Outside the Box
The resilience of ranchers.
March 24, 2025
Rocky Balboa’s appeal generated six films, with Sylvester Stallone playing the role of the relentless Philadelphia boxer. What makes the Rocky story so appealing? We are drawn into his struggle. In doing so, we are reconnected to the timeless values embodied in the underdog — specifically the nearly superhuman resilience that drives Balboa forward.
Rocky is symbolic of the words of inventor Thomas Edison, who wrote, “When you have exhausted all possibilities, remember this: You haven’t.”
“When you have exhausted all possibilities, remember this: You haven’t.” — Thomas Edison
What is resilience?
Resilience is the ability to withstand or recover from hardship, to demonstrate lasting toughness in times of difficulty and the capacity to spring back into functional shape after being affected by stressful forces. Resilience is the secret sauce that motivates gritty and determined people to withstand being knocked down and to rise again and again.
It is important to note that resilience is not demonstrated in times of ease or convenience. Rather, it is revealed when pressure and stress are present. Thus, resilience is not a fixed state of being, but rather an attribute that can be trained and developed in the presence of stress.
Of all the characteristics that define successful ranching, none is more important than resilience, which is defined as the ability to withstand substantial pressure and to remain productive and functional. Resilience must specifically be present in three realms of the ranch enterprise: people, grasslands and cows.
Resilient people
Certainly, ranching is an undertaking rife with pressure and stress originating from multiple sources ranging from weather to markets to governmental policy.
Those who successfully invest their professional efforts into ranching model the words of Albert Camus who wrote, “In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer.”
Resilient people are equipped to see the promise of summer even when winter storms are raging.
Resilient people are equipped to see the promise of summer even when winter storms are raging.
Resilient grasslands
The same can be said for the plant communities that comprise pastures and range. Stress is a necessary and unavoidable component of natural systems. Nonetheless, some plants demonstrate greater elasticity in the face of pressure than others due to the depth and health of their root systems. It is all the workings of the biosphere beneath the surface that set the stage for productivity in “the invincible summer.”
Resilient herds
The cow herd is the third realm where resilience is essential. Profitable cows must be able to remain healthy and productive under a variety of stressors. However, developing a resilient cow herd is made challenging by the reality that each individual production environment or ranch has its own unique set of pressures.
The resiliency code for a specific ranch is discovered by recognizing that excessive performance in traits that increase nutritional requirements (specifically mature size and milk production) should be avoided. So should behavioral traits or structural deficiencies that limit foraging capacity while other factors that negatively affect reproductive rates must be accounted for in designing selection, breeding and management programs.
Profitability depends on a cow herd that can produce consistent and relatively high reproductive rates, weaning rates and levels of cow longevity. Replacement heifer selection would ideally be based on a metric that sorts economic differences in resilience.
That’s a tall order, and presently no such individual measure is available.
The adage of “make the cow fit the production environment” is wise counsel, as is the notion that good performance is not the result of rising to the moment, but rising to the level of training (the amount and duration of stress placed on the system).
Resilience in a system is built under pressure. Thus, we cannot expect to increase resilience in people, plants or cattle in the absence of stress. However, we must also recognize that not all people, plants or animals will respond the same way to stress.
Success comes from matching the right people, plants and animals to the inherent pressures of the system. Making that match requires the observation skills of explorers, the thoughtful application of tools developed by the innovators and the curiosity of the lifelong learner.
Editor’s note: In “Outside the Box,” a regular column in both the Angus Journal® and the Angus Beef Bulletin, author Tom Field shares his experience as a cattleman and his insightful perspective on the business aspects of ranching. Field is director of the Engler Agribusiness Entrepreneurship Program at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln, where he holds the Paul Engler Chair of Agribusiness Entrepreneurship.
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Current Angus Beef Bulletin
The April issue has a “Focus On Females,” including a special advertising section devoted to herds intent on providing the female foundation.
