The project has three objectives supporting the overall goal of increased profitability:
1. Improve decision-making and net farm returns related to product pricing through producer education and technical assistance. The project will create a new, user-friendly Meat Pricing Calculator Tool to aid producers with developing pricing for meat cuts and carcasses;
2. Increase livestock farm sales at farmers markets through point-of-sale data collection and analysis. Schmitâs team will provide training and technical assistance on point-of-sale software (such as Square) to collect and analyze customer transaction data from farmers markets; and
3. Inform marketing to a broader set of livestock farms through development of a comprehensive online price reporting platform for meat cuts and carcasses across regions, species and time.
April 7, 2021
Todd Schmit, M.S. ’94, Ph.D. ’03, associate professor in the Charles H. Dyson School of Applied Economics and Management, and Dyson extension associate Matt LeRoux, M.P.S. ’09, will use a grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) National Institute of Food and Agriculture on research to help improve the marketing returns for small- and medium-sized livestock farms in New York state.
The goal of the three-year, $500,000 grant is to develop and deploy data, analysis and feedback tools that give farm managers the ability to make better decisions as they select local markets, price meat and market their products – all with an eye toward improving farm profitability and invigorating the state’s overall capacity for meat production.
Study will help NYS livestock farmers maximize profit miragenews.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from miragenews.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
USDA ARS
Animal scientist Jim Neel uses ultrasound on finishing steers to estimate back fat, rib eye area, and intramuscular marbling, all indicators of meat quality. Direct-to-consumer meat sales require producers to evaluate livestock’s harvest readiness and set profitable meat prices.
Direct-to-consumer meat sales boomed in 2020 during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. It is expected for them to remain higher than pre-COVID levels. With these expanded market opportunities for beef and lamb, many producers now finish meat livestock to sell directly to consumers.
When finishing livestock there are certain evaluation criteria that mark when the meat animals are ready for harvest. Once you select which livestock to harvest, the marketing to sell your beef and lamb meat begins.