CALUMET COUNTY, Wis.— A Northeast Wisconsin beef farmer said 2022 has presented a new kind of challenge to running his family business.

Jared Gesier is a fourth generation beef farmer at Riveredge Farms in Chilton.

“Growing up on the farm has been great,” Geiser said. “One of my first words was ‘cow,’ so I’ve been addicted since day one here.”

Gesier said 2022 has presented two major challenges his farm is working to overcome.

First, the price of feed has gone up, which has forced his business to raise the prices customers pay.

“Markets are continually changing,” Geiser said. "Prices of inputs are going up, sale prices of our goods are going down. It’s constantly a balancing act."

A second major challenge is processor availability. Geiser noted it’s been difficult getting his animals to a processor at all.

“We’ve seen a lot of demand," he said. "We’re really struggling to get enough space to actually get our animals processed and sent on to our customers and that’s probably one of the biggest challenges we’re facing now."

He added a way around the issue is to get out ahead of it. He’s working with area processors to secure times for processing as far as two years out. Typically it’s a matter of weeks from when Geiser contacts a processor for an order and when Geiser delivers the cattle to them.

“We’ve got processing spots secured for animals that aren’t even born yet which has been a major change for us,” he said. “Ultimately this is just a small bump in the road for our business, but it’s a real challenged to get through.”

Geiser said no matter the struggles, there’s no where else he’d rather be than on the farm raising beef cattle for Wisconsin families.