LMD Nov 2014

Livestock “The greatest homage we can pay to truth is to use it.”

– JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL NOVEMBER 15, 2014 • www. aaalivestock . com

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Digest T Volume 56 • No. 11

by Lee Pitts

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A Bridge To Nowhere

NEWSPAPER PRIORITY HANDLING

Ever since the NCBA hijacked the beef checkoff groups on the outside have asked the Secretary of the USDA, to fix the USDA controlled program. Instead of fixing it, the NCBA has been trying to double down by asking for another dollar per head. Since

Dogs have owners. Cats have staff. the 1985 Act doesn’t allow for that, they have been trying to double it state by state then they’d figure out a way to get their hands on the extra dough later. The current Secretary of Ag, Tom Vilsack, got so fed up with the beef politics that in 2011 he formed the Beef Checkoff Enhancement Working Group to come up with solutions to stop all the industry infighting.

The U.S. Cattlemen’s Associ-

ation and the National Farmer’s Union had been especially vocal in calling for changes to the checkoff and initially they called for Vilsack to come up with all new beef checkoff under the 1996 Commodity Promotion Act. The USCA wants periodic referendums, a separation of the Federation of State Beef Councils and any policy organizations, and no increase in the beef tax until the one we have is fixed.

Vilsack must have listened to the USCA and the NFU because he told the working group if they didn’t come up with some solutions he would take matters into his own hands.

The group was composed of the Farm Bureau Federation, American National Cattlewomen, Cattlemen’s Beef Board, Federation of State Beef Councils, Livestock Marketing Association, Meat Importers Council of America, NCBA, National Livestock Producers Association, National Milk Producers Federation, NFU and USCA. R-CALF was originally a member of the working group but they didn’t last as long as a housefly at a flyswatter convention. R-CALF never has been good at graft and greed.

After three years of meetings the group was as paralyzed as Congress and just like them, continued on page two

Are money and power changing the environmental movement?

MANUEL QUIÑONES AND DANIEL BUSH, EE NEWS

n a widely circulated memo in late October, environmental groups boasted that they’re “poised to execute the last phase of our biggest and most sophisticated electoral effort ever.”

They were on track to spend $85 million, they said, including $40 million on six Senate races.

Not only are environmental groups spending record amounts of cash on the races, they are also trumpeting a common vision with what advocates call an unprecedented level of coordination. And they vow it will last through future elections.

But their critics say the environmental community’s clout has made the movement more pragmatic at the expense of core values, including defeating the Keystone XL oil pipeline.

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by LEE PITTS

Another Friend Gone

What a Mess! nytime a group of cattlemen get together at a convention bar or hanging on the pipes at an auction market on sale day the conversation invariably turns to the idiotic bureaucrats in Washington, DC and how messed up our country is. While very true, not a word is said about the pure unadulterated greed and ineptitude displayed by one of our own industry organizations. The leadership of the NCBA would not seem a bit out of place in the halls of a corrupt Congress or at a White House cabinet meeting.

And now, thanks to all the bumbling bureaucrats get ready to have the beef tax you pay, otherwise known as the checkoff, tripled. And much of that will probably end up in the greedy hands of the NCBA. In returning this country to its former greatness perhaps the first steps we take should be to put our own glass house in order.

Riding Herd

They were on track to spend $85 million, they said, including $40 million on six Senate races.

“This can be called the election when the environmental movement lost its virginity,” said Mike McKenna, an energy lobbyist and Republican strategist. “I think their efforts have become more professional.

They’ve actually gotten legitimate guys involved.”

Last year billionaire donor Tom Steyer helped elect Massachusetts Rep. Ed Markey (D) to the Senate by opposing fellow Democrat Rep. Stephen Lynch, who supported construction of KXL. Steyer then floated the idea of opposing vulnerable Louisiana incumbent Sen. Mary Landrieu (D), a strong fossil fuel supporter,

though in the end he decided to focus on other high-profile races.

Now Steyer, head of the NextGen Climate political action committee, is part of an informal coalition of green groups helping boost candidates who support KXL. The coalition includes the political arms of the Sierra Club, Natural Resources Defense Council and League of Conservation Voters, which is supporting the likes of Sens.

Kay Hagan (D-N.C.) and Mark Begich (D-Alaska), both of whom want the pipeline built.

Last year environmental groups, including LCV, also touted their efforts to help put Democrat Terry McAuliffe into the Virginia governor’s mansion. The groups did it, they said, by highlighting Republican Ken Cucinelli’s skepticism continued on page five

he much-dreaded morn- ing arrived and I was in a funk. Even though I’mprone to being that way, this day was especially depressing for it was the day of the last sale ever to be held at the Templeton Livestock Market.

The owners, friends of mine, had sold the property and the land will soon be planted in houses. I don’t blame them, I’d have probably taken the cash, too.

We had been expecting this day for a long time but the sale of the property was held up by a lawsuit. It seems the neighbors went to court to stop the sale of the land because they’d grown to love “their” sale yard.

These were the same people who years ago moved into the new neighborhood and then complained about the noise and the dust of the auction barn which had been there for 70 years. Now they were especially upset because it was being torn down to make way for houses. It seems they preferred cows to people after all.

In the past, whenever you said, “I’m going to Templeton," everyone knew you were referring to the auction market, not the town of the same name. Although the town always has been a very agreeable place where people are real people, if you know what I mean. And while it’s true that I’ve only been to two of the seven continents, I’d have to say that Templeton is truly one of the greatest places on earth.

Templeton was the unofficial cow capital of my county, home to three cows per person, and the only sale yard left within 200 miles. At one end of town was the sale yard and at the other was the feed and grain mill. Templeton has one way of entering and one way of leaving and I’ve never altered that routine in 41 years of going there.

I think I’ve worked every bull sale they ever had and bought cattle, been a consignor and fed cattle out back in a small grow yard they had. Next to the sale continued on page three

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Page 2

November 15, 2014

What a Mess they were acting like a bunch of bratty, bickering kindergartners.

In response the National Farmers Union became so disgusted they withdrew from the working group. Said NFU President Roger Johnson, “After three years of pushing for real reforms in the beef check-off program, NFU has decided that the process has become a bridge to nowhere and a waste of time and resources. The working group was designed to bring together vested parties from across the beef industry and to attempt to reach a consensus on substantial reforms that would make the check-off a stronger, more effective tool for the beef industry. Sadly, it has become clear that in reality, there is no willingness from key players within the group to allow real reforms to take place.” When Johnson says “key players” he is talking about the NCBA and why would they want to change anything when they are getting 82 percent of their budget from the checkoff and are the checkoff’s biggest contractor?

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Vilsack had seen and heard enough. In a rare bit of honesty from Washington, DC, he admitted that the beef checkoff was structured in such a complex manner that it made his head hurt. “This system is really complicated, I have had staff write me memos, literally draw me pictures. I don’t know how it could be more complicated. In the end my goal is that we have healthy beef industry and that producers of all sizes can survive.”

So Vilsack came up with a “supplemental” program under the 1996 Commodity Promotion Act. Keep in mind, the current checkoff would continue so ranchers would be forced to pay into both funds. Vilsack even suggested that he might want to “sunset” the current checkoff, meaning to get rid of it or bring it under his new program.

Under Vilsack’s plan the new checkoff would start in 2016, before his boss, President Obama, leaves office.

Gilles Stockton, an intelligent industry observer said, “I have been trying to wrap my mind around Secretary Vilsack’s proposal for dueling beef taxes – a new tax running in parallel with the old beef tax and producers paying twice. I have a problem with the old NCBA run beef tax. It is not that I oppose the goals of that tax but rather that I object to funding the NCBA through that tax. If the members of the NCBA want to oppose COOL and are in favor of noncompetitive monopolized livestock markets, then that is their business. They may be misguided and doing the livestock industry a major disservice, but it is their constitutional right to be wrong. I just object to them being wrong on my dime.”

Continued Stockton, “I know that there are many, many pro-

continued from page one

ducers who are just sick and tired of this controversy and would like for the beef tax to be reformed and everybody just get on with the job at hand. The trouble is that it is not possible to reform the beef tax because the 1985 Beef Act that authorizes the beef checkoff is written in such a manner that it gives the NCBA the right to control the operating committee. It is this committee in turn, which decides how to spend the money. Ninety seven percent of the time they decide to fund projects through the NCBA. It is all one big conflict of interest.

“The problem with the Beef Tax Operating Committee,” concluded Stockton, “is that they all want into the gravy train. This working group has been wasting these past three years having meetings to come up with this grand non-solution.

None of them, not Farmers Union, Farm Bureau, US Cattlemen’s nor NCBA, should be allowed a dime of beef tax money. Farmers Union, to their credit agrees with this sentiment and has backed out of the so called deal. Note that R-Calf was never a party to this nonsense.”

Little White Lies Thirty six other groups signed on to a letter to Vilsack urging him to immediately implement their recommendations for eliminating the conflicts of interest from the checkoff. Their letter read, “the decision-making Federation is housed, administered, owned and controlled by the NCBA” and that your checkoff dollars are indirectly subsidizing the NCBA’s administrative costs which gives them more money with which to lobby for an end to country of origin labeling and to promote the interests of big feeders and the Big Three packers." (Which, by the way, don’t pay the checkoff.

Thank you very much!) “The Beef checkoff was never intended as a vehicle to strengthen the political voice of NCBA or any other policy organization above the voices of any other organization or above the collective voice of the producers funding the program,” the joint letter concluded.

On October 16 Vilsack received a retaliation letter from NCBA and 45 of its state affiliates whose “obvious purpose was to influence governmental action and policy,” said RCALF. NCBA’s letter begged Vilsack not to form a new checkoff but to place his faith, and your dollars, in the one they currently control. The NCBA asks,”Why don’t we just enhance the one we have?” And when they say enhanced, they are talking about increasing the checkoff to two dollars per head. Add on the other buck that rancher’s in 10 states recently voted for and you have a three dollar checkoff. continued on page three

November 15, 2014

What a Mess Past NCBA President Scott George says that adding another checkoff is “inefficient and uncoordinated”, which were identical words the NCBA used to steal the checkoff during the merger. He also said that one of the big differences between the current checkoff and the one proposed by Vilsack is that the Ag Secretary’s “is a top down, government run program whereas the 1985 program was literally tailored by producers for producers.”

Current NCBA President McCann added, “The checkoff belongs to cattlemen, not to the USDA or any administration.”

He wrote that the new checkoff gives much greater power to the USDA and was worried about increased controls by federal government.

Either the NCBA Presidents don't know their history, think you are a big dummy or are telling fibs, for as we all know, the only way the NCBA saved their precious checkoff before the Supreme Court was to say it was a government program, was government speech, and is a USDA program run by the government.

According to R-CALF, “Many, if not most or all, of the signatories on the NCBA letter are recipients of checkoff funds, either directly or indirectly.”

R-CALF’s Bill Bullard asked Vilsack a good question: “How are producers assured that their checkoff dollars are not being used by the NCBA and its listed affiliates to unlawfully lobby you to forego your publicly announced policy initiative to create a new beef checkoff program under the 1996 Act when the beef checkoff expressly prohibit checkoff funds from being used “in any manner” to influence governmental action or policy.”

“The NCBA’s CEO,” continued R-CALF, “who likely helped draft the referenced letter, receives a sizable portion of his salary from checkoff funds.

