Riding Herd
“The greatest homage we can pay to truth is to use it.”
by LEE PITTS
– JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
AUGUST 15, 2015 • www.aaalivestock.com
Volume 57 • No. 8
Squeal of Fortune
Pay to Play I T BY LEE PITTS
NEWSPAPER PRIORITY HANDLING
he last time I wrote about the NCBA and their heist of the checkoff in a story titled “Where Did It All Go?”, I reported the news that Forest Roberts NCBA’s CEO, was being paid $550,000 per year. Well, not any more he isn’t. I don’t know if it’s simply a coincidence or not but shortly after our story ran Mr. Roberts tendered his resignation to explore “other opportunities” in the industry. Geez, It must be some kind of opportunity if it pays more than half a million per year! We reported that 72 percent of Mr. Robert’s salary was being paid by the checkoff and that NCBA paid out $13 million in yearly salaries. We also noted that 82 percent of NCBA’s budget comes from your checkoff dollars and that the NCBA was getting 97 percent of all checkoff contracts from the Cattlemen’s Beef Board. You’d have thought that heisting the checkoff would have been enough for the greedy NCBA but when they held their annual summer conference they raised the cost of dues to their cattlemen members by 50 percent! I know about this because two executives from two different state cattlemen organizations contacted me and were madder than a hot-shotted bull about it.
Everyone you meet has a photographic memory. Some are just out of film.
A Road Map To Your Future Before getting into the money matters we need to clear up just who it is we’re talking about when we say the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association because it’s not just cattlemen. Far from it. There are drug companies, truck and tractor manufacturers, ear tag makers, Canada, Mexico, universities and on and on. They only call themselves cattlemen because of the good reputation you have established. Besides, how would it sound if they more accurately called themselves The National Organization of
Big Corporations Who Want To Hide Behind Your Good Name? I think we can all agree that the initials NOOBCWWTHBYGN might be a little too cumbersome. One of the matters of business at NCBA’s summer conference was the report of the Long Range Planning Committee who “establishes a roadmap” for you and plots the future course of the cattle business until 2020. I got a big kick out of it because on page eight under the heading “Critical Assumptions”, the fourth assumption is that, and I am quot-
ing directly now, “Consumers will continue to want to know where their food comes from and how it is produced.” I repeat, “CONSUMERS WILL CONTINUE TO WANT TO KNOW WHERE THEIR FOOD COMES FROM.” This from the Long Range Plan devised by NCBA’s best and brightest. How did they acknowledge this fact at the same time the NCBA was trying to get rid of country of origin labeling, otherwise known as COOL? You know, a label that says where food comes from? Then there is this. In addition to the committee chairmen Don Schiefelbein of Schiefelbein Farms and John Butler of the Beef Marketing Group, the members of the Beef Industry Long Range Task Force include Jerry Bohn, General Manager, Pratt Feeders LLC, Kim Brackett, Owner/Operator, Brackett continued on page two
Howard G. Buffett: ‘People Ought to Care About the Border’
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rug smugglers are just one of the many challenges farmers and ranchers along the Mexico border face. That’s why some, such as Howard G. Buffett, view immigration reform and border security as two separate but equally important issues. From presidential candidates to court rooms and state house legislatures, the immigration and border debate remains a hotly discussed topic. From the farmer’s perspective, the issues typically center around finding and securing a workforce. From above the Arizona desert, it’s not hard to see the winding path of America’s Southern border—an imposing metal and concrete fence now stretching for miles in both directions. But down below, this rocky terrain known as the Tucson sector is one of the most heavily traveled drug corridors in the country. Howard G. Buffett is now a landowner caught in the middle. “We have drug smugglers coming across our ranch regularly. We see them going north, we see them going south. We have that intelligence,” Buffett says. His foundation now owns a ranch west of Douglas, Ariz., and is learning firsthand the challenges America’s farmers and ranchers are facing.
“We have a significant drug problem in this country,” says Buffett, from the ground in Arizona. “When we have a border that’s so porous that you can just—not move back and forth easily, but it can be penetrated.” It’s a story he’s not alone in telling. John Ladd also ranches along the border, and even with an imposing metal fence, still witnesses crossings. “What they’re doing is, they’re coming in and cutting the mesh and the center post with anywhere from battery-powered grinders to chop saws, and then they bring in full-sized pickups full of marijuana,” says Ladd, during a conversation he and Buffett had with Arizona’s new attorney general. In the last three years, he’s counted just under 50 vehicles breach the fence along his property. “Law enforcement is law enforcement, and protecting the border is pretty much law enforcement,” Buffett says. “You don’t mix that with ideas that have nothing to do with it.” What Buffett sees is that border security and immigration are two separate issues. “Border security is border security. That, in itself, is a category,” Buffett explains. “Immigration? I divide immigration into two categories: continued on page four
f you don’t think kids today are smart just go to any county fair and take a big whiff, filling your senses with the sights and sounds of the fair. Amongst the sounds of barkers hustling their games and the organ-ic sound of the merrygo-round, you’ll hear the distinct sound of squealing pigs. In addition to the smells of deep fried Twinkies, beer battered cheese curds, egg rolls, and cinnamon buns, you’ll be overwhelmed by a distinct smell you’ll remember for the rest of your life and that will be retained in your clothes longer than that. You can’t escape the swineish smell at the top of the Ferris Wheel, in the rodeo arena or in the most distant parking lot. When I was a kid the beef barn was packed with steers and the sheep and swine shared a ramshackle barn on the outskirts of the fairgrounds. That’s as it should be. Beef had top billing and I figured that the sheep and swine deserved each other. Any kid who chose to show a pig was, how should I delicately put this so that my swinish brethren will not be offended? To be blunt, pig showmen were “different”. In my FFA chapter typically we had five steer exhibitors and one pork showman and we didn’t mix or fraternize. Now hogs outnumber the steers by 20 to 1 and I think that’s a perfect example of how far we’ve fallen as a country. My sister showed a hog and for months while I was exercising, bathing, and grooming my steer she was not doing anything because you had to own a steer for six months but a hog was a quick turnaround project. No wonder many pig persons don’t cry when they kiss their pigs goodbye. They hardly knew them. What kids these days have figured out, that my generation didn’t, is that pigs have a better CIAHW than steers. (That’s cash income for amount of hours worked.) Pig showmen don’t select continued on page four
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