From the Fields - Jerry Maltby

By Jerry Maltby, Colusa County cattle rancher, feedlot operator and rice farmer

Broken Box Ranch is a feedlot that also raises Charolais cattle and rice. We’re so glad to have the rain because it looks like we’re going to be able to farm rice again this year. My dad started buying this ranch in 1937, and 2022 was the first year since 1937 that there was not 1 acre of rice on it. The outlook for water is a lot better now. We think at least 50% of the rice will be planted in the district this year. If we get February, March, April rains, it could be as high as 75%.

We sell conventional and organic rice straw as well. We’re sold out. Our irrigation district usually farms about 150,000 acres of rice a year, and last year was 890 acres, so there isn’t a whole lot of rice straw around. Both beef and dairy use a lot of rice straw. We sell a lot to the dairies, but we just didn’t have enough to do the sales last year.

The feedlot has been fairly active because of the lack of rain last fall. There was not a lot of feed or drinking water left over to go back to in the hills, so we had quite a few cattle in the feedlot waiting for the rains and the feed to get started. Most all the cattle that were going to the hills have gone to the hills now.

Feed is very expensive. There’s not much money in the feeding business right now. Grains are too high, and beef prices aren’t high enough, so it’s a rough time right now in cattle feeding. Most of our corn comes from the Midwest. The price of freight has gone up so much. Diesel prices jumped back up 50 cents in the last 10 days to two weeks, so this thing is not over, and we’re certainly in a recession.