the people who participated in Charlotte Smith’s free webinar last May and then went on to take Charlotte’s 5-week farm marketing course with me and about 50 other members of the On Pasture Community. We asked her to share what she learned from “Farm Marketing From the […]

You’re Not Selling What You Think You’re Selling… Most farmers think they sell grass-fed beef, or raw milk, organic chicken or fresh flowers. But when it comes to marketing, that language won’t help you stand out. It looks just like your competitor! What you’re selling is a solution to your customer’s problems. You’re selling ‘that […]

Here’s the mindset shift Joel Salatin taught me about pricing your products as “craft food” instead of as a commodity, and how you can implement it yourself.

I recently read on article here in On Pasture where Kathy wrote that she’s tired of people talking about how little money they make, and that some youngsters think agriculture should be a public service. For years I thought the biggest problem facing animal agriculture is the brain drain. Think about it, generations before us […]

Greg Judy turned On Pasture onto Charlotte Smith, saying hers was the best marketing advice he’d heard. Last week we shared her first article covering six steps for getting started making money from your farm. This week she takes a deeper look at one of those steps: Attract your dream customer. I work with thousands […]

If you put the cost of electricity in terms of the number of chickens or pounds of beef you have to sell to pay for it you’ll have a better handle on making a profit.