The joys of the beef industry

Being a cattle rancher is not always idyllic.

“I like having my life threatened by a mean mama cow,” said Adam Smith, joking about what he likes most about raising cattle.

Smith and his wife run a cow-calf operation with 100 head of cattle just south of Mt. Pleasant. Smith is president of Henry County Cattlemen, an organization he’s been a member of for the past 14 years.

All joking aside, Smith said the part of the job he likes most is getting to watch his baby calves grow. He said he tried working in the swine industry in college, and it just wasn’t the same.

He’s stuck to beef, an industry he’s been involved with in some way his whole life. His mom and dad ran a small farm, and his dad had about 40 head of cattle he tended to.

Smith attended Muscatine Community College where he studied farm management. Through his studies, he was able to intern at a cattle ranch in Montana where he helped with branding, artificial insemination and embryo transfer.

“I got to be around a lot of high-dollar bulls, a couple that were over $100,000,” Smith said. “That was back in 2005, and bulls can bring a lot more than that today.”

Smith said bulls can demand so much money because they have the genes ranchers are after, genes that produce good marbling and high-quality rib-eye.

Smith enjoys having his own farm, where about half his revenue comes from cattle and the other half comes from row crops. He feeds his cattle corn he grows on site, to go along with hay, beans and cover crops. He said cover crops are great because they improve the soil, the cattle can feed on them, and he doesn’t have to haul manure to those fields.

Smith said he’s proud of the work the Henry County Cattlemen have done to support youth in the area, such as through $1,000 scholarships to students in the county. The group has donated thousands of dollars to local FFA programs and to cattle shows in the county and the state.

Assessing the beef industry as a whole, Smith said one issue that has come up is that producers are getting older. At the same time, it’s hard for young people to get started in the industry because the upfront costs are so high.