Completed Project Report


Profitable Meat Marketing through Pricing & Strategy Education

  • Award Amount: $35,973
  • Regional Center: Northeast Extension Risk Management Education Center
  • Grant Program: 2017 Education Projects
  • Project Director: Matthew LeRoux
  • Email: mnl28@cornell.edu
  • Organization: Cornell Cooperative Extension-Tompkins County

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Project Overview

This project addressed marketing and financial risks faced by many northeast livestock producers struggling with profitable market channels and appropriate pricing.  Producers are caught between commodity prices and inconsistent value-added market prices.  Lack of marketing and pricing strategies limit farm profitability. We taught livestock producers to use marketing strategy and the online “Cornell Meat Price & Yield Calculator” to manage the risks of commodity and value-added channels.  Through 4 articles, 13 workshops, and the online calculator, we reached thousands of producers who learned to manage livestock marketing risks, primarily marketing channel selection, price risk, meat-cut inventory management, and marketing cost accounting.  We focused on 3 complementary topics: 1) Marketing strategy and objective development; 2) Understanding channel-specific costs and; 3) using our online tool to ensure profit through channel pricing. 80% of producers that attended workshops reported they will adopt new marketing techniques and there were 1,233 uses of the Calculator tool. Using producer data entered in the Calculator tool, we measured how farmers changed their pricing and the impact on profitability.

Number of Participants: 190

Outcomes

Project Steps

PROMOTIONAL MATERIALS

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EDUCATIONAL MATERIALS

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REPORTS & EVALUATIONS

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DELIVERY AREA

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