This Plan B earns straight A’s
With fast thinking and hard work, a New Brunswick dairy couple built a new business post-BSE.
When Canada’s BSE crisis began in May 2003, Ron and Lynn Beckwith knew they had to think of something fast. Cattle sales to the United States, an essential part of the family dairy business, were suspended for an indefinite period.
“We don’t like to dwell on the negatives,” says Ron Beckwith, who farms with wife Lynn near Second North River, N.B. “If something doesn’t work out, we’ll just move on to something else.”
To compensate for the loss of U.S. cattle markets, the Beckwiths decided to make two changes to their operation. First, milk more cows. They purchased 20 kg of additional quota, allowing them to expand the milking herd to 80 cows.
Second, sell more hay. The couple had run a small hay business for several years and knew they could do more of it. For that, they needed additional land.
“I made an agreement with a large vegetable farm,” says Beckwith. “They had a six-year rotation going, with two years in hay, which they weren’t that interested in. I approached them about making hay.”
CUSTOMERS CONVERT TO HAY
For years, the Beckwiths had been selling cattle to
customers in Maine and Pennsylvania. With those
sales now impossible, many started buying hay
instead. The couple also spent considerable time
building new hay sales in Quebec. For 2005, the
Beckwiths expect to ship 3,000 tonnes of timothy hay,
with sales approaching $150,000.
“It’s a long haul for hay,” Ron says, referring to the
vegetable farm near Bouctouche, N.B., an hour’s
drive from the home farm. “We try to sell as much
as we can off the field, and we’ve rented barns around
the area for storage. And there are all kinds of flatbed
trucks available for transportation.”
In 2004, adding another piece to the revenuereplacement
puzzle, the Beckwiths became regional
distributors for a U.S.-based line of silage inoculants
and hay preservatives. This business started modestly
that year, but multiplied by a factor of four in 2005.
Ron Beckwith believes his growing sales of inoculants
and preservatives have been fuelled in part by his
own hay business. “People see how good our hay is,”
he says, “and they want to know how we do it.”
THE OPEN BORDER RETURNS
The Beckwiths look forward to possibly resuming
cattle sales to the U.S., but for the moment, they are
far too busy with hay.
“The hay business still doesn’t compare to what the
cattle business was,” says Ron. “At the same time,
the hay business works really well with the dairy
business, and the silage products are a lot less
investment than cattle and have better margins.
“But for now, this isn’t rocket science; we’ll just keep
on working at it.”
|
