The following is a press release as printed in the November issue of Western Livestock Journal magazine:
Cattle prices are beginning to slide; yet sheep prices look strong. The late spring rains weren’t what you hoped they would be and your lease on the pasture next door expires at the end of the month. You’ve considered keeping some feeders but are not sure how to make room for them or if it will be profitable to do so. What should you do???
Sound familiar? These kinds of questions are encountered by ranchers almost daily but are only rarely answered with any degree of confidence. However, recent advances in the world of computer technology have produced powerful new tools that can be used to answer these and many other questions faced by the livestock producer.
Computer simulation programs are being used in numerous industries to recreate environments and predict likely future events. One software program known as Ranch Vision is designed to create a computer model of ranch businesses and track them for years into the future. Ranch Vision produces a dynamic replica of grazing livestock ranches that can then be manipulated and molded to become whatever the user wants them to be. This allows a rancher to "manage" his ranch outside of reality. He can then preview likely results of his management decisions without living through the consequences of any poor choices he may make along the way.
Previous ranch management software programs were basically historical record keeping systems that gave the user better access to economic and production records. These programs helped the rancher better identify where he had been. A simulation program, on the other hand, helps the rancher see where he is going before he gets there. It is kind of like driving down a steep mountain road while looking only in the rearview mirror versus doing the same thing while watching the road ahead of you. The latter allows you to avoid the pitfalls and to capitalize on opportunities as you approach them.
Another common complaint about the older software programs was that they required a tremendous amount of very detailed data input. This made ranchers reluctant to use them and left them questioning their practicality. The newer programs, however, because they are contingent on expectations rather than past history, are inherently different. For example, with Ranch Vision, the user does not need to maintain any individual animal records. In fact, it does not require the keeping of records period.
Ranch Vision was developed with input by Dr. Rich Brazil, a veterinarian and ranch management consultant in Ukiah, California. Dr. Brazil likes to remind us of Proverbs 29:18 "Where there is no vision the people perish." According to him, most ranchers have a poor vision of where their ranch is headed; in fact, he says many are actually planning to lose money. "If everything turns out exactly as they expect, they will end up losing money after their year of hard work."
According to Brazil, "Ranching is really an extremely complex system with hundreds of variables often having complex interrelationships. An equation relating the variables would fill thousands of pages and must be rewritten every time a change occurred on the ranch. However, this is exactly what a producer must do each time he assesses his ranch and attempts to manage it. " With this in mind, it is understandable why making decisions about the future can be so difficult. In fact, many become reluctant to really scrutinize their operations and are content to simply manage "by the seat of their pants."
Some may have gotten by with that approach in the past, but with poor prices and an increasingly competitive global marketplace, one can no longer afford to be so complacent. Brazil says ranchers need to stop doing things "right" and begin doing the right things. This, he believes, is what good management is all about. Ranch Vision was specifically designed to help user’s identify those "right things", and to, therefore, make more profitable management decisions.
Considering the current state of the livestock markets, it is especially critical for ranchers to be making the right decisions. Modern technology provides those of us in the west with our most important competitive advantage over our international competitors. Utilizing this technology will mean the difference between success and failure for many ranches in the months and years to come.
Western Livestock Journal, Nov. issue
Progressive Farmer Magazine, Feb. issue
