Hello Loyalists;
Five inches of rain in the past week has greatly improved my mood and the probability that lamb will return this year. Our operation (and your lamb supply) depends on rainfall and natural grass, which for the past two months did not look good.
In the upside-down world of lamb farming, dark clouds are a good sign—let’s hope they continue to float our direction.
The next lamb delivery will be in April or May this year. This time lag is inconvenient for those needing lamb, and nearly ruinous for us trying to keep our enterprise afloat. Each year we experience a period of cash flow drought that wipes out any gains we had built-up and brings back a disheartening uncertainty common to farm production.
Without being too dreary, I’ll explain some of the considerations we deal with. We have lengthened our lambing time in order to provide lamb over a longer duration, but this method has challenges and added costs when trying to provide a grass-fed product during seasons when no grass is growing. Fortunately, most of you accept alfalfa hay as being a form of preserved grass, which, mixed with other protein sources such as edible dry beans, makes tasty lamb during the dry summer and early fall. Hay prices have nearly doubled in the past 18 months, driven by the dairy industry which also is monopolizing the alternative protein supply. So, the production side is having its share of new challenges.
The same is happening in the revenue side. We kept our delivered price the same last year while the live lamb market went crazy. Throughout 2011, more revenue could be made by selling live lambs than by processing and delivering them, even without considering the costs of either processing or delivery! Talk about disheartening—but loyalty has its value too, so we shepherded on. However, some changes to our unique model of fresh lamb delivery are necessary if we are to continue this service, and because we have a partnership with you loyalists, we’re asking for ideas.
The CSA model, using monthly “subscription” payments, is designed to even income flow across most of the year, as well as providing a sense of demand and working capital. This works for vegetable farming, but I’m not sure it will work for this lamb delivery model. So, I’m at a loss of what options are available or how this model can be improved. We all have a good thing going here, so there should be a way to keep it viable.
Thanks for your support and thoughtfulness,
Mel and Mary Thompson
