Ranchers to get a lesson on profits
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No comments [ Add Comment ]By Jeff DeMoss
Standard-Examiner staff
jdemoss@standard.net
T
That is the unconventional message of an internationally known expert who will be offering free workshops to livestock producers throughout the state next week.
The problem, according to Dave Pratt, chief executive of Fairfield, Calif.-based Ranch Management Consultants Inc., is that many ranchers are spending too much time and effort on unprofitable activities.
"Most ranch businesses are structured to lose money," Pratt said.
Rather than work harder, the best way for many ranchers to increase their profit is to identify things that aren't working in their operations, and to stop doing them, he said.
Pratt will be in Tremonton on Monday to address this and other topics in a free, three-hour workshop. He will travel to Manti, Green River and Roosevelt later in the week.
Ranch Management Consultants runs the Ranching for Profit School, a seven-day course that takes on business management, environmental issues and other topics aimed at increasing the profitability and sustainability of ranching operations.
Pratt, who is offering the workshops in Colorado this week, will address issues from a strategic standpoint, such as the company's trademark "three secrets of increasing profits," said Kathy Pratt, wife of Dave Pratt and a partner in the business.
"He won't be talking about what species of alfalfa to plant," she said. "It's a way to crunch numbers to see where you're making profits, and where you're not."
The workshop will present information in a way ranchers haven't heard before, said Larry Lewis, spokesman for the Utah Department of Agriculture and Food.
"People have always thought the harder you work, the more money you make," Lewis said. "This information is kind of the opposite of what people have been ingrained to do."
The department, in conjunction with the nonprofit Utah Grazingland Network, is sponsoring the workshop through its Grazing Improvement Program, created earlier this year by the state Legislature to help ranchers remove invasive plants, improve their water quality and efficiency, and make other rangeland improvements.
Helping ranchers become more profitable will enhance Utah's rural economies as well as improve the quality of life for everyone in the state, Lewis said.
"It keeps families on the farm, helps the environment, and protects open spaces," he said. "We're trying to protect the food supply by keeping farms and ranches intact."
Ranching for Profit workshop: 10 a.m.-1 p.m., Monday, Dec. 11
Box Elder County Fairgrounds (Posse Room)
320 N. 1000 West, Tremonton; RSVP: (801)538-7103
