KEARNEY - It's always been true that conditions helping one segment of agriculture often create hardships for another. The high corn prices now helping grain farmers have created higher input costs for cattle producers.

Cattle feeder Alan Janzen of Henderson said Wednesday at the eight-annual Nebraska Grazing Conference in Kearney that when corn hit $8 per bushel and diesel fuel spiked at much more than $4, he thought it might be time to "just be a grain farmer."

He still feeds cattle, but he's increased the percentage of distillers grains in feed rations and doing the extra recordkeeping required to earn premiums in specialty beef markets.

Janzen and ranchers Homer Buell of Bassett and Jay Wolf of Albion gave advice Wednesday on how to adjust to high feed and fuel costs. All three are past presidents of Nebraska Cattlemen.

Buell said he has always believed that businesses along Nebraska's dirt roads can be as profitable as city businesses, if they follow the ABCs of attitude, business management and continuing education.

Buell and his family changed their thinking during the tough times of high interest rates, high land prices and low commodity prices in the 1980s. He recalled a meeting with his brother-partner at which he said, "We have to make changes on our ranch."

The first step was to focus on a positive attitude, not poor prices, bad weather and other outside influences. "I really do believe that the kind of attitude affects how you do business," Buell said.

They tried to learn from others, whether it was a business practice or a philosophy to focus on what they could control through a business plan. "We need to know the where, the how and the when," he said, which means setting short-term and long-term goals.

The Buell family developed market plans that take advantage of the timing of market prices and cattle gains. They know their "break-evens."

Buell's advice list also includes: lowering debt in an age of lower profit margins, matching a cow's biology to the environment, grazing plans, using ethanol co-products, testing feed nutrition, locking in input costs, and keeping detailed cattle production and financial records.

"To control costs, you must know your costs," he said. "... You can't manage what you can't measure. That bears repeating."

Every family member and ranch employee must attend at least one continuing education program a year. Other learning comes from participation in commodity organizations.

Recordkeeping also is vital to Janzen's business. He said that as many as 40 percent of his cattle are targeted for value-added programs, such as exports to Japan that must be source- and age-verified, but can reap premiums from $10 to $70 per head; "natural" labeled markets; and hormone-free beef exported to the European Union.

"It's quite a bit of paperwork from birth to slaughter," Janzen said, and the business itself must be certified to carry some labels.

He has fed distillers grains since 1985, when some of Nebraska's first ethanol plants were built in nearby Aurora and York. The percentage in feed rations increased to 50 percent to 60 percent this summer when corn prices skyrocketed, and he's learned how to store wet distillers grains so he can buy at lower summer prices and feed later.

With new area ethanol plants now competing for corn, Janzen is finding it more difficult to get corn delivery contracts with farmers. He said York and Hamilton counties are some of the top-corn producing counties in the country but soon could be net-importers because of ethanol demand.

Wolf said cattle producers should expect continuing high feed costs and plan accordingly. His response has included moving calving back a couple of weeks, "fence line" instead of pen weaning in September, using University of Nebraska-Lincoln research to adjust down breeding weights for heifers, and making better use of grazing.

"Get as much from roughage before going to a corn diet," he advised.

Other business input costs are even a greater challenge.

"That's just a horror," Wolf said about finding and affording health insurance. "We've gone to a high deductible and a health savings account, and they raised our rates again by 13 percent."

He and his employees now drive a small used Suzuki pickup around the ranch because it gets better gas mileage than larger trucks or all-terrain vehicles. "One thing about our business, you're never far from humility," Wolf joked.

"We have to remember that reducing costs isn't our only goal. You try to maximize your net income and sometimes you have to spend money to do that," he said, such as maintaining animal health.

"We just have to hang in there. There always have been opportunities when times are tough ... when other people are running for the exits."