Despite battles with drought, weeds, grasshoppers and unpredictable market cycles, Wayne and Melody Semler aren’t planning on retirement.
“When you are in a business like this, I don’t think you ever retire,” Melody Semler said.
Melody Semler grew up ranching, and when she returned to help her husband full time after working for a local school district for 13 years, she was surprised at all the details of the work that she missed, like the birds singing and the cattle munching their hay.
“When you look at the big picture, there is nowhere else I would rather be,” she said.
Wayne Semler’s family homesteaded near Ignacio in 1913 and his family still raises cattle on that land and in Bayfield as part of a diversified operation.
Cattle is the largest part of their operation, and they have experienced plenty of market cycles.
“You gain some and you lose some and you hope you come out ahead,” Wayne Semler said.
The market for cattle saw some small gains this spring after falling dramatically in 2015 and staying low.
Last fall prices for cattle were around $1.20 per pound, said farm and ranch consultant Bob Bragg.
Recently, prices have risen. Some people in Colorado have contracted to buy calves in the fall for $1.80 per pound, said Terry Fankhauser, executive vice president with the Colorado Cattlemen’s Association.
In March, prices were up to more than $130 per hundred pounds on each animal, up from lows of $97.59 in October, said James Robb, director of the Livestock Marketing Information Center. But March prices may be the highest the market will see this year, he said.
Colorado farm and ranch income is likely to fall in 2017 from $444 million in 2016 to $392 million, according to an economic outlook report published by the University of Colorado Boulder.
During the cattle market’s peak in 2014, calves were selling for $1,200 to $1,500 and bred heifers were selling for $3,000. The high prices were driven in part by drought that forced many ranchers to reduce the level of their herds.
But ranchers have been building their herds back up, and 2017 herd levels will top the last two years, Robb said.
In Southwest Colorado, ranchers are done building their herds after the decline in prices, farm and ranch consultant Bob Bragg said.
Rather than selling calves in the fall, which is customary for many, some producers fed their cattle over the winter and benefited from higher spring prices, Bragg.
Lower grain prices helped some producers fatten their calves over the winter and likely allowed feedlots to offer higher prices for cattle this spring, Bragg said.
It’s possible to profit at the current rates, but producers need to look to cut costs, he said.
“The fat times are gone and now you have really got to make your operations as lean and mean as you can make them,” Bragg said.
Lower grain prices also likely made it possible to keep prices low for consumers. Nationally, beef prices have fallen steadily for two years. The average price of a pound of ground beef fell to $3.59 in March from $4.20 in March 2015.
One factor that may keep prices low is the strength of the dollar compared to other currencies.
This helps depress beef exports, Bragg said.
Ranchers do have an above-normal snowpack in their favor this year, which should benefit those who run cattle on irrigated land on the U.S. Forest Service land.
Matt Janowiak, Columbine District ranger, said about 35 permittees will run their cattle on his district this year.
“Almost all of them are planning on going on with their fully permitted numbers,” he said.
Wayne Semler, who raises cattle on irrigated land, is somewhat optimistic about the snowpack.
“We realistically should be safe, but the wind can change that snowpack so fast it’s not funny,” he said.
The Semlers run a diversified operation, with sheep, hogs, chickens, grains and hay, and although they don’t plan on retiring, someday they expect to pass their operation to their son.
Even though they have weathered a slew of challenges over the years, they are concerned the ongoing subdivision of agricultural land in the area may pose a problem for ranchers. Subdivisions become untenable for ranchers when they face constant complaints from neighbors, run into conflicts with neighbors’ pets and can’t access their water, Wayne said.
“Every time a chunk of land is subdivided, it has an effect on ag somewhere,” he said.
mshinn@durangoherald.com