Further, many of the NCBA’s state affiliates that joined the letter are considered “two-hat” states because the state beef councils that collect checkoff funds in those states are essentially indistinguishable from the NCBA affiliated organizations the same physical office address and executive employee.”

Pig Tracks In response NCBA fires back that they must be doing things right because 78 percent of producers support the checkoff. If so, why are they so afraid of a referendum? They also brag that a Cornell University study shows that the current beef checkoff returned $11.20 for every dollar invested from 2006 through 2013. Even if such a thing can be quantified, who is to say that the packers didn’t receive $11.19 of that? And they don't even pay into it! The same professor found that the nation-

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continued from page two

al Pork Checkoff Program had a $17.40 return on investment.

Are we then to believe the NCBA is not doing as good a job as the pig people? Keep in mind that while the pork checkoff was doing all these wonderful things they lost 90 percent of their producers. And the beef industry is following in those same piggy tracks.

The Cornell conclusions are tainted because they were bought and paid for by the Beef Board, who also contributed the data for the survey. What university professor is going to come out with a negative report if it meant he wouldn’t get any more money from the checkoffs in the future?

R-CALF’s Bill Bullard says the current checkoff “will continue to finance the growth of NCBA’s sprawling empire that is being built on the backs of hard-working, independent U.S. cattle producers. It is the government-mandated assessments that have not, as the OIG confirms, been subjected to adequate control or oversight that first created this deplorable circumstance and is now sustaining it.”

Says Bullard, “The current national Beef Checkoff constitutes an impenetrable, quasigovernmental bureaucracy controlled by the NCBA. The real problem is that the government is continually funding the NCBA through its national Beef Checkoff Program, which the U.S. Supreme Court has determined is a program that disseminates government speech, so NCBA can lead its anti-COOL campaign on behalf of the multinational meatpackers that have been trying to defeat COOL ever since its inception.”

The current NCBA President says to, “stay tuned, there’s more to come.” We suspect he means more money to come for NCBA. Don't be surprised if we end up with two national beef checkoffs and in a few years the NCBA will gobble up the newest one too. Farfetched, you say? Not any more than it was to think a new group that didn't even exist at the time the beef checkoff was launched, would steal it right before our eyes in broad daylight.

Gilles Stockton says, “There is one thing that Secretary Vilsack can do that would help. He can invalidate the merger between the NCBA and the Beef Federation that happened back in 1996 on the obvious grounds that it is a conflict of interest.”

Great idea but it will never happen. And the USDA won't call for an audit either of one of its own programs, especially one with as much to hide as the beef checkoff does.

Before we launch another checkoff perhaps we ought to perform the first complete audit of the current checkoff to see just how much money the NCBA has redirected its way.

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HSUS launches whistleblower program

BY MEAT&POULTRY STAFF

he Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) is offering a financial incentive for reporting animal cruelty to farm animals.

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The HSUS recently launched a national whistleblower hotline for reporting incidents of cruelty and neglect at livestock auctions, in slaughtering plants and on “factory farms”. The organization also is offering a reward of up to $5,000 for information leading to the arrest and conviction of alleged offenders.

“The bleak conditions endured by animals on factory farms are often made worse by overt violence and neglect,” said Paul Shapiro, vice president of farm animal protection for The HSUS. “We want whistleblowers to know that help is just a phone call away.”

HSUS created the hotline in response to “aggag laws” passed in several states. The laws criminalize undercover videotaping at agricultural facilities and failure to report animal cruelty in a timely manner.

HSUS said hotline callers will be “assured anonymity if they desire it.”

Riding Herd yard was a roping arena where I worked horse sales and went to “play days”. Hoover’s restaurant was also on the grounds, a staple of simple food and a popular destination for the town folk.

They used to sell 100,000 head of cattle a year at TLM and it was the home of the World Livestock Auctioneer Championship in its heyday. Dean Schow of Paxton, Nebraska, was named the winner that year and I’m so glad he became a good friend of mine. Like TLM, he was real easy to like. I’m sad to say Dean died a few months ago . . . there seems to be a lot of that going around. And now the auction market has breathed its last breath, too.

At the last auction ever held at TLM I worked ring for the bull sale and when I looked up into the crowd it hit me that this was the last time I’d ever see many of these fine folks who had become my friends.

It felt like a funeral. Old timers greeted me with a lump in their throats and Randy Baxley, who grew up at TLM and ran the sale yard, but did not own it, almost broke down as he finetuned his going away speech. He and his wife Beth lease another yard at Visalia and are wonderful

continued from page one

people.

It was such a large crowd there wasn’t room for everyone inside the sale barn. We had all come to say our final goodbyes and to make the day a special one. No one wanted to leave, or for the day to ever end.

The top three bulls that day were the three highest selling bulls ever sold at TLM. We all did her proud on her final day.

I suppose it had to come to this. The sale yard was standing in the path of an onslaught of people. Now Templeton town is growing up and I suppose before

long it will either have a prison or a casino. Signs of what passes for progress these days.

The last animal ever sold at the Templeton sale barn brought more than seven dollars per pound, as if it was for a county fair junior livestock exhibitor battling cancer. On the morning after the last day I couldn’t help thinking that the consignor who owned that last animal sure was lucky. As were we all to have known this wonderful grand dame who took her town’s personality and identity with her when she left.

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November 15, 2014

USDA Moving Ahead with Beef Checkoff Plans CHRIS CLAYTON DTN AG POLICY EDITOR

SDA is moving ahead with its plans to create a separate beef checkoff. A notice likely will appear sometime in early November informing cattle producers about the initiative.

I had a phone interview with Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack in late October. It was set up to talk about the checkoff controversy but the world had largely already moved on to the Country-of-Origin Labeling fight. Yet, so many of the same players are involved in both arguments. Most organizations that back a COOL mandate also are demanding a major overhaul of the current beef checkoff before they would back increasing the mandated checkoff fee.

I’ve been editing an upcoming series on the waters of the U.S. rule.

So my head was in several different places at once, leading me to ask Vilsack if he saw a “significant nexus” between the COOL fight and the checkoff.

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“If there’s a nexus, I think it’s that the folks that have been strongly advocating for the COOL legislation and labeling have been smaller-sized producers who believe that there’s a market opportunity for them by people buying local,” Vilsack said. “And I think that same group has expressed concerns about the way the beef checkoff has been used and the belief about how those resources have been used in the past.”

Vilsack said he is moving ahead on plans to establish a new beef checkoff under the 1996 checkoff law. He will continue to move in that direction until the beef industry’s ad-hoc working group comes to Vilsack and says the industry has reached agreement on an alternative way to move ahead.

“Here’s the dilemma. Everybody in the industry knows we need more money to market, more money to promote and more money to do research.

There is a consensus among everyone — all the folks in the working groups, all the producer groups — everyone has agreed more money is necessary.”

Groups have met for three years to

talk about possible changes to the current beef checkoff, built on the 1985 law. The broad range of cattle, farm and ranch groups involved in the talks have been unable to come to terms.

Thus, gridlock continues on changes necessary to seek an increase in the $1per head fee.

A second checkoff would go through the process of soliciting input from producers about how it would be structured, including how much it would cost and how the program would be administered. Vilsack said such a program would operate for three years then there would be a referendum regarding whether to keep it.

Vilsack said he expects sometime in the first part of November there will be a notice in the Federal Register detailing plans to solicit comments on the checkoff, including a series of questions people would weigh in on. “It will take a little time because we want to give people time to comment. We have to go through a rule-making process and we want to go through that process.”

Vilsack said he would anticipate

some of the same divisions within the beef industry over a new checkoff that the industry faces with COOL. “It’s a very interesting time and challenging time for the livestock industry. You have got high prices, you have got low supply, you have got a great potential export opportunity in the future. Now is the time for us to be aggressive, but you can't be as aggressive as all would like us to be because you simply don’t have the money in the checkoff and you can’t get the consensus that would allow the current checkoff to be increased. So you set up a separate checkoff, see how it works, and hope that over time you develop and create the consensus.”

The National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, the main contractor of the current beef checkoff, opposes the secretary’s plan for a new program.

NCBA has even created a petition on the White House website, “Don’t Hijack the Beef Checkoff” that seeks to get 100,000 signatures by Nov. 12.

The petition had yet to break 900 signatures as of late on October 27. https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/

Wilderness as economic stimulus? A closer look at the evidence

BY SHAWN REGAN, CONTRIBUTOR, THEHILL.COM

here are many good reasons to love wilderness. The Wilderness Act, which passed 50 years ago this year, describes several of them: outstanding opportunities for solitude, primitive and unconfined recreation experiences, and the preservation of special places “where the earth and its community of life are untrammeled by man.”

As a former wilderness ranger, these values resonate with me.

More than 100 million acres of land have been designated as

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“wilderness” since 1964, and in my view they include some of the most spectacular landscapes imaginable.

But as hard-fought wilderness bills languish in Congress, some are claiming there’s another reason to love wilderness areas – they’re good for local economies.

This economic argument is a central part of wilderness advocacy today. Protecting lands from development, many say, provides a much-needed boost to rural communities. These lands attract workers, entrepreneurs and investors across all sectors while boosting income and employment in surrounding areas.

But what does the research actually say about the economic effects of wilderness designations?

I took a close look at the peerreviewed academic research and found few rigorous studies and little evidence to support the claim that wilderness leads to economic stimulus. As we celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Wilderness Act, consider what the best available research says.

First off, there is disagreement on how natural amenities such as wilderness should affect economic outcomes in theory. On the one hand, wilderness designations limit resource development and could hinder income and employ-

ment in extractive industries. On the other hand, wilderness could improve quality of life and attract new businesses, migrants and tourists. Adding to the confusion, there is evidence that workers might accept lower wages, longer periods of unemployment and higher land prices to live in areas rich in natural amenities such as wilderness.

So there’s confusion about the theory, but what do existing studies find when they look at the data? In short, not much. The first empirical study, published in 1998, found no evidence that wilderness had an effect on employment or population growth in Western counties during the 1980s. A similar study in 1999 found no effect of wilderness on income, population or employment growth in rural counties in several Western states.

Two more studies in 2002 and2003 were no different: Wilderness had no effect on employment or wage growth.

More recent studies come to similar conclusions. A study in 2006 by Ray Rasker of Headwaters Economics champions the role that public lands play in stimulating income growth in the West, but a closer look reveals that he is unable to demonstrate a statistically significant effect associated with wilderness lands.

Another study by Rasker and his colleagues, published in 2013, emphasizes that protected public lands (including wilderness) had a small positive relationship with three measures of income. Less

obvious was the fact that seven other economic measures they examined had zero effect.

So what about the popular claim that wilderness drives economic growth? Studies that reach this conclusion are based on simple correlations. None are rigorous enough to suggest that wilderness causes growth. Two studies that are often cited — one

by Paul Lorah and Rob Southwick in 2003 and another by Patrick Holmes and Walter Hecox in 2004 — report a positive correlation from wilderness and population, income and employment growth. But once additional factors are controlled for in more detailed studies, these positive relationships disappear.

More research is needed to better understand the effects of wilderness. But a critical look at the existing studies makes this much clear: There is little or no evidence that wilderness bolsters economic growth. When environmentalists invoke economic arguments to support wilderness, they are exaggerating the best-available research and undermining other more compelling wilderness values.

Wilderness advocates shouldn’t hang their hats on economic arguments. There are plenty of good reasons to love wilderness areas — but there’s just no evidence that economic arguments are one of them.

