Managing for Profit

Nebraska farmer’s story has East Coast beginning

She knows cattle and how to make them gain and be profitable.  Anne Burkholder, until recently, was in the feedlot business, a self-described feed yard boss lady.  Her story begins with her upbringing in urban Palm Beach County, Florida.

“I actually left urban to find rural,” says Burkholder.  “I went to Dartmouth College up in New Hampshire, which is certainly much more rural than where I came from.”

There she met and married a Nebraska “farm kid” and the two eventually decided to go back to the farm.  That 1997 life change was the first time Burkholder, a psychologist by training, had ever been around cattle.

“I think that prey animal psychology is fascinating,” she told Brownfield Ag News the week before the last load of cattle would be hauled from the aging feedlot.  In the twenty years that she managed the facility, Burkholder, a meticulous collector of data, developed a knack for eking a profit out of cattle.

“They can’t think like you; they’re not smart enough to think like you, but you should be smart enough to think like them,” says Burkholder.  “It’s all about understanding the way their brain works.”

Having stepped away from feedlot management, Burkholder is now working for the Beef Marketing Group in animal welfare and communications.  She continues to document life as a food producer in her blog, Feedyard Foodie.

“I think it’s time for people in agriculture to smile, and tell their good story, and be proud of what we do,” she says, “and to truly believe that there’s honor in what we do.”

AUDIO: Anne Burkholder (3 min MP3)