One of the main benefits of Lakeland College's Student-Managed Farm - Powered by New Holland (SMF) is that it puts students in control of a commercial farming operation. Students work together to make six-figure decisions in a real-world context - which can include finding creative ways to make the most of a challenging year.

The key, according to Tell Calvert, Round Up coordinator and member of the purebred beef SMF unit this year, is to have realistic expectations.

“We expected to have a tougher time this year because of what is going on in the industry right now,” says Calvert, a second-year animal science technology beef major. “There was a limited amount of feed out there.”

The lack of feed impacted The Round Up, an annual sale in which the purebred, commercial and equine SMF units work together to sell their cattle and horses to producers, both locally and nationally. It's the culmination of a year's worth of work preparing their animals for the sale and this year, the cards were stacked against them from the beginning.

“Because of the situation, people were saying that last year, if they had a herd of 1,000, they sold about 250 head,” Calvert says. “That means they need 12 less bulls this year, which also means that everyone has to sell 12 less bulls. That was a key idea we learned through this process - what was the market demand this year? We knew it would be down.”

Rather than seeing this as a hindrance, the SMF units took the challenge in stride, working together to find creative ways to work with what they were given and finding more success than they'd hoped for.

“Normally, we would use barley rations for our animals,” Calvert explains. “This year, we got really creative. Because of the food shortage, we were trying to maximize how to make these animals the best they could possibly be with the least amount of feed. We used all kinds of food items from peas and barley in mixed rations, to a lot of straw to make it more foraged-based feeding. We just kept changing the rations and it worked. Nobody knew how these bulls were going to turn out but they ended up looking really great. They had enough natural muscle and a lot of producers said they were some of the best and biggest bulls they've seen here at Lakeland.”

The biggest challenge, according to Calvert, was learning to compromise with his fellow students.

“It was an opportunity to work with different people from different backgrounds,” he says. “On the purebred side, you want things to look flashier and have more presence, whereas a lot of people on the commercial side don't see it that way because they show animals in bigger groups. It taught us how to work with others to compromise, as well as how to stick to your guns. We were really pleased with the results.”

At the end of the day, though the average prices received for the animals sold were down from previous years, Calvert and his team were pleased with how they did.

• Six purebred heifers sold for an average of $3,500
• 14 purebred bulls sold for an average of $3,625
• Three pens of commercial heifers sold for an average of $1,675
• Four AQHA horses sold for an average of $9,750
• Two weanlings sold for an average of $1,850

Animals were sold locally, as well as to producers in Saskatchewan, Quebec, Manitoba and B.C.

“We knew it was going to be a tougher year but we did better than we expected,” Calvert says. “I like how Lakeland gives us this really unique experience. The SMF program gives students the opportunity to not only work with real-world problems, but also how to work creatively to address those issues.”

Photo: The Roundup team pose with signage during the 2022 sale.