Regan is a research fellow at the Property and Environment Research Center (PERC) in Bozeman, Mont., and a former backcountry ranger for the National Park Service.

To place your ad here, call Caren Cowan at 505/243-9515,ext. 21, or email caren@aaalivestock.com

November 15, 2014

“America’s Favorite Livestock Newspaper”

Power of climate change.

Now, even though environmental groups are highlighting climate concerns in their campaigns, they are also running on issues like abortion and the economy hoping to support their allies and beat their foes.

This month, NextGen released a two-minute ad — long by modern campaign standards — questioning Colorado Republican Rep. Cory Gardner’s support for legislation meant to restrict abortion rights for women. Gardner unseated incumbent Sen. Mark Udall (D).

Environmental groups leading the effort say it’s all part of their strategy. And it appears that different factions within the movement, from LCV and NextGen to 350.org, known for its staunch support for moving the world away from fossil fuels, are on board.

“We’re spending more money than ever before and coordinating better than ever before,” said Gene Karpinski, LCV’s president. “So we”re being smart and strategic and sitting around tables state by state and nationally.”

Karthik Ganapathy, U.S. communications manager for 350.org, said groups are adjusting to “political realities” in different states. Environmental issues are essential, he said, but voters have myriad concerns.

About Steyer’s spending and campaign efforts, Ganapathy said, “I think he’s been an incredibly important counterweight to the Koch brothers.”

The question is, are liberal donors like Steyer becoming too much like the Koch brothers

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they so revile?

Critics like Bryson said it’s inevitable that green groups would focus on politics over policy once they became more involved in elections.

“Once you start focusing on partisanship, [the] message really starts to become partisan,”

LCV’s “biggest single investment at the federal level is the state of North Carolina,” Karpinski said. “Kay Hagan [has an] 84 percent lifetime score, leans into the climate change issue, understands that EPA has a role to do to cut climate change pollution.”

In contrast, he said, Hagan’s

...environmentalists are more likely to stick together if Republicans take over the Senate because they will have a common threat.

Bryson said. “You’re not focused on the issues that you initially” cared about.

To others, efforts by Steyer and other environmentalists this cycle are a sign that the movement is coming into its own politically.

“My observation from the Steyer team is that they want to win,” said Erich Pica, president of the advocacy group Friends of the Earth. “His team is using whatever effective communications tools and issues to win those elections.”

‘Proof . . . in the pudding’ In an interview, Karpinski defended the environmental movement’s spending decisions.

Yes, the candidate choices are pragmatic, he said, but they also provide a “sharp contrast” to the alternative based on how they’ve scored on key issues.

opponent, North Carolina state House Speaker Thom Tillis (R), has either tried to avoid questions about climate change or expressed questions about human impacts.

“That’s part of the conversation. We’re making it part of the conversation,” Karpinski said of the climate change debate.

“We’re running ads talking about that very issue.”

The group’s ads against Tillis have also focused on other environmental issues, including Duke Energy Corp.’s massive coal ash spill in the state earlier this year. Tillis backed a bill in the state Legislature that environmentalists say won’t do enough to hold Duke accountable for the spill.

Similarly, Udall has an LCV lifetime score of 97 percent compared with Gardner’s 9 percent grade. In Alaska, Begich has a 77

percent lifetime score. “Not perfect for sure, but a sharp contrast” to his GOP opponent, Dan Sullivan, Karpinski said.

Stephen Kretzmann, executive director of Oil Change International, a nonprofit group that doesn’t engage in political campaigns, said, “The calculation has been made that the No. 1 priority is to retain Democratic control of the Senate. If that happens then people will feel that the decision that was made was the correct one.”

He added, “The proof will be in the pudding. On Election Day we’ll see what happens. If that doesn’t happen, there’ll be some questioning of that strategy.”

Karpinski said groups were indeed looking to “protect the Senate firewall” to stop House measures seen as anti-environment. But he also mentioned LCV endorsements for moderate Republicans like Maine Sen. Susan Collins. At least some liberals were quick to question backing Collins, who not only supports KXL but has also voted against EPA’s climate-related rulemaking.

Still, Karpinski said the group was focused on making sure EPA could move forward with its proposals to reduce carbon emissions from power plants. “We need to make sure those rules are the strongest possible, they are defended in the Congress and implemented well in the states,” he said.

But what about KXL? That’s a priority too, Karpinski said. “It’s not,” he said, “either-or.”

‘Major headache’ There are signs environmen-

talists want to boost their focus on KXL after the November elections and increase their pressure on lawmakers and President Obama on climate issues. The movement's political spending will likely ramp up, too, after this year's record-setting $85 million effort. “$85 million is a tremendous amount of money in a midterm,” but it’s still a “drop in the bucket” compared with industry groups, said Pica of Friends of the Earth. “Every environmental group that has a PAC needs to be figuring out how to up its game.”

350.org promised to be a “major headache” in an internal memo obtained by MSNBC. “We’re ready for a fight, and the last thing President Obama and Democrats need is a rebellion from the left.”

It remains to be seen whether environmental groups will avoid a rebellion within their ranks.

Divisions exist on issues like natural gas. Steyer has said he’s not opposed to all fracking while 350.org is anti-fracking.

Observers say environmentalists are more likely to stick together if Republicans take over the Senate because they will have a common threat.

Next year’s United Nations climate conference is also of intense interest. Then there’s 2016.

“It’s going to be more important than ever for Democrats to turn out their base,” said Ganapathy, touting the importance of running on climate issues. “In addition to being right for the planet, I think it’s a smart move for Democrats politically.”

Livestock Market Digest

Page 6

Farming Dreams n the land of Nod a movement sprung up to build houses without the use of power tools. The advocates of organic construction (OC) supported the movement because it prohibited the recovery and use of the carbon coal and oil.

To be OC any lumber used must be hand-hewn, saws must

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be manually operated. Mule power is approved. Machine made tools must be made by a blacksmith and made from stones, dug and formed by hand.

Electricity must be generated by wind power or water wheel.

Those who live in the OC Stone Age houses glory in their contribution toward low environmen-

tal impact. They expect the government to give them tax breaks (think Al Gore) and to subsidize the craftsmen who do the grueling everlasting sawing, shimming, pounding and digging to build their houses under OC rules.

Well, we don’t live in a land of Nod. There is no movement to build houses like the Native Americans before Columbus arrived. But that thought occurred to me when I read a newspaper article titled, “Don’t let your children grow up to be farmers.” It was written by a Connecticut man who, according to his story, was inspired by what is being called today, “The Food Movement.” He threw himself joyously into the cause!

The government and many private entities have established foundation grants or donors to support “small farming.” He was

November 15, 2014 given financial help to encourage his venture. As he cleared his small acreage and learned first hand the effort it takes to farm, he avoided anything with the word ‘chemical’ in it. No fertilizer unless it was from an organic source; no antibiotics, medicine, anesthetic or parasiticide to care for his sick animals, no insecticides, GMO’s, no herbicides for his crops, he didn’t even use rat poison.

There was a market for his expensive products; specialty grocery stores, “green” restaurants, and farmers markets. But over the years he was never able to cover the cost of his specialty products.

From the beginning it was necessary for him to support himself with a side job. Oddly enough he had competition from “hobby farmers.” They were often retired hedge fund

managers or tax lawyers who could claim their two acres as agricultural and lower their property taxes. He also competed with non-profit farms whose purpose was for social, penal or therapeutic benefit. Customers always complained about the price. Ten years down the road he is broke and bitter.

But his solution to his failure is for the government to take money from farmers who make it and use it to pay organic small farmers a decent wage with insurance benefits, and protect their market from real farmers.

He, somehow, doesn’t get it. It’s sad. Farming is real life, ask the Amish. It’s not someone’s dream of a “Camelot Food Movement.” And as to his solution, it didn’t work in Russia or China or North Korea and I don’t think it will work in Connecticut.

Mapping the Endangered Species Act “Tidal Wave” BRIAN SEASHOLES, REASON FOUNDATION

he Endangered Species Act is often thought of as a Western issue, and as “out there” in so-called flyover country. But as a “tidal wave” of 878 species* is listed under the Act over the next decade or so, which will result in an approximately 50 percent increase in the number of species under the law’s protection, the geography and regulatory reach of the Endangered Species Act is expanding radically. If you think the Endangered Species Act has been problematic and conflictladen up until now, it is going to get massively worse.

Regions of the country that have been little impacted by the Act, such as the Midwest, Great Plains, and large portions of the South, Southwest, Intermountain West and even East are going to feel the impact of what

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is widely regarded as America’s most powerful environmental law. Most of these tidal wave species are dependent on aquatic, riparian and wetland habitat, which means the regulatory impacts due to them could well encompass entire watersheds, not just the discrete areas of habitat most people associate with terrestrial species. Also, a number of the species that are not freshwater-based have enormous ranges that span many millions of acres. Yet describing this process of the immense expansion the Endangered Species Act is undergoing has limited impact. Words can only go so far.

Fortunately, the office of the Comptroller of Texas commissioned a series of stunning and highly informative maps that depict the coming tidal wave (available here). The leading edges of the tidal wave have already hit, such as in northern Indiana (as I discussed here in a previous post) and likely in north-central Florida (here in a previous post) where species are being used, or likely will be

used, to control water quantity and quality. But the most significant tidal wave species so far is the lesser prairie chicken, which was listed at the end of March and inhabits 40 million acres in five states (New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas and Colorado), including the Permian Basin of western Texas and eastern New Mexico that produces 15 percent of U.S. oil and 5 percent of U.S. natural gas. The prairie chicken is already having a significant impact on the oil industry in western Kansas.

Often it is hard to grasp the geographic extent of the Endangered Species Act’s reach. While it is possible to obtain maps of some individual species’s ranges, it has not been possible until now to get a broader sense of the Act’s spatial dimensions for listed and potentially listed species.

Now, however, with the maps commissioned by the Texas Comptroller all this has changed.

There are several important aspects of these maps.

First, they are the only publicly available maps that depict the coming tidal wave for the

entire country. Second, they illustrate the tidal wave using two sets of maps — one set of states, the other of watersheds — and this allows for two different ways to grasp the issue. It is imperative that states and municipalities get a better handle on the tidal wave of species headed their way, both at the macro, state level, as well as the finer resolution watershed level.

Third, the two sets of maps consist of three maps each (in addition to a separate set for the state of Texas), which depict the current and future distribution of species; the species listed under the Endangered Species Act as of July 2014, the tidal wave species, and a third map that combines the first two in order to provide a visual representation of what the Endangered Species Act is going to look like when all the tidal wave species are listed. Fourth, the set of maps based on watersheds is important because entire watersheds, or significant portions of them, are likely going to be subjected to the Endangered Species Act’s fearsome regulatory reach due to the large number of freshwater aquatic species. In fact, this is already occurring and likely going to expand, as I discussed in the two aforementioned posts.

One example is the Ichetucknee siltsnail, an obscure snail that lives in a single freshwater spring in north-central Florida that is ten square yards, or 0.02 of an acre, in size. So at first glance it would seem that if the snail were listed under the Endangered Species Act, as appears likely, any potential regulatory impacts would be limited to the tiny spring. Yet the Center for Biological Diversity, one of the two groups responsible for the 2011 lawsuit settlement that is resulting in the tidal wave of species, has made ominous references to water quality and quantity issues that purportedly are affecting the snail, such as groundwater withdrawal and

water quality degradation from agriculture and residential landscaping, across the entire 256,000 acre watershed that feeds the 0.02 acre spring in which the snail lives. Talk about a multiplier effect.

