Scott Clawson Announces Unit Cost of Production (UCOP) Workshops on Deck for 2025

Scott Clawson, M.S., Oklahoma State University Cooperative Extension Service NE Area Agricultural Economics Specialist writes about Unit Cost of Production Workshops on deck for 2025 as part of the weekly series known as the “Cow Calf Corner,” published electronically by Dr. Derrell Peel, Mark Johnson, and Beck.

Maybe the best gift Santa could deliver in 2024 is cash cattle prices surging into the new year.  For me, 2024 has been a great ag economics teacher giving real-world lessons in revenues, input costs, cash flow, and planning for those big-ticket asset buys.  Great cattle prices bring big sale barn checks (revenues).  The price of hay and feed has also moderated (input costs).  Collectively, this has welcomed in better liquidity, working capital, and cash flow for cattle producers in Oklahoma. 

So, what’s the catch?  The catch is that the cost of doing business has also increased.  Putting on my analyst hat, could we have a capital asset storm brewing (again)? For this discussion, we will simplify capital assets into cows and machinery/equipment.  Recent bred female sales have yielded the high prices that we have all been anticipating and machinery and equipment prices have also increased rapidly.   Investments in these areas will impact the bottom line for years to come.  Building the framework to calculate cost of production and knowing how it works will help producers through that decision making process.  Additionally, it can help outline where our operation is creating value, what segments of the ranch are leaking value, and what it costs economically.

Limited to 15 participants each, our UCOP workshop will work through the process to calculate the UCOP of a sample ranch.  While walking through the process as a group we will talk about the issues facing cow-calf producers today and evaluate the options we have.  This is a discussion-based activity with no PowerPoint presentations.    At the end of the day, we will have calculated the cost per pound of weaned calf on our sample ranch and have acquired information to aid in decision making.  Please RSVP if you would like to attend.