Cashing in on Care
Healthy Land, Animals and ROI.
Progressive cattle producers knew their production methods were creating high-value cattle. But they were getting paid the same amount as producers not reaching those high standards.
In 1996, a group of beef producers formed U.S. Premium Beef, which is a fully integrated and consumer-driven beef processing company. Two of those producers were the owners of Downey Ranch, Barb Downey and Joe Carpenter. Like all cattle marketed through U.S. Premium Beef, the couple is financially rewarded for their superior cattle.
"In the future, I see us needing to be part of a supply chain, all the way to the retailer and consumer. Whether or not the consumer is really going to send the signal with their dollars that they want to know about sustainability practices remains to be seen. But that WINNER is at least on our radar."
“Now we get paid for our cattle being above average when it comes to quality,” Downey says. “It’s letting the market work and rewarding high-quality producers. For the past two years, we’ve averaged about $85 per head over the market with our cattle for carcass premiums. We anticipate this number to be stronger in 2025.”
Producers in the program receive carcass data on every lot sold, which helps them improve their management practices. Beyond the financial rewards for high-quality beef, Downey says their relationship with U.S. Premium Beef provides them a view of consumer trends.
Even though the beef market doesn’t currently reward for sustainable production practices, Downey and Carpenter know their Wamego, Kansas, operation is on the right path. They continually analyze how to make their operation better, whether it be through higher-quality cattle, healthier soil or greater profitability. The couple is always open to introducing new practices and technology to their cow-calf operation. But anything new must be at a safe-to-fail scale.
“Every challenge or problem, if you think about it long enough, is an opportunity in disguise,” Downey says. “Sometimes it takes a challenge or a problem to push you off center. If you use that as a chance for improvement, then it’s an opportunity.”
One of those challenges came in the form of an extremely wet fall. As the baler pushed out the last bale from the field’s first cutting, the rains began. By the time they could return to the field to move the bales, the sorghum sudangrass regrowth stood three feet high.
“We had been talking in theory about bale grazing for a fair number of years, but it was hard to make the jump,” says Carpenter, recalling that year in the early 2010s. “But as we started removing the bales, the crop underneath was just getting trampled. So, we thought, ‘This is the point where we try bale grazing.’ And we just quit removing the bales.”
After the first frost, they fenced off a portion of the field that contained about two days of standing forage — including the bales — for a certain number of cows. After two days, the fences were adjusted, and the cattle moved. No hauling, stacking and storing bales required. “It worked absolutely beautifully,” Downey says. “Now, we deliberately do it every year.”
Downey calculates that the practice saves the ranch more than $10,000 in annual labor and equipment costs. With Downey and Carpenter’s 550 cows across 6,000 acres of mostly tame grass, one person would spend a full day in a diesel truck with a bale bed moving hay to various fields. Now that same person can simply move a paddock fence. “In 30 minutes, you can line up the cows with feed for the next two days,” Downey says.
Bale grazing’s benefits also show up in the soil health data. After the first cutting of the sorghum sudangrass, the Downey Ranch team drills a cover crop mix into the pasture. This provides a living root all winter, as well as additional healthy forages. The cattle graze a field, then the pasture is allowed to rest and regrow for 40 to 45 days.
One of Downey’s pastures had been in tame, introduced grass for several decades. The soil’s organic matter measured in the 2% to 2.5% range. Now, after these shifts in production practices and cattle grazing, organic matter has hit 3.5% to 4.5%. She says the higher organic matter has supported legume growth and the soil’s water-holding capacity.
"Low-stress handling is probably the No. 1 life-changing practice we have learned. We’d always been gentle with our cattle, but this kind of took it to the next level."
“It’s just more resilient ground,” she says. The couple’s team uses low-stress cattle handling to move the animals between paddocks. This happens at least every other day, providing regular monitoring of the herd’s health, Carpenter says.
This level of care starts at birth. Calves are tagged and weighed when they are born. Before returning to their mothers, the calves are rubbed and calmed by the Downey Ranch team. As they grow, the team uses fence-line weaning, which provides social interaction between the mother and calf and reduces stress for both.
“Back when we started this, we used to have some fairly protective mothers, which is not all bad,” Carpenter says. “But we would work 15 or 20 calves on the back of a truck to preserve our own health. With these practices, we haven’t had an issue with an overly aggressive cow in 15 years.”
Downey’s and Carpenter’s most recent “safe-to-fail experiment” was solar-powered collars for their herd. Combined with virtual fencing, the collars, from the New Zealand-based company Halter, send signals that help direct cows to specific grazing areas. After testing, the couple collared every cow, increasing their grazing capacity without additional labor or physical fencing.
"Sustainability is for our operation to be here 5, 10, 20, 50 years in the future. To us, that means you have to have human resources who want to be there. You have to have financial resources that enable everybody to be there. Then you have to have a production system in place that gives you a net positive return."
For Downey and Carpenter and their two daughters, sustainability is a complete system, one that requires many levels of investment. “A lot of times, when people want to talk about sustainability, they just want to isolate practices. But you have to think about the whole system and how all those things we talked about interact.”
For more on how we and our customer-owners support a more sustainable agriculture industry, read our 2024 Sustainability Report.