The bigger picture is that this is an example of what is coming across much of the country that contains these freshwater aquatic species; the South, Midwest, scattered portions of the Southwest, Intermountain West, and even portions of the East. For example, all 374 of the tidal wave species found predominantly in the South are freshwater based. But because a number of these species have such large ranges, their watershed-based habitats extend over almost the entire Eastern and Midwestern U.S. (as depicted in a separate map available here). Then there are terrestrial tidal wave species that also have enormous ranges, such as the greater sage grouse — which lives across 165 million acres in eleven western states and may be proposed for listing in September 2015 — and the lesser prairie chicken.

So take a look at the maps on the Texas Comptroller’s website: http://www.keepingtexasfirst.org/ map/ . More importantly, get the word out about the Endangered Species Act tidal wave by sending the maps to people you know. *The cause of the tidal wave is a 2011 lawsuit settlement between the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and a couple environmental pressure groups (Center for Biological Diversity and Wild Earth Guardians) that requires the Service to consider for listing under the Act 878 species by 2016. Final listing decisions must be made for 253 of these species by 2016, which means the remaining 625 species are in the pipeline for later consideration. (Apologies for the apparent confusion about the numbers of species involved and chronology for their listing, as I have cited a different total and timeline in previous posts—757 species, with 251 final listing decisions by 2018—but there are several different published totals for the lawsuit settlement, including from the plaintiffs.

However, 878 species, with 253 final listing decisions by 2016, appears to be the most accurate total) See more at: http://reason.org/blog/show/mapping-thecoming-endangered-speci#sthash.

“America’s Favorite Livestock Newspaper”

November 15, 2014

By Frank DuBois My column is about Smokey Bear & mice, wilderness wars, monumental threats, EPA spiking energy prices, and Michelle O’s trash problem

Jumping Feds s previously reported, in an out of court settlement the Feds have listed the New Mexico meadow jumping mouse as endangered. Jumping right on this, the Forest Service has installed, or is proposing to install fencing to keep livestock off of certain riparian areas, thereby limiting or denying livestock access to water.

Jumping right back, the New Mexico Cattle Growers, New Mexico Farm & Livestock Bureau and a whole list of grazing associations and individual ranchers have filed suit claiming the feds actions are a violation of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and the Administrative Procedures Act (APA).

NEPA is important because it requires agencies to identify and assess reasonable alternatives to proposed actions and allows for public comment. In their complaint for the group, the attorneys argue the feds are in error for not entering into the NEPA process and instead claiming a categorical exclusion.

The complaint also says the Forest Service is not using the best available science in reaching its decision. For instance, in a 2004 Forest Service Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) concerning livestock grazing on the San Diego Allotment, the agency incorporated specific management objectives and found that grazing within the allotment “would not cause a trend to Federal listing or decrease in the overall population” of the New Mexico meadow jumping mouse. The area the Forest Service proposes to fence off is only used from the beginning of October to mid-October, during which time the New Mexico meadow jumping mouse is hibernating, and for a brief period in the spring for breeding and occurs within those areas the 2004 EIS says, “have low poten-

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tial for impacts” due to the short amount of use. The EIS stated: “Riparian meadows in the Fenton, Virgin Canyon, Lower Guadalupe, and Jemez River areas are closed to grazing and would be available to the mouse with no associated grazing disturbance. Other riparian pastures in the allotment would have low potential for impacts to jumping mice because of the short amount of use these areas would receive.”

One could logically conclude that when the Forest Service has an open process in compliance with NEPA, they found that livestock grazing was not a threat to the mouse and when the Forest Service denies public input into the process they find that livestock grazing has suddenly become a threat.

Mas Wilderness?

A conference was held in Albuquerque last month to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Wilderness Act. Among those attending was Secretary of Interior Sally Jewell who said, “Wilderness becomes more important, not less important, at a time of climate change”. To further scare the public into supporting Wilderness, Jewell said we must learn from mother nature if we’re going to reduce the impact of “this freight train that is moving down the tracks very quickly – and that is climate change.” I say what’s to worry? Neither tracks or trains are allowed in Wilderness areas.

About 80 miles west of Albuquerque another wilderness meeting was convened by The Coalition to Keep Cibola National Forest Open for Multiuse. It seems the Cibola National Forest is beginning a six-step process to inventory lands with wilderness characteristics; a process that could eventually lead to a recommendation the lands be made part of the Wilderness Preservation System.

At this “Wilderness Prevention Forum” were such luminaries as U.S. Rep. Steve Pearce, State Speaker of the House Ken Martinez, and various other state and

local elected officials and a panel was there to ask questions of Forest Service officials. One of those questions is of interest to this column.

According to a report in the Cibola Beacon, the Forest Service was asked what impact a Wilderness designation would have on area ranchers, and the Forest Service “assured audience members that active grazing allotments in good standing would remain valid for use.”

That is an accurate answer as the Wilderness Act allows for grazing to continue. However, it doesn’t answer the question of what the impact will be on the ranchers. No motorized vehicles or mechanized equipment are allowed in Wilderness areas, and that has a huge impact on standard ranching operations. Think of hauling feed, repairing a fence or pulling a well. Their permit may be valid but their ability to survive will be in jeopardy.

Mas Monuments?

President Obama recently unholstered his trusty pen and designated 347,000 acres of California's San Gabriel Mountains a national monument. While doing so, Obama stated he’s “not through” with such actions.

With the “flick of his bic”, Obama has designated 13 such monuments during his presidency totaling 260 million acres of both land and water.

Several days later Secretary of Interior Sally Jewell said if Congress didn’t pass lingering wilderness legislation the President would continue to use his Executive authority. “There are dozens of bills in Congress, and they need to be passed – dozens of bipartisan bills, bills with wide support, broad support – but no one has the courage to pass them,” she said. “We need to encourage this Congress to get on with it and to move forward.

Otherwise, we will take action.”

First, if any of these bills had “bipartisan”, “wide” and “broad” support, they would have passed.

And if you assume they really had this type of support, it takes courage to bottle them up, not pass them.

Finally, look at the position Congress has placed themselves in by giving the President this authority. Think if he had this authority in other areas: Pass ObamaCare or I’ll socialize medicine, or pass the minimum wage or by Executive Order I’ll nationalize the labor force. The public wouldn’t put up with it and we

Letter to the Editor

Beef Checkoff or Beef Corruption

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o we need an increase in the Beef Checkoff?

You say, “But it promotes our product.”

••REALLY! The NCBA (National Cattleman’s Beef Association) who controls your Beef Checkoff dollar is associated with the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) and TNC (The Nature Conservancy) among other groups that aren’t particularly the livestock producer’s friend. If the NCBA increases the tax on the beef you sell, how much of this added dollar is going to be given to the EPA and TNC to work against the beef pro-

ducer?

The NCBA has repeatedly ignored the Ag Secretary’s warning about the need for checkoff integrity.

The Beef Checkoff Enhancement Working Group proposed to amend the beef checkoff program by increasing the checkoff by $1 or more a head in return for changing a nomination process within the Beef Checkoff Program’s operating procedures.

This offer was supposed to placate the Ag Secretary. continued on page thirteen

shouldn’t be hammered this way on land issues.

Michelle O’s trash problem The First Lady’s anti-meat school lunch program continues to have bad consequences, and this time it’s trash. The National School Boards Association just released a survey showing 83.7 percent of school districts “have seen an increase in wasted school lunch food” since her Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act passed in 2010. The kids are putting that supposedly healthy stuff in the trash. What we are really creating are healthy, hunger-free trash cans.

Uncle Sam to spike energy prices This summer El Presidente Obama issued an Executive Order directing EPA to promulgate new rules limiting carbon emissions from new and existing power plants. According to the Farm Bureau, these two rules will set the stage for similar regulations directed at other sectors of the economy like refining, chemicals, natural gas development, iron and steel, and livestock operations. Now a new study is out confirming the high cost of these proposals. The new study by NERA Economic Consulting finds it will cost $366 billion to comply with EPA’s Clean Power Plan. In addition, the study says that 14 states would have energy prices increase by 20 percent or more and result in the shuttering of 45,000 megawatts or more of coal-based electricity (an amount more than entire electricity supply of New England). A Farm Bureau spokesman says, “EPA’s plan will affect all Americans negatively, and farmers and ranchers will be especially hard hit because of the energy intensive nature of producing food, feed, fuel and fiber”.

Another new report, by the

Page 7 Southwest Power Pool, warns of dire short-term and long-term consequences for 15 million consumers in nine states if the EPA imposes the carbon dioxide emission restrictions on power plants. The report focused on customers in Arkansas, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Texas and concludes that users in those states face major blackouts and serious reliability problems due to the rapid pace of capacity reductions required by the proposed rule.

A government-induced spike in energy prices is on our horizon unless the new majority in Congress does something about it.

Wildfire erosion Using the Sandia and Manzano mountains, scientists with the U.S. Geological Survey and The Nature Conservancy have developed a computer model that will predict erosion “hot spots” following a fire. A researcher said the new tool will allow land managers to specifically target those areas that have the highest risk of flooding and debris flows. “Figuring out which areas are vulnerable to damaging wildfire and post-fire flooding is necessary to protect communities and our water sources.”

Actually, what’s needed is a computer model that predicts those areas where the enviros and the courts will let the Forest Service conduct the appropriate management “to protect communities and our water sources."

Let’s call those “safe spots” and the results would be interesting to see.

Till next time, be a nuisance to the devil and don’t forget to check that cinch.

Frank DuBois was the NM Secretary of Agriculture from 1988 to 2003, is the author of a blog: The Westerner (www.thewesterner. blogspot.com) and is the founder of The DuBois Rodeo Scholarship.

Livestock Market Digest

Page 8

November 15, 2014

Hall of Fame Recognizes Lifetime Achievements of Renowned Beef and Dairy Veterinarians onoring their significant contributions to the beef and dairy cattle industry, David Bechtol, D.V.M., and Maarten Drost, D.V.M., were inducted into the Cattle Production Veterinarian Hall of Fame (CPVHOF). Established in 2011, CPVHOF recognizes the rich traditions of production veterinary medicine and honors the distinguished individuals who have made a lasting impact on the profession. The Hall of Fame is sponsored by Merck Animal Health, the American Association of Bovine Practitioners, the Academy of Veterinary Consultants, Bovine Veterinarian magazine and Osborn Barr.

“The beef and dairy industries have been fortunate to have benefited from the wisdom, vision and determination provided by these remarkable men,” said Rick Sibbel, D.V.M., director of beef technical services for Merck Animal Health. “Drs. David Bechtol and Maarten Drost have been leaders, teachers and innovators and have significantly advanced feedyard management practices and bovine reproduction.”

The new inductees were honored at the AABP Annual Conference in Albuquerque, New Mexico, in September and were chosen by their peers, including members of AABP and AVC. David Bechtol, D.V.M. – Beef

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Inductee For 35 years, Dr. David Bechtol, of Canyon, Texas, has been operating a consulting business and feedyard research facility in the Texas Panhandle. Last year, he was named one of the 20 most influential beef and dairy veterinarians in the United States.

After graduating from the Texas A&M University College of Veterinary Medicine in 1965, Dr. Bechtol started a swine and feedlot practice in Dimmitt, Texas. In 1979, he established Palo Duro Consulting Research and Feedlot.

