When farmers work together to bring similar cattle to the stockyards, buyers are willing to pay more. On Dec. 5 at the Joplin Regional Stockyards in southwest Missouri, MFA's Health Track Beef Alliance sold almost 5,000 cattle. Both producers and buyers profited.

The term "value added" has become a catchword that can mean about anything the user wants it to mean. By usual definition, the term means doing something to a product that will make it worth more to the buyer. Ideally, it should also make it worth more to the seller.

That's the philosophy behind MFA's Health Track Beef Alliance program. Mike John, MFA beef marketing manager, puts it this way: "The MFA Health Track Beef Alliance is a perfect example of what can happen when producers of all sizes work together to add value to weaned calves and thus to their own operations," John said. "By weaning calves at home for a minimum of 45 days and giving two rounds of vaccinations, real value is added."

Those calves are worth more to the buyer, certainly.

"You can figure another $5 to $7 per hundredweight when compared with fresh-weaned calves that have not been immunized," said Jerald Lyle, order buyer with John Clay and Company. "It costs a feeder that much to get weaned calves straightened out and started on feed."

Lyle was a prominent buyer when 4,934 Health Track cattle sold at Joplin Regional Stockyards on Dec. 5. And he stayed for the following day's sale at Joplin. "All together, I bought 1,925 head at Joplin," he said. "Everything I bid on had been weaned and had received two series of shots. But the assurance I had in the MFA cattle made them more attractive. Those alliance cattle sold for $3 to $5 per hundredweight more than other cattle of similar weight and quality.

"The EID [electronic identification] tags in the Health Track cattle made a difference, too," added Lyle. "Identification to farm of origin is coming. It's a benefit to the entire beef industry to be able to track cattle all through the system."

Immunizing cattle against respiratory and clostridial diseases makes them worth more to buyers. So does taking the "bawl" out of calves by weaning them and feeding them for at least 45 days ahead of the sale date.

And there are other ways to add value--for example, sorting cattle into uniform lots. Contract buyers such as Lyle are paid a per-head fee for the cattle they purchase. When Jerald Lyle sits in the auction ring, he invests the same amount of time and energy to buy a draft of 30 head as he does to bid on three head.

Happily, added value accrues to sellers as well as buyers. Producers who manage cattle according to MFA Health Track Beef Alliance standards spend a little more on health treatments and feed when compared with selling unvaccinated calves right off the cow, but they earn a bigger net income on those cattle.

"I made a net $30 per calf, just on the post-weaning gain," said Ivan Kanak, calf producer in northwest Missouri. "I fed the calves for 52 days after weaning, and they gained weight at a cost of just over 35 cents per pound. Even with the price differential, the extra pounds I had to sell put an extra $30 per head in my pocket."

His calves would have earned more, even without any added-value premium on sale day, Kanak maintained.

"What really matters is how much money you have left in your pocket when it's all over with," said O. D. Cope, southwest Missouri cattleman. "It's what you can take to the bank after you pay all the bills."

Cope sold 810-pound steers at the MFA Health Track Alliance auction at Joplin, and the cattle returned a gross income of $700 per head.

To a calf producer, the real measure of added value is not so much price per pound as profit per head.

"That's what we stress to producers in the Health Track alliance," said Mike John. "We point out that they can make more money--regardless of premiums--by weaning and feeding calves for at least 45 days."

Many cattle producers are listening. By early December, more than 30,000 cattle had been enrolled in MFA's Health Track Beef Alliance.

"With large numbers of Health Track cattle available at one time and one sale, buyers who are looking for volumes of weaned, vaccinated cattle will be on hand to bid what they're worth," John added. "When you couple that with the value of information management, the Health Track alliance is a program that any producer can benefit from--regardless of size or number of cows."

That's added value in the most useful sense of the term.

» Sale details