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Farm Products Purchasing Agent

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AVG. SALARY

$67,150

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EDUCATION

Bachelor's degree

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JOB OUTLOOK

Stable

Interviews

Insider Info

Bob Robinson has been around livestock as long as he can remember. As he grew up near Rockland, a dusty speck on the map of southeastern Idaho, he would watch cowboys drive cattle across the farm his family owned.

Robinson and his father would often ride out to help them. Robinson was barely a teenager when he went on his first cattle drive.

"Back in those days, nobody had a trailer or truck," he says. "When you moved your cattle, you drove them."

And there was nothing romantic about driving cattle. "It's a dusty job," says Robinson. "When you are trailing a long way, you might go eight, nine miles a day with a big bunch of cattle. And then you [have] got to stop and let them rest overnight. But it's fun. It's something you grow up with, and like to do."

Robinson learned a lot about livestock during those days. That prepared him for his current job, which is selling and buying livestock in Jerome, Idaho, for Producers Livestock Marketing Association. That's a livestock co-op.

"You have to know cattle or you are going to get yourself in quite a bit of problems," says Robinson. "Even people who have been in the industry don't make good cattle buyers."

During Robinson's career, he has seen his industry change a lot. You need a heck of a lot more money today to become a livestock buyer now, he says. That's because livestock buyers make their living off volume. The more they sell, the more profit they make.

That means you have to have plenty of cash (or credit) to buy large volumes of livestock. You must also have a place to keep the animals you bought before shipping them off, never mind the cost of shipping several hundred animals at the same time across hundreds of miles or more.

And because volume is the key to making a buck off bulls, livestock buyers have to travel a lot. Robinson says he would often travel 400 miles a day, going from auction to auction.

Thankfully, technology is making life easier. Many auction halls across North America now hold satellite auctions. Livestock buyers can now reach across vast distances, time zones and international borders to buy and sell livestock. Cellphones have also become an indispensable tool of the trade for livestock buyers. They give them a chance to react quickly when prices change.

And yet you can make a case that the basic culture of livestock buying has not really changed. For one, you would never confuse livestock buyers with city slickers. They drive pickup trucks, not SUVs. They work in smelly auction halls, not sterile boardrooms. And job hazards include herds of large and unpredictable animals with horns.

There is also a strong sense of individualism and competition among livestock buyers. This is especially so during an auction. Mark Canart owns a livestock buying company. He says competing against other livestock buyers for the same stock of animals is just something special.

And livestock buying is one of the last businesses where a handshake and a person's word still count, he says. "We do millions of dollars of business over the phone, and sometimes we don't meet the guy," he says.

But the personal nature of livestock buying also creates barriers. Don Kracke runs a livestock marketing company with offices in Nebraska and Kansas. He says it is difficult to become a livestock buyer and seller if you do not have any connections within the industry.

"If you are new, it's pretty tough because everybody [has] already got their order buyers they like to use," he says.

It is perhaps even more difficult for women. Consider Jennifer Wood. She certainly had all the right industry connections. Her father has been a livestock buyer for decades. Wood remembers traveling with him to auctions by truck or plane when she was just four years old.

"I guess that is how I got interested in the business," she says.

But the business was not interested in her. So Wood had to prove herself first in other fields, first as a commercial pilot, later as the manager of a chain of restaurants and nightclubs. Livestock buying is a tough industry to get into, she says.

"Because of that, I had to get outside experience just to show people that I was successful elsewhere before coming into the industry."

Wood is now a success in the livestock industry as the chief executive of some stockyards, where some 200,000 animals are bought and sold each year.

Wood says others in the industry do not treat her any differently because she is a woman working in an industry men still dominate. If you want to get into this business, you must be willing to work your way up, she says. And this applies for both women and men.

"It was always my dream [to get] involved in this business, and I always believe in following your dreams," she says.

Contact

  • Email Support
  • 1-800-GO-TO-XAP (1-800-468-6927)
    From outside the U.S., please call +1 (424) 750-3900
  • North Dakota Career Resource Network
    ndcrn@nd.gov | (701) 328-9733

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