Dr. Bechtol was a charter member of AVC, has been a member of AABP for almost 50 years and served as president of both organizations. He was named the AABP Practitioner of the Year Award in 1981, the AVC Consultant of the Year in 1986 and received the AABP Award for Excellence in Preventive Medicine for Beef in 1998.

Dr. Bechtol served as president of the Texas Veterinary Medical Association and on the board of directors of the Texas Cattle Feeders Association, as chairman of the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association’s Subcommittee on Animal Drugs, and Biologicals and Feed Additives, as well as an adjunct professor for the Texas A&M University College of Veterinary Medicine.

His award was presented by Mark Spire, D.V.M., M.S., D.A.C.T., technical services manager for Merck Animal Health, who has known Dr. Bechtol for more than 40 years.

“I’ve gained a deeper appreciation for Dr. Bechtol’s excitement in adopting new technologies into our profession and the discovery of the how and why things are as they are,” Dr. Spire said. “He has managed to get wiser with age while retaining his boyish enthusiasm for life. It was my great pleasure to present him with this award.”

Maarten Drost, D.V.M. – Dairy Inductee Dr. Maarten Drost, of Gainesville, Florida, is well-known for his work in embryo transfer technology and mechanisms of pregnancy recognition and fertility management in cattle. He is a worldrenowned expert in bovine reproduction, and his slides and videos of cattle palpation and parturition have been reproduced and used throughout the world. Through The Drost Project, Dr. Drost has lectured and taught workshops in more than 19 countries in both English and Spanish.

He earned his degree in veterinary medicine from the Iowa State University College of Veterinary Medicine in 1962 and served as a captain in the U.S. Army Veterinary Corps. He was a faculty member at

the University of California-Davis and the University of Florida, where he was instrumental in establishing the College of Veterinary Medicine, which graduated its first class in 1980.

Dr. Drost was awarded the University of Florida’s College of Veterinary Medicine Teacher of the Year four times. He was awarded the university’s Distinguished Faculty Award in 1989 and the Teaching Improvement Award in 1995. He was recognized again in 2007 with the veterinary school’s highest honor, its Distinguished Service Award.

On the national stage, Dr. Drost served as president of the American College of Theriogenology. In 2003, he received the Pfizer Teacher of the Year Award. He also was recognized by Iowa State University in 2004 with the Stange Award for Meritorious Service in Veterinary Medicine.

Dr. Drost’s award was presented by Art Donovan, D.V.M., a long-time friend and colleague.

“Maarten Drost’s career has been amazingly productive, but he is such a humble man that you have to really research to find these things out,” Dr. Donovan said. “In retirement, he has continued his passion for teaching by further developing The Drost Project Visual Guide to Bovine Reproduction.”

Gerber never stopped fighting to protect our freedoms PUBLISHED IN THE ELKO DAILY FREE PRESS

e are as stunned as everyone else at the sudden loss of Grant Gerber, an attorney who dedicated his professional life to maintaining access to public lands.

He called us (Elko Free Press) a week after his terrible fall to report on the progress his Grass March/Cowboy Express had made as it approached Washington, D.C.

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He talked about how he had pushed himself clear from his horse when it tripped, but landed hard on his head. He spoke clearly of the group’s hardships through heavy thunderstorms, and expressed optimism that their message was being well received.

Then, more than two weeks after the accident, his son Travis reported he underwent surgery in Utah. Two days later Grant succumbed to his injuries after miraculously seeing the march through to its completion.

L I V E S T O C K

Ranch Properties now available through Bottari & Associates Realty, Inc & (/ ' " 1 !*(-' %%(,& ', (& #+ ( ," $ -) ! ' * ,(* ( +(-," ( %%+ .

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We offer our condolences to his family, and are inspired by their unwavering faith through this tragedy. They have lost a father, husband and grandfather, but the community has lost a powerful advocate for justice. Grant died fighting for the rights of ranchers to use the resources they had invested in.

Now we can only look back fondly at the many visits Grant paid our newspaper over the years, usually to let us know what he was planning next in his never-ending battle

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against federal regulations. He fought hard against unbeatable odds, but always with a wide smile on his face as he approached the next challenge.

It all started half a century ago when Congress began to designate the nation’s first wilderness areas, including one right here in Elko County. Gerber stood up for those in wheelchairs who would be denied access by restrictions on motorized travel.

He continued to fight when fed-

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eral land managers ordered a rancher to remove a water pipe installed at Kelly Spring, organizing citizens who replaced the pipe and sealed it off with fence posts signed boldly with their names.

His biggest battle came at the end of the millennium when a flood washed out a road leading to a popular recreation site at Jarbidge. The Forest Service placed a boulder in the road to keep traffic out, but continued on page nine

D I G E S T

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“America’s Favorite Livestock Newspaper”

November 15, 2014

Page 9

Gerber

continued from page eight

Grant helped organize a party to remove it. That battle over road rights continues today.

When wildfires began consuming large swaths of rural Nevada rangeland, Gerber fought against grazing restrictions because of the fuel they were allowing to accumulate. At this point he decided to use fire to fight fire, creating a character called “Smoked Bear” whose goal was to save all of the animals being destroyed by wildfires. Government agencies disagreed with his conclusions, but Gerber had used their own statistics to support his claims.

Next came the threat of a sage grouse listing under the Endangered Species Act, and Grant was not one to sit idly by as the federal government began sealing off land from productive use. He organized proj-

ects to prove that more predator control was needed to fight the decline in bird populations.

With all of this activity we were surprised a few years ago when Grant visited us to announce he would be running for county commissioner. He had decided to work within the system as well as from the outside.

Whatever problem surfaced on public land, Gerber would come up with a potential solution and then struggle to make it work. For that reason, many considered him an agitator. Yes, he loved a good fight, but his motive was to serve the people whose livelihoods were gradually being encroached upon through federal restrictions.

He genuinely cared about the people who would not be able to

enjoy Nevada’s outback because of wilderness restrictions. He genuinely cared about the small number of residents in Jarbidge whose livelihoods were impacted by loss of access to campgrounds along South Canyon Road. And he genuinely cared about ranchers who were losing the use of forage that ended up feeding dangerous, pollution-causing wildfires.

Gerber took that concern to the next level when two longtime Nevada ranch families faced ruin because of grazing restrictions prompted by drought. This battle

quickly became less about the land and more about how the decisionmaking was handled by the government.

Comparing the situation to Gandhi’s Salt March in opposition to Britain’s monopoly over the mineral, Gerber launched his first Grass March to Carson City in June.

Horseback riders delivered petitions “for redress of grievances” to Gov. Brian Sandoval, Pony-Express style.

Not long after, Grant came to our office again and described how he was organizing a ride from coast

to coast, gathering petitions from other embattled entities along the way. He set a timeline that sounded impossible, but at no point did we doubt that Grant Gerber would achieve his goal. Not even a fatal injury would stop him from reaching the nation’s Capitol with petitions in hand.

Even people who disagree with his goals and methods have to respect that kind of determination.

It’s citizens like Grant Gerber who made America strong, and his loss will be felt by generations to come.

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Livestock Market Digest

Page 10

November 15, 2014

New Mexico Investigator Offers Stern Wolf Warning To Arizona

BY TAMMY GRAY, HTTP://WWW.AZJOURNAL.COM

olves are the main killers of cattle in Catron County, N.M., and are setting a record for the number of confirmed kills in 2014.

Catron County, which borders eastern Arizona and is included in the Gila National Forest, is the site of the Blue Range Wolf Recovery Area. It was one of the first areas where Mexican gray wolves were released in an effort to reestablish their population in western states.

According to Catron County Wildlife Investigator Jess Carey, the results have been devastating to local ranchers. In a report titled Mexican Wolf Recovery Collateral Damage Identification in Catron County alone, he noted that of five ranches he studied, two went out of business and a third did not restock cattle after 2009. Over the course of the study, the five ranches lost a total of 651 head of cattle valued at more than $382,000.

“The negative effects to livestock producers caused by Mexican Wolves are a wide spectrum not addressed and/or ignored by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Prior negative data and documentation of wolf recovery from other states were not utilized to mitigate the same negative effects of Mexican wolf recovery in New Mexico and

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Arizona,” he noted.

Carey also pointed out that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service does not take into account other types of damage to cattle operations, such as stress deaths caused by wolves running cattle, or loss of production by cows due to stress created by the presence of wolves. He noted that the department “demands that ranchers change their entire husbandry scheme to accommodate the presence of wolves; if the rancher refuses, no compensation is paid on wildlife services findings on confirmed or probable livestock depredations.”

In addition, payment of claims is running years behind schedule and a pro-wolf nongovernmental organization is in charge of processing the claims, according to Carey.

He notes that he believes that the harm caused to ranchers is not only the result of the federal wildlife service and pro-wolf organizations, but also to a lack of coverage in the media.

“The truth about the negative impacts to rural folks by Mexican wolves is never provided to the citizens of Arizona and New Mexico because of the failure of the press. The collateral damage to achieve Mexican wolf recovery has destroyed many family ranchers,” he wrote.

According to Carey’s report, wolves quickly become acclimatized to humans and after a time do not flee even when warning shots are fired in the air. In Catron County, domestic ani-

mals besides cattle have been killed and injured, including horses, dogs, chickens and cats.

The report notes that in one instance, a wolf bit the head off of a kitten in front of a group of children, and many attacks on domestic dogs occurred in the owner’s front or back yard.

Wildlife investigation reports from Catron County reveal that between Jan. 1, 2006, and Aug. 30, 2014, a total of 143 cattle were confirmed to have been killed by wolves. That total does not include deaths deemed as “probable” due to wolf depredation, or any other animals killed by wolves. During that same period, a total of 29 cattle were confirmed killed by coyotes, bears and mountain lion combined.

The wildlife investigation report notes that, “U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service John Oakleaf’s study of confirmed wolf killed livestock found: for every wolf killed livestock ‘confirmed’ there are 7 more that are not confirmed. Example: one ranch in 2009 had 10 confirmed wolf killed yearlings and have another 80 head missing. This is consistent with Oakleaf’s study.”

As of Aug. 30, wildlife investigations conducted in 2014 included 28 confirmed cases of cattle killed by wolves and one horse injured by a wolf. During the same period, there was one confirmed kill by a coyote and one by a bear, while five cattle died of unknown causes. In addition, there was one confirmed

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cattle injury by a wolf and six deaths ruled as likely caused by a wolf.

In the cases investigated in 2013, 14 cattle were confirmed to have been killed by wolves, while two were killed by coyotes and nine were listed as “unknown.” During that year, one dog and one puppy were confirmed to have been injured by wolves.

Investigations in 2012 included 13 cattle confirmed killed by wolves, one death listed as a “probable” wolf case and one confirmed cattle injury caused by wolves. One mule was killed by wolves, while three cattle were killed by bears, none by coyotes and in seven cases, the results were listed as unknown.

The 2011 investigative report shows that 25 cases of cattle killed by wolves were confirmed and two cases were listed as probable. A young horse was also confirmed killed by wolves.

There were four cattle confirmed to have been injured by wolves, and 11 died of unknown causes.

Three cattle were killed by bears and none by coyotes.

Of the cases investigated in 2010, five cattle were confirmed killed by wolves and two injured.

