What Happens to Cattle Prices After Three Dry Years?

Rob O'Connor started wearing the cowboy hat because he overslept. Forty five minutes before an end of show media scrum, no time to shave, so the hat covered it. Twenty years later it is how ten thousand people find him on a show ground.That is the opening. The substance is cattle. O'Connor is a third generation purebred Hereford breeder running a hundred cows alongside managing Ag in Motion, and this conversation, recorded after three dry years across Western Canada, is him working through what a shrinking breeding herd does to price. He also has a view on plant based protein that is not the one you would expect from a cattle producer.What's Inside- The herd reduction arithmetic behind his expectation for where cattle prices were heading- What feed efficiency has done in a generation, from ten pounds of feed per pound of gain down toward three and a half- His argument that plant based protein is good for agriculture either way, and where he thinks the product ends up in the store- What Maple Leaf Foods did the day after a food safety crisis, and why he points to their market share afterward- How Saskatchewan shifted from roughly three quarters grain to eighty five percent, and why it has not moved back- The week he ran out of water on pasture for the first time in fifteen years, the Friday before this was recordedConnect with Growing the FutureWebsite: growingthefuture.caYouTube: Growing the FutureInstagram: @growingthefuturepodcastLinkedIn: Growing the FutureSubscribe to the Growing the Future Podcast wherever you listen, and register for Convergence Conference 2027 at convergence.ag. Register for the Convergence Conference at convergence.ag and stay updated by subscribing to the Growing the Future Podcast at growingthefuturepodcast.ca.