Annual cattle sale gives small farmers a bigger audience

Before the yearly co-mingle cattle sale in Pittsylvania County, farmers with small- to medium-sized operations like Darrell Dalton had to sell their cattle at out-of-town livestock markets, which limited potential profit and facetime with buyers.

Now, Dalton can drive just 5 miles from his farm in Gretna to the Olde Dominion Agricultural Complex, an event center that has been hosting the auction for the last six years.

Co-mingling refers to a type of cattle sale where multiple producers with the same kind of cattle group and sell their calves together, rather than individually. This allows the producers to capture more of the market and boost their premiums.

Cattle are usually sold by tractor-trailer load, said farmer Jay Calhoun. But only farmers with very large operations can produce enough on their own to make a full load, about 50,000 pounds, he said.

The average-sized cattle farmer in Virginia has 30 to 40 cows, Calhoun said. “He’ll never have an opportunity to put together a tractor-trailer load himself.”

But with a co-mingle sale, this becomes more feasible for many producers.

“This way, when they sell them, they get top dollar compared to if they had to sell them to a local livestock market,” Calhoun said.

The yearly co-mingle sale at ODAC, one of the biggest of its kind in the eastern United States, is overseen by the Virginia Cooperative Extension and the Central Virginia Cattlemen Association.

This year’s event was held over the course of three days this week.

Though it’s called a cattle sale, buyers have already been determined at the time of the event. Producers communicate with buyers in advance, and all sales were final by Aug. 1 this year. Instead, the event counts and sorts cattle that have already been sold — and gives buyers and sellers a chance to meet in person.

CVCA is an organization composed of cattle producers with the goal to promote and improve livestock production and education. It is based in Orange and primarily covers the central Virginia region, though other localities, like those in Southside, market their beef cattle through the association.

The cattlemen’s association mandates that producers meet certain vaccine, weaning, genetic and worming requirements, mitigating any health risks that may be presented at co-mingle sales as a result of mixing together cattle from different operations.

This increases the quality of the product for the buyers, who are both local and out-of-state.

Most of the buyers at this week’s auction were from Pennsylvania, Calhoun said, though others came from Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan and Minnesota.

Selling to out-of-state buyers means higher transportation costs, which can reduce producer profits. Increasing profits for small- and average-sized producers, like Dalton, is one of the primary goals of co-mingle sales.

Dalton, who’s also the chair of the Pittsylvania County Board of Supervisors, has a slightly larger-than-average farm with around 100 cows. He owns and rents about 350 acres of land, which he splits with his brother, who also has around 100 cows.

Before the cattle sale at ODAC existed, Dalton would drive to livestock markets in either Lynchburg or Moneta to sell his calves.

“I had no opportunity to sell my cattle but at those two places,” Dalton said. “This really opened up the door. This is my sixth year doing the sale, and I’ve had the opportunity to meet some of my buyers, which has been great, because it gives me a chance to show them what kind of cattle I’ve got.”

Normally, a producer with a farm Dalton’s size would “virtually never have an opportunity” for that much facetime with buyers, Calhoun said.

“We’re no different than any other business. It’s all about relationships,” he said. “You just build that reputation with buyers who feel comfortable with what we’re selling to them.”

Calhoun himself is a larger producer, one of the few who can sell an entire tractor-trailer load on his own.

“I was fortunate enough that I had enough land that I could do that,” he said. “But somebody of Darrell’s size was in a bad position. He worked really hard on his genetics, he did all his management, but he just couldn’t capture much of the market.”

Selling at a livestock market exposes producers to an average of four to six buyers, according to information from the Virginia Cooperative Extension provided by Becky Roberts, the extension agent for Pittsylvania County.

A few more than that, between 10 and 15, could be reachable over the phone for a livestock market sale.

The CVCA co-mingle sale, on the other hand, brought more than 40 active buyers, with over 120 more reachable by phone.

And a local livestock market usually averages between 1,200 and 1,800 head, a term referring to one animal, whereas the CVCA sale sold 4,600 head in 2023.

Premiums, the money per head that goes back to the producers, are higher with a co-mingle sale than at a livestock market, according to the Virginia Cooperative Extension. In 2023, the CVCA sale provided a $512 premium for around 30 participating producers. That has grown from $171 in 2020.

The sale has grown by all measures in the six years since it began, Roberts said. In its first year, about 10 producers were involved in the auction.

This year 35 producers came from across six counties: Campbell, Franklin, Halifax, Henry, Patrick and Pittsylvania. And most return from year to year, Calhoun said.

“I hope it continues to keep getting bigger,” Dalton said, adding that the sale has completely changed the way he does business. “It’s been wonderful.”

The sale is not a money-making venture for ODAC, she said. Producers pay a flat fee per head to cover facility costs like clean-up and electricity. Roberts declined to name this fee, because she said it’s likely to change.

And each producer has their own operational costs for feeds, vaccines and facilities that allow for their participation in the sale, she added.

ODAC has received several grants from the Virginia Tobacco Region Revitalization Commission in recent decades that have made events like the CVCA sale possible.

In 2009, $1.8 million in Tobacco Commission funding went toward the creation of the ODAC facility itself, a 100,000-square-foot multiuse complex that sits on 15 acres off U.S. 29.

Since then, commission funding has aided with water and sewer projects, an arena build-out and the purchase of nearby parcels.

In 2018, the first year of the co-mingle sale at ODAC, the commission funded an expansion at the facility to allow for these types of events. Just over $418,000 went to build the barn that hosts the sale.

Cattle arrive by the truckload and are then examined for irregularities, grouped by weight and loaded back up to be trucked to their buyers.

“They’ll look at the cattle, and if they see any issue with them, they’ll pull them out,” Calhoun said. “They’re looking at health, genetics and structure.”

The work at the event is done entirely by volunteers, Roberts said, including folks in the local industry and from Virginia Cooperative Extension.

One of the volunteers is Patrick Carroll, who was unloading cattle and taking headcounts. Carroll works with Piedmont Farmers Cooperative, a Chatham-based farm and feed store that sells vaccines and feed to most of the local producers.

Volunteering at the CVAC sale is rewarding work, he said. Overall, the sale has been beneficial for the industry, improving the quality of beef and making operations more lucrative for local farmers, he said.

“It helps the producer be a better steward of the animal,” Carroll said.

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