There were also confirmed wolf kills of one colt and one elk. Six cattle deaths were of unknown cause, while one was killed by a bear and one by a domestic dog.

In 2010, coyotes also killed a colt and some sheep.

During 2009, there were a total of 14 confirmed cases of wolves killing cattle and two “probable” cases. Wolves also killed a group of chickens and an elk that year. Six cattle died from unknown causes, while one was killed by a coyote and one by a mountain lion.

Cases investigated in 2008, include 13 cattle confirmed killed by wolves, three probable cases, and six injuries confirmed to have been caused by wolves.

Wolves also killed a group of chickens. Bears killed three head of cattle that year, coyotes killed five and 14 deaths were due to unknown causes. In 2008 there were also three cattle killed by lightning and three in an accident.

Over the course of 2007, investigations revealed 20 confirmed wolf killings of cattle, 20 probable wolf killings of cattle and one confirmed cattle injury.

Wolves also killed one horse and an elk, were listed as a probable cause in the killing of another horse and elk, were confirmed to have injured two dogs and were the probable cause of injury in a horse. Five cattle were killed by coyotes, two by bears and 10 by unknown causes. Coyotes also killed an emu that year.

In 2006, investigators confirmed that 11 cattle deaths were caused by wolves, and three were listed as probable cases.

There was also one case of cattle injury by wolves and one probable injury due to wolves. That year, wolves were also confirmed

to have killed one dog, one kitten and one cat, injured a dog, and were listed as the probable cause in the injury of three horses and a sheep. Also during 2006, four cattle were killed by motor vehicles, two by bears, one by a coyote and five by unknown causes. Two died during calving and one was due to natural causes.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service 2013 progress report on the Mexican Wolf reintroduction project notes that the 1996 environmental impact statement predicted that there would be between one and 34 confirmed cases of cattle killed by wolves in the Blue Range reintroduction area, based on a population of 100 wolves. According to the report, at that rate the total kills would be less than one half of one percent of all cattle in the area.

From 1998 to 2003, the total number of kills in the Blue Range area stayed below the projected amount, at an average of 13.8 cattle per 100 wolves.

Between 2005 and 2009, that number increased and the report notes that, “the number of confirmed cattle killed by wolves exceeded the predicted rate.” In 2008, the average was 36.5 cattle per 100 wolves and in 2009 it was 50 cattle per 100 wolves.

According to the report, the number dropped back down to within the predicted range between 2010 and 2012, with an average of 24 cattle killed per 100 wolves.

In 2005, the Arizona Game and Fish Department reported that a preliminary diet analysis of Mexican Wolves revealed that their diet is comprised of about 75 percent elk, 11 percent small animals and unknown sources, 10 percent deer and four percent livestock. At that time, there were a total of 70 confirmed or suspected cattle killed by wolves and ranchers had been reimbursed a total of $34,000.

The Arizona Game and Fish report notes that most observed predation is on young elk, however, wolves were also seeking out livestock.

“Although small in comparison to all available livestock present, depredation is measurable, and usually focused on one or two allotments,” the report states.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is working on a plan to reintroduce wolves to nearly the entire state of Arizona, including all areas south of Interstate 40.

Carey noted that Arizona residents should take heed.

“The folks of Arizona do not realize what is coming to their community. Most impacted will be the rural families. They will have their family pets killed, livestock killed, and have to live with habituated wolves in yards, on front porches, and confronting children and adults alike at close range,” he wrote.

“America’s Favorite Livestock Newspaper”

November 15, 2014

Page 11

Management Plan Is Sought For Area Wolf Introduction

BY TAMMY GRAY, WWW.AZJOURNAL.COM

heated meeting regarding the introduction of Mexican gray wolves south of Interstate 40 highlighted the efforts by the Arizona Game and Fish Department to push the federal government to create a management plan for the wolves.

Winslow City Councilman Marshall Losey reported that the federal plan has no cap on the number of wolves and does not include any sort of plan for managing the population, including attacks on livestock. He noted that, according to information presented at the Oct. 15 meeting, Arizona Game and Fish is working to find a balance between the $28 million federal wolf recovery program and the concerns of local residents.

“I believe they are trying to do

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the best they can for all of us,” he said. “I believe they are trying to help ranchers as much as possible to manage it.”

Losey noted that the general consensus is that the program cannot be stopped and the wolves are going to be released throughout Arizona, so the best course of action is to try to establish a plan that will limit the population and provide compensation for lost livestock.

“The thought is that there’s going to be a wolf rule one way or the other, so we better get on the right side of this,” he said.

Game and Fish had previously reached an agreement with the Cattleman’s Association for a cap of 100 wolves, but the department has now asked to increase that number to between 300 and 325. According to Losey, Game and Fish officials feel that the federal government

will not accept a cap of 100.

“The feds have determined that 100 is not a viable number,” he remarked.

Approximately 35 area residents attended the meeting, which was sponsored by Arizona Game and Fish, and of those around 25 were directly involved in ranching. Some ranchers were opposed to the release of any wolves in the area, while others agreed that the best course of action is to work with the federal government to limit the number of wolves.

“Arizona Game and Fish’s stance is that an unmanaged wolf program will be disastrous.

They are looking toward a compensation program for farmers and ranchers,” Losey said. “It’s a matter of trying to manage it rather than buck it.”

The current plan calls for the release of wolves across most of

Arizona, including the areas south of Interstate 40 in the Apache-Sitgreaves National Forest.

“The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is advocating releases to extend across the entire state as a means to ensure recovery,” Losey said.

The Navajo County Board of Supervisors recently sent a letter to the federal agency protesting the lack of cooperation with state and local governments in creating a plan for managing the wolves. The letter notes that although meetings were held with state and local agencies, no real cooperation or input was allowed. Navajo County contends that the agency is not complying with the requirements of the Endangered Species Act by refusing to work with affected government agencies.

“Specifically, to date, the serv-

ice actions, or lack thereof, do not represent a genuine good faith attempt to develop an agreement, or even to actually work with the state and tribal agencies, local governments and stakeholders,” the letter notes.

Losey noted that the action could have a significant impact on many area residents.

“This is a great concern for many ranchers, farmers and outdoorsmen as an increase in the wolf population could have a significant impact on their livelihood,” he said.

He explained that although there may be little chance of changing the plans for the wolf program, the best hope is to work for changes to the Endangered Species Act, which was passed in 1976.

“I encourage people to contact their Congressmen,” he said.

New Whole-Farm Revenue Protection Insurance Policy Aims for Diversified Farms iversified farmers will now have access to a improved crop insurance option with USDA’s release today of the new Whole-Farm Revenue Protection (WFRP) crop insurance policy. This will be the first time that many farmers will have access to affordable crop insur-

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ance that provides flexible and comprehensive revenue coverage for their whole farm.

WFRP is a new policy called for in the 2014 Farm Bill and developed by the USDA’s Risk Management Agency (RMA) that will allow farmers to insure all of their crops, livestock, and nursery and

greenhouse crops for a revenue loss with a single policy rather than using individual crop policies. It is being offered initially as a pilot policy.

For many diversified farmers, including sustainable and organic farmers, individual policies and price elections are often not avail-

New initiative aims to provide year-round grazing system or generations, ranchers in the Southern Great Plains have fed their cattle the same way.

During the spring and summer months, cattle graze on a sea of open pastures across the prairie, then in the fall fields begin to go dormant and ranchers typically substitute hay in place of grazing. This can be a pricey endeavor, but this has been the tried-and-true process used for decades.

In early October, Noble Foundation launches a new research initiative — Forage365 — aimed at providing a sustainable, year-round grazing system. “Hay is an expensive input for cattle producers,” said Billy Cook, Ph.D., director of the agricultural division. “Regardless of whether a producer makes their own hay or purchases hay, it’s an expensive alternative to grazing. If we can extend the effective grazing period and reduce the need for hay, we can have positive impacts on profitability, and sustainability of ranching operations.

As part of the Forage365 initiative, the Noble Foundation will look to develop a system of forages (plants consumed by grazing animals) that enables ranchers to graze cattle year-round and use less or no hay. Noble Foundation scientists are focusing on four pillar crop species, including alfalfa, bermudagrass, tall fescue, and winter wheat, that could work together as well as with other forages to provide consistent grazing throughout the year.

The Forage365 initiative includes a strategic set of interconnecting projects that will improve forage system productivity and the profitability of livestock production, examine management practices and economic systems, and demonstrate how the system can improve water quality and sustainability. Select out-

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comes will be available as early as 2018; however, several of the projects are intended to provide building blocks for scientists and breeders to provide improvements over the next decade.

“As a whole, Forage365 focuses on the importance of native and introduced plant species working in a unified system, as well as advancing the use of cover crops,” said Zengyu Wang, Ph.D., director of the forage improvement division. “This whole-system approach enhances the sustainability of grazing lands, taking quality practices by our agricultural producers to the next level.”

The Noble Foundation has been focused on developing better systems and improved plants for forage-based beef cattle systems — the primary agricultural endeavor across Oklahoma and Texas — since its inception in 1945. In the last two years, a year-round grazing system was identified as a strategic objective due to its potential impact on agriculture and the organization’s capacity to achieve this objective.

Forage365 draws together each of the Noble Foundation’s three divisions, including fundamental plant science, plant breeding and management, and applied agricultural researchers, into one cohesive set of projects.

Key to the success of this initiative, Noble scientists and researchers will identify and work with external scientists and researchers around the region and nation to expedite the progress.

“The Noble Foundation has the combination of expertise and resources, along with the necessary relationships within the research community, to successfully develop and execute this program,” said Michael Udvardi, Ph.D. “We have a wealth of dedicated individuals at the Noble Foundation and beyond, working together with the ultimate goal of improving agriculture and the environment.”

able either for the crops being grown or in the county they are being grow in. Additionally, on highly diversified farms, where only a small amount of some crops or livestock is grown or raised, purchasing several separate polices often doesn’t make financial sense.

“The release of this new whole farm policy levels the playing field for diversified sustainable and organic farmers” said Paul Wolfe, Policy Analyst for NSAC. “Farmers that grow crops that are uninsurable under any other policy and those who cannot insure their organic or niche market crop for its true value now have what we hope is a very viable insurance option.”

WFRP will be available in 44 states, more states than either of the two previously available whole farm type policies, Adjusted Gross Revenue (AGR) or AGR-Lite.

WFRP will not be available in Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Arkansas, Missouri and Mississippi and part of California.

For the first time, farmers in

eight states, including Iowa, Indiana, Kentucky, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio and South Dakota, will be able insure their entire farm revenue with one policy.

“We hope that in the near future RMA will expand the availability of Whole-Farm Revenue Protection to every state and county so all farmers have equitable access to crops insurance,” said Wolfe.

This new policy includes several important improvements over AGR and AGR-Lite. For instance, USDA recently announced that a farmer with two or more crops meeting the minimum diversification requirement can now receive an 80 percent premium subsidy under WFRP. Some of the other important improvements included in WFRP that NSAC advocated for include a higher liability limit, higher coverage levels, a premium discount for diversification, inclusion of incidental processing expenses, and replant coverage.

Livestock Market Digest

Page 12

November 15, 2014

Montana Water Crunch Part 6 – Hardship for Irrigators

BY HEATHER SMITH THOMAS

nlike other Indian reservations in Montana, the Flathead Reservation was opened to settlement by non-Indians in the early 1900s, and an irrigation project was created for the Indians and nonIndians alike. Today, the Compact agreement that the Tribes are negotiating the State would put the Tribes in control of all the water.

