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SDSU Extension Discusses New Weaned Calf Risk Protection Insurance

SDSU Extension will discuss the new Weaned Calf Risk Protection Insurance product during its November session of Ag Economic Dialogues.

South Dakota is one of the states chosen to test the new risk protection product from the United States Department of Agriculture-Risk Management Agency. 

Weaned Calf Risk Protection Insurance was created to provide cow-calf producers with a price and production risk management option, similar to crop insurance. Coverage includes risk protection against calf death loss, price fluctuations, or price changes with a harvest option. 

Producers interested in purchasing the insurance must sign up with a crop insurance agent by Jan. 31, 2024. 

“The product was created using crop insurance as a pattern,” said Heather Gessner, SDSU Extension Livestock Business Management Field Specialist. “In this manner, the terms used and requirements in the new product will be easy for producers to understand, even if there is some clunkiness to the implementation.”

Producers are encouraged to talk to their crop insurance agent to learn more about the new product or join the online Ag Economic Dialogues session at 10 a.m. CST on Nov. 17, 2023. 

Ag Economic Dialogues is a monthly webinar series that addresses current economic issues farmers and ranchers face. To register, visit the SDSU Extension Events page and search for “Dialogues - November”.

Source : usda.gov

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Selling Hay for 40 Years: Fritz Trauttmansdorff, Dunlea Farms

Video: Selling Hay for 40 Years: Fritz Trauttmansdorff, Dunlea Farms



Fritz Trauttmansdorff came to Canada from Austria in 1980, bought a 45-cow dairy farm at Jerseyville, and within two years had more hay than he knew what to do with. He sold the quota in 1986, went debt-free, and built a hay business that has kept some of the same customers for forty years. Today Dunlea Farms runs about 2,500 acres — roughly 600 of it hay, the rest IP soybeans and grain corn — and Fritz makes the case that hay isn't the crop you grow when grain doesn't work. It's the crop that makes the grain work.

"If you grow corn, soybeans and wheat, you're on a three-wheeler. If you put hay in the rotation, you're on a four-wheeler."

WHAT WE COVER • Why the hay market moves independently of the Chicago Board — and what that does for farm-level risk
• The real cost of a mistake: five bushels in grain, versus the whole crop in hay
• Getting a second job out of the same iron — planting tractors that mow all summer, tillage tractors that bale
• How a grain farmer can get hay into the rotation without buying a single piece of hay equipment
• Drilling Timothy in the fall and double-cropping soybeans into it the next June
• What it actually takes to go all-in: roughly 500 acres, good sheds, and a baler you didn't buy used
• Local, regional and international hay markets — and choosing which one you're building for
• Why 40-year customer relationships are the asset, not the equipment