This is not how I wanted the first blog to go… It turns quicker that what I expected.
Enjoy!
Let me introduce myself first. My name is Rob Shooks, I do some of the social media for the Centennial Farm that we are 4th generation on. Shooks Farms & Cellar 1914 in Central Lake, MI. The winery my brother Greg and I started about 10 years ago because we were not in enough agony yet. We currently have 300-ish acres in cherries and just over 10 acres wine grapes on 1100 acres that our great grandfather started over 100 years ago. What do we do with the other acres? Well, we rent the land to other farmers and let them beat their heads against the wall questions their life decisions (which we will save for another blog). Along with the side gig of social media, I also make all of our wine and hard cider, manage the tasting room, scrub toilets, mow the lawn, fix whatever is broken; which is a daily thing, did an oil change on my truck this morning, write checks, help maintain the vineyard, operate any and all tractors on the farm and basically do whatever the hell is necessary to keep this thing in operation.
Greg? Yeah, he does all of that on the farm side of things along with serving in the tasting room, help bottling wine and the latest one, trying to get water back to our winery. Nothing like having a tasting room packed full and I mean full of people and boom. Zero f’ing water… Hang tight folks… We have lots of acres and five gallon buckets. Where’s Rob? Oh, he’s off on vacation… Tell you the truth, we work well together. We have our poop in a group most of the time… But shit has flown before. Literally.
Before we dive into great depth of what it is like farming in 2026, we must go back many years to when our Great Grandfather purchased the first 60 acres for $1200 dollars. Yeah, you read that right… $1200. Back in 1915. $20/acre… $20 is equivalent to $650 today. Try and get 60 acres for $40,000 today… Hell there is 10 acres near us listed for $120k right now. $12,000/acre… Anyone interested in a farm for $13,200,000? Sold… And that’s happening on the daily with many farms as well (saving for another blog). As the story goes, Vet, or Great Grandfather used to ride past this initial 60 acres on horse and buggy on their way to church and saw a wild cherry tree growing on it. Told his parents he will eventually own that land and start a cherry farm. Well… We’re still her Grandpa Vet.
Grandpa Vet grew anything and everything he could on the farm. Peaches, apples, pigs, cherries, asparagus, corn, soybeans, cattle, just to name a few and I’m damn near 99.9% there has been weed grown on this farm as well. Our parents just learned something new there… maybe. Not by me of course. But anyway, it’s all been done and tried before. We had the farm market before it was cool to have a farm market. Sometimes you wonder why we didn’t expand that direction. Plain and simple… Grandpa Shooks had multiple people not pay for their 1/4 or 1/2 cow or even full cow and boom instant loss.
I read about the cattle industry the other day and understand everyone’s frustration buying meat at the grocery store. Let’s quick break it down. Let’s say it costs and I’m not joking $1800-2100/head on a 500-600# animal. You need to feed that animal to get to finish weight to where you want it butchered. Well, the amount you feed varies. Corn, silage, hay for example, a cow would need roughly 8#’s of dry feed per pound of weight gain. Let’s finish that steer off at 1600. You need about 1000#’s of feed-ish. 1000lbs gain x 8lbs feed per lb of gain = 8000#’s of dry feed. That Joey Chestnut is inhaling around $500+ to eat that much to gain that weight. Oh, and in Northern Michigan, cows eat just to stay warm in the winter, very little weight is put on during this time unless you supplement with more nutrients… More nutrients = More $. So, I’m feeling short at $500…
So we bought that steer for $2000, invested $500+ just into the feed. We’re at $2500 already. Cheap right? Wrong. How did you feed that steer? By hand? A 100hp tractor is going to run you $100k+. How about that building its in or is it sleeping inside with you? Yeah, I’m sure the wife approved of that… Water? Electric to keep that water from freezing. Vet bills? Butchering cost? $125-ish to kill it, then there are processing fees around $.75/lb/hanging weight (Ebels in Falmouth), that means the weight of the carcass basically. Let say it was 1000#’s hanging for easy math (are you still keeping up with me?) so that 1600# animal now is = another $750. For fucks sake… I’m at $3375 for that steer already and I haven’t even sold you a burger yet. Out of that 1600# moo cow I end up with 600-ish pounds of meat. And about half of that is ground beef which I remember selling less than 10 years ago for $4.00 pound and people were losing their shit. I’m not even factoring my time to feed/clean the barn, the cost of the truck/trailer to run it to the butcher… I know I’m missing more… But we’re back to losing money.
We’ve been out of the cattle industry to about 10 years and this seriously made my head hurt. To put in $2000 on an animal, and then it just up and dies before you can have it slaughtered is like me gambling in Biloxi last week. It just didn’t work…
Well folks, this took a turn a lot quicker than what I expected it to. But when I was chatting with someone on the flight back, they couldn’t believe what the price of meat was today. I had to straighten them out a little bit and help them understand that the farmer is not getting rich here… Or even breaking even a lot of the time. My suggestion? If you even care? Find a local farmer who sells meat and buy it directly from them. They’re doing their best to keep their prices low, but they also have to feed their families, just like you’re doing by buying from them.
Thanks for reading and peace out!
Rob