Jerry Laskody is one of the affected irrigators, living within the Reservation boundaries.

“I’m a retired Boeing executive and I have just a small cattle ranch. I am living my dream; I couldn’t do it while I was working, so when I retired we bought a worn-out piece of land and made it productive again. We got it irrigated and now we run about 20 mother cows and raise some hay,” he says.

“The new Compact proposal would cut my water roughly in half. I can’t irrigate my place with only half. It’s that simple.

I’ve made this argument before the legislature and before the Compact Commission. I can prove that I am using the right amount of water, and putting it to beneficial use, from the measurements I’ve made on our ranch,” he says.

Ross Middlemist is a rancher whose family has been ranching within the reservation for 100 years. “My ancestors didn’t come here thinking the water rights were not valid or that we would fall under tribal jurisdiction. The land and water were bought and paid for. How can the water now be taken from us without just compensation? The Compact is nothing more than a method to break the back of agriculture on the Reservation and take the land from the present owners for 10 cents on the dollar. Every farmer/rancher, tribal or not, will suffer the same consequences,” he says.

“The water use agreement within the Compact will make beggars of all irrigators, since we

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won’t know from year to year how much water we will be allowed for our crops. The instream flows will have the priority. This uncertainty will be crippling. By abandoning us, the state of Montana leaves us with only two options—to litigate for what is ours or to walk away.

This is the defining moment in our history, both on and off the reservation. If the Compact, the Water Use Agreement and the Unitary Management Ordinance are passed, we are done,” says Middlemist.

The ranchers/farmers don’t have the funds to fight legal battles, compared to the deeper pockets of the Tribes. “The Tribes have a large contingent of lawyers. We are fighting ourselves with our own taxpayer dollars — killing ourselves with our own sword!”

Middlemist was not aware of this threat to his livelihood until April 2012. “I was not concerned earlier because I thought we had the best people on our side fighting for us. I knew these people and felt very comfortable that we were going to come out okay. I was on the Flathead Joint Board of Control (for the irrigation districts) for 9 years, and went to Washington, D.C. with these people. I’ve been off the Board since 1999 but I had a lot of confidence in them,” he says.

“Then many of us began to realize that some things didn’t sound right. I went to a meeting in Ronan, and decided I should get involved in the group called Concerned Citizens of Western Montana. The first meeting I attended was in September 2012 and I’ve been involved ever since. There are a lot of people like me who were not very worried about it, until we found out that the Compact was going to give our water rights to the Tribes,” says Middlemist.

“The Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes (CSKT) had earlier tried to gain management of the Flathead Irrigation Project via the 638 contract

(Indian self determination) but they were refused. Their second attempt was to get their plan wrapped around this Compact, which could have nationwide implications if they get control of the irrigation projects. Every tribe in the country is already looking at this.”

The extremist environmental groups are also looking at this as a way to get all the water away from the irrigators. “They are hammering us with the bull trout issue here. It’s the spotted owl of this situation. The more we get into it, the scarier it looks,” says.

The past and present Governors of Montana are strongly in favor of giving away the irrigators’ water. “They are liberal Democrats. Even though the present Governor is now informed about some of the flaws in the Compact, he is determined to push it through anyway, with the idea that we should pass it and then figure it out. But some of us want to hold off on it until it can be made equitable to all,” says Middlemist.

Laskody feels it doesn’t make sense for the state to give up jurisdiction to the federal government. “We’ve never understood why the tribe is able to do this. There have been numerous court cases over the past 20 years in which the tribe has challenged certain water issues here, and the State Supreme Court told them that they need to quantify their federal reserved rights. The court said that the State can’t issue water right certificates within the boundaries of the old reservation until the tribe’s federal reserved right was quantified, and told the Tribe they had to go back and quantify their federal reserved rights but they have never done it,” says Laskody.

“The tribes refuse to do it; they’d rather have this gift of all the water on the reservation.

Their stated goal is to get us non-tribal folks out of here and get their reservation back. We didn’t cause this situation. Settlement by non-Indians was a result of Congressional action that took place in the early 1900s; it was government policy at that time to get rid of reservations and have the land settled.”

The federal government wanted to have the tribal people be citizens and tax-payers. But now there’s a move to take land away from the tax-paying citizens.

“The tribe is now buying up land all over the reservation and putting it in trust, and as soon as they do that, it goes off the tax rolls and raises everybody else’s taxes. It hurts the counties and hurts the people, making it more difficult to stay here,” he says.

“The margins are pretty slim for agriculture, and this just makes it harder. I’m convinced that there’s a movement to get rid of us. This Buffalo Com-

mons deal is part of the plan, to ultimately turn this area into a big park. The problem we face is that all the votes are in the city and agriculture is outnumbered.”

This is a tragedy because hard-working farmers and ranchers have made productive use of much of this land and are feeding many people. The majority of people in this country today believe that food comes from the grocery store and they don’t think any farther beyond that. They don’t know what it takes to feed our country.

There are three irrigation districts involved in this water issue, and two of them have now voted to pull out of the Joint Board of Control. It’s been a strategy of divide and conquer.

“It’s just like they did at Klamath,” says Laskody. “The tribes there settled with the lower valley irrigators and the upper basin ranchers didn’t buy into it so at the first opportunity the tribes had, to call water, they called it on the upper basin.

Those ranchers had to ship cattle in August and the judge wouldn’t even let them have water for their cattle over the weekend until they could get trucks,” he says.

“The problem here is that we can’t effectively challenge the tribes in court because they have nearly 30 lawyers, paid for by the taxpayers. So we are paying for these people to make our lives miserable, and they have the state on their side. Western Montana Water Users is trying to raise money for legal issues, but the Joint Board of Control only has a certain amount of money. We’ll have to raise our assessments next year to cover our legal costs. There is so much coming down on us — just because we are opposing this Water Use Agreement in the Compact,” he explains.

“There’s the threat from the BIA about the increase in the in-stream flows. Yet our creeks are running full bore in August and September when they should be at their minimum.

This is water taken away from irrigation yet these folks are telling us it’s not enough!” says Laskody.

“Part of our problem is there’s a lot of apathy; many of the farmers and ranchers don’t want to get involved in this. But the older guys that want to retire aren’t thinking about the fact that the value of their retirement is in their ranch and if the water is cut back, the ranch value will go down — and that’s money right out of their pocket. Their ranch won’t have irrigated pasture for cattle production. It would have to all go to grain, which takes less water.

Right now the gross agricultural output is about $80 million dollars that our farms and ranches put into our local economy in these valleys on the reservation.

That would literally be cut in continued on page thirteen

Controversy Over the Dams, Water and Land Use; Montana’s Future is at Stake tate Senator Verdell Jackson (Kalispell) says that this issue will adversely affect irrigators in 11 counties of western Montana and create a far-reaching impact on Montana’s economy.

“On the Flathead Reservation, since it was opened up to homesteading by the federal government, 90 percent of irrigators are non-Indian. The Indians didn’t want to farm. The federal government encouraged homesteading across the West because without irrigation most people couldn’t make a living on the land. Building all the dams and providing water to irrigate showed fantastic foresight on the part of our government, in making it possible for people to earn a living from the land (and grow crops to feed the people who didn’t live on the land),” says Jackson.

Some people today resent the fact the dams were built. “If they weren’t built, however, those same people wouldn’t be able to live here because we could not support ourselves. Right now there is a lot of stress on our population in Montana because there aren’t enough jobs here. Our kids go through school and then move to a different state where they can get a job, because in Montana the logging is shut down, there are no new mines, and even our tourism is not very strong,” says Jackson.

“Irrigators on the Reservation provide a huge part of our economy here. The last thing we should do is take water away from them, just to maintain in-stream flow.

The irrigators can use it, and the return flow from irrigation goes back into the river,” he says.

On his website he lists his research on the flow of the river.

“You can see that during the last 86 years on the Flathead River (which goes into the Clark Fork), it’s a straight line of 20,000 cubic feet per second. You cannot find the human impact because it is so small. This just shows that we have no business trying to take water away from each other when we have 14 million acre feet going on into Idaho.” It makes sense to continue to use water for beneficial use such as irrigation that grows food, creates livelihoods, and supports local businesses and communities. It’s a crime to take it away.

“I think this is the most important issue that has ever happened in Montana since it became a state. This issue concerns about 2/3 of the state because the overreach — off the reservation — is impacting 11 counties. This has never happened before and is a frightening precedent! Montana is already bumping along the bottom, in terms of average income, so we don’t need to damage it more,” says Jackson.

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“America’s Favorite Livestock Newspaper”

November 15, 2014

Montana Water Crunch half by these amounts of water they plan to allocate,” he says.

“There will be a mass exodus of people out of here, if they want to make a living. If they decide to go into grain they will need bigger acreages. This means all the small ranches will go out of business. There will be fewer people to support local businesses.”

Yet the businesses are afraid to side with the irrigators. Some of them do business with the tribes and are afraid to jeopardize that faction. “The tribes are pretty heavyhanded. There are some tribal members who have tribal leases, but because they are supporting us the tribes have withdrawn their leases. The tribe has also threatened anybody else, who is non-tribal, and who has a lease and is supporting us, with a loss of their lease. It has put a lot of people between a rock and a hard place,” he says.

“There are a lot of tribal irrigators who have both fee land and tribal leases and they are threatened also. They didn’t participate in this last election because of the threats from the tribe. There is a lot of dirty politics.” This is tragic because it pits neighbor against neighbor.

“The conflict plays right into their hands.

We just had a referendum, and the majority of the people in my district (Mission Irrigation District) and in the Jocko Valley Irrigation District voted not to separate from the Joint Board of Control. Our opponents won in the Flathead District (which is our biggest district) by a few percent but overall the difference between supporting the Joint Board and not supporting the Joint Board was just 5 votes,” he says.

“Only half of the irrigators voted. We vote acres here; the bigger farms and ranches get more votes, so about 2/3 of the acreage voted. When we looked at the number of parcels that voted it was less than 50 percent participation! And this is an issue that is significant. We were phoning everyone on the irrigator list, trying to contact everyone in the districts — with three or four days of phone calling to remind people to vote, and to remind them what the issues were — and we still had a very poor turnout. There are a lot of people trying to sit on the fence on this, mainly because they are afraid of the threats,” says Laskody.

This battle is tragic. “I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy. I am 71 years old and I came out here to spend my time running a few cows and enjoying my retirement, but this is so egregious that I had to get involved. Our water users group has been accused of being racist because it doesn’t agree with the tribe, and it’s a nasty situation. I have been accused of being racist. I just don’t agree with the tribe on this issue.

I’ve written letters in support of the tribe and commending them when they’ve done things that I think are good for the community, but this thing is such a grab and overreach that it is ridiculous. We should not have to be fighting them and the state,” he says.

“I don’t understand why the state has abandoned the irrigators. The tribal people in this county represent less than 20 percent of the population, and the tribe owns only 8 percent of the irrigated acreage. Why should they have full control over this?”

There have to be some underlying motives.

“In the arid and semi-arid West, anyone who controls the water controls the land.

Water is more precious than gold. People in the East don’t understand this because they live in a humid environment where there’s not a shortage. Water is our life, out here.

We can’t have someone else control it, or they control us. We can’t make a living on the land if we don’t have the water.”

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continued from page twelve

Family Roots any of the irrigators have owned land on the reservation for several generations.

“My family purchased land after they moved here from Colorado; we were not homesteaders,” says Middlemist. “My greatgrandfather was a partner in the Hashknife Ranch in Colorado near Brush. He sold his share and came here in 1913. At that point he had money in the bank with intentions of buying a ranch. He rode horseback as far as the Big Hole in western Montana, looking at ranches. Unfortunately he did not get his money reinvested quickly enough; there was a bank panic and he lost 75 cents of every dollar. That ended his chance for buying much of a ranch,” says Middlemist.

“Consequently he got a very small place, just 40 acres, here at Dixon. He rented and ran the livery barn. He was also the local veterinarian of his time — floating horses’ teeth and castrating colts, etc. The family lived a meager existence.

The next generation — my grandfather — went through the Depression. Later when my father wanted him to co-sign on a note to buy a neighbor’s place that came up for sale, my grandfather was too cautious. My dad was still able to buy 120 acres and build a house. He was a logger for 15 years and then had a chance to buy the adjoining 120 acres in 1964,” says Middlemist.

“About that same time he got hired at the National Bison Range (also on the Reservation) when I was in first grade and our family was elated because this was only five miles from home.

My dad had raised sheep, pigs and a few cattle along with his logging, and had about 30 cows.

In 1974 we purchased additional property. I bought 100 acres and Dad bought 900 acres. We paid $100 an acre for the dryland and $500 an acre for the irrigated land,” he recalls.

“We added another 50 cows at $400 apiece; our banker encouraged us to buy them because he thought they would cost $700 by spring. Right after we bought them, the cattle market crashed, and by spring they were worth $300 and by fall they were only worth $200. The big end of the steers weighed 480 pounds and brought 27 cents per pound. Interest rates shot up to 18 percent and things looked bleak. But we just knuckled down and Dad’s job helped keep us going. He also trapped coyotes to get enough money to buy our first used 4-wheel-drive pickup. We barely hung on, but we did. It probably took us 15 years to recover from the cattle market crash. We almost lost the place, but we didn’t,” he says.

“When my wife and I were married, all we had was the 100-acre piece I’d bought and we rented a house. It wasn’t until later that we bought our present house and 30 acres. We continued to purchase land, most of it adjacent to my Dad’s.

When he died he left his land to me, and it is now operated as one ranch,” says Middlemist.

His whole life (and that of his father and grandparents before him) was spent creating this ranch, and it’s something that he would not willingly walk away from. “The tribe has been buying many of the ranches around here but we don’t want to leave. This is our life, and we are not going to quit,” he says.

In some of the recent meetings, proponents of the Compact have said, “If you people don’t like it here, get out!” But for the ranch families who have been here for several generations, it’s their land, too — paid for in money, blood, sweat and tears.

“In an earlier battle a Tribal Councilman was quoted in the paper as saying, ‘We’re not going anywhere, and you’re not going anywhere, so we’d better start getting along.’ This would certainly be a better strategy, because more than 80 percent of the people in this reservation are nonIndian. We need to figure it out and try to get along and make it work. This is where I live, where my family has been for 100 years and has lived and died. We plan to stay.”

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Horse Tales: True Stories from an Idaho Ranch daho author Heather Smith Thomas’s latest book, Horse Tales: True Stories from an Idaho Ranch, launched in October. The book, published by the Colorado media venture The Frontier Project Inc., is a collection of 22 non-fiction stories about the horses that helped define Thomas’s life in the ranch country outside Salmon, Idaho.

“This book is about the horses in my life,” Thomas writes in the preface to Horse Tales. “They all had very different personalities and each one taught me a lot – not just about horses and riding, but about life and responsibility, patience, respect and trust, consistency and perseverance.”

Thomas is the author of 20 books and countless articles on horsemanship, stockmanship and animal health care. She is a regular contributor to the Livestock Market Digest. Each story in Horse Tales centers on the author’s experiences with a specific animal, and is infused with lessons on life, family and stockmanship. Together, the stories comprise a beautiful memoir about a remarkable life with horses, and offer a unique glimpse into ranch life in rural

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Letter

Idaho.

The 282-page book, priced at $24.95, will be available at Amazon.com, BarnesAndNoble. com, Powells.com and other online retailers.

Inquiries regarding excerpts or review copies can be directed to the book’s publisher, The Frontier Project Inc., headed by Ranch & Reata magazine editor A.J. Mangum; 719/237-0243, thefrontierproject@gmail.com.

Learn more about the book at www.ajmangum.com.

continued from page seven

The proposal fails to address the Beef Checkoff’s two most damaging conflicts of interest. Those two conflicts of interest in the Beef Checkoff program are that the decision making Federation of State Beef Councils is owned and controlled by the NCBA and that checkoff funds strengthen the NCBA’s own policy making efforts because they offset the NCBA’s administrative costs. The working group’s proposal would do nothing to change the bias favoring the NCBA because the NCBA would still continue to control the Federation.

Even though the nominating process would include representatives from the beef industry group, the nominators would still draw from the same pool of nominees all of whom would still be controlled by the NCBA. Independent producers and consumers fought hard to win COOL (Country of Origin Labeling). NCBA and NPPC (National Pork Producers Council) are now using your checkoff dollar to try to defeat COOL in the courts again. If it weren’t for the millions we give the NCBA, the NCBA and the NPPC wouldn’t be able to keep fighting COOL. The President of NCBA is now asking for donations to fight Obama’s political machine. That’s like the pot calling the kettle black. In light of this information, why do we want to give another dollar to NCBA? Ask Congress to do away with the Beef Checkoff and voluntarily donate to your favorite beef organization when you sell cattle.

– Catherine Daniel, President, Southern Colorado Livestock Association

For advertising,subscription and e ditorial inquiries write or call: Livestock Market Digest P.O. Box 7458, Albuquerque, N.M. 87194 Telephone: 505/243-9515

Livestock Market Digest

Page 14

November 15, 2014

Irreparable damages – Cibola Controversy one year later – Part 2

BY JULIE CARTER

ing in the 1950s. “You do what you gotta do,” he said.

Financially, the removal and replacement was not as devastating for Garley. “We did all right,” he said.

Garley said that he has had a good relationship with the ranger district and chose not to become part of the Mountainair Allotment Owners group when they formed. “I try to not get involved in other people’s issues,” he commented.

he Mountainair grazing district in the Cibola National Forest covers two separate mountain ranges.

The Gallinas range is southeast of Mountainair, NM and the Manzano range is to the north.

In the vastness of the district, weather patterns and annual precipitation vary as much as the terrain of both.

The June 11, 2013 letter from Mountainair District Ranger Karen Lessard ordering the unprecedented blanket removal of all livestock from both parts of the district continues to impact allotment owners in clear and calculable ways. All cattle were removed from the district allotments by July 31, 2013, after a month of rains and grass revival.

A grueling battle for range assessments, appeals where there were to be no appeals, pressure from county commissions and congressional offices resulted in the return of cattle to the allotments six months later.

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Retaliation fears

Robbing Peter to pay Paul Jesus “Chewy” Baca has owned two grazing allotments, the Monte Largo and the Comanche, in the Manzano Mountain range for 50 and 60 years. “My grandmother had the Monte Largo before that,” Baca said. “My family has been ranching these mountains for a long time.”

Baca’s two allotments represent approximately 50,000 acres on the west face of the Manzanos, most of which have been designated as national wilderness area, making them accessible only by horse or afoot. No motorized anything allowed.

“I’ve never harvested all the grass off my allotments,” Baca explained. “There has always been enough from year to year, even in the drought. The rangers can’t see that from the fence line where they come ride along in a scooter and look over the fence for their assessments.”

Baca, like the majority of the allotment owners in the Mountainair district after the removal order, was forced to sell off the majority of his cattle in a down market. “I sold cows for a few hundred dollars each and now it costs $3,000 to put one back.

Where I ran seven bulls before, I now have just one. It’s been bad,

Karen Lessard, District Ranger, Mountainair Ranger District, U.S. Forest Service very bad. I’m robbing Peter to pay Paul trying to make it.”

In the fall of 2013, just two short months after he took all his cattle off the allotments, Baca said the NMSU Range Improvement Task Force (RITF) did a range assessment on the acreage. “They told me they’d never seen country managed any better than mine was.”

The RIFT, according to the NMSU website, is an “interdisciplinary team of range scientists, ecologists, wildlife experts, agricultural economists and livestock specialists that provides information for use in resolving resource management conflicts.

RITF provides sound, scientific information that helps ranchers, land managers and policy makers make decisions about natural resource management and public land use.”

Baca said his problems with the U.S. Forest Service have been ongoing. “Vandalism has been a real problem. I’ve got fences cut in at least three places and they won’t do anything. I put over $5,000 into repairing a windmill because without it, the cattle had no water. They won’t

even talk to me about reimbursement. They tell me for everything, ‘We have no resources.’ And then without any kind of assessment on the grass, they financially wreck my business.”

Baca said his real issue is with the current district ranger. “She comes from the east, from Maine. What does she know about ranching in this country?

She doesn’t even look at it. It is very hard for me to understand how she can pass judgment from behind a desk.”

In agreement On the southern end of the Manzanos in Priest Canyon lies a 4000-acre allotment belonging to James Garley.

“I thought it was the right decision,” Garley stated referring to the livestock removal order. “I agreed that it was a bad drought and the cattle needed to be taken off.”

Garley’s allotment didn’t have a range assessment either, but he said he knew what needed done. He is the third generation on the same ground that his grandfather had begun manag-

Not every allotment owner wanted to discuss what happened last year. For some, their attitude is that it is over, at least this time, and they have to move on and do the best they can. A few actually expressed concerns for retaliation from the local ranger office and wanted no mention of their situation or their names. And some even cited instances of direct threats of use of government power against them.

Others have been in continual combat with the local district before, after and since the removal orders were issued.

It’s not a new song for ranchers on public land allotments, but one that carries a haunting tune every time there’s a face-off between ranchers and the government.

Investigation languishes Both Lincoln and Torrance County Commissions passed resolutions opposing the action of the livestock removal. Lincoln County commissioners took it one step further and pushed for an internal U.S. Forest Service investigation. On Dec. 17, 2013, the commissioners voted unanimously to direct their county attorney to file a request for a congressional investigation which he did a month later.

Despite assurances of better communication about grazing allotment decisions, the Lincoln County Commission refuses to back off their investigation request. In a May 2014 commission meeting Commissioner Preston Stone expressed his concerns for the precedent that was set by the Mountainair District’s drastic actions.

“All of the Forest Service (districts) in the United States are watching,” he said. “They have

not addressed the (alleged) malfeasance committed against 19 allotment owners and until they are forced to do so, they will continue to sweep it under the rug. We have called for an investigation and that’s what we want.”

Commissioner Mark Doth agreed. “They have swept it under the rug and said ‘we’ll do better from now on.’ It’s a slap on the hand but nobody ever addressed the damages that were done to the ranchers. If this were a court of law before a judge, that is what we would be discussing.”

At press time for this issue of the Livestock Market Digest, there has been no action on the part of the Forest Service in responding to the request. Stone said he hoped to get an update from the county attorney at the next commission meeting.

In a letter to the county commission, Regional Forester Calvin N. Joyner stated it was the magnitude of the drought conditions that led to Ranger Lessard’s decision to order the removal of livestock. He also acknowledged that the forest staff had not in the past utilized the state’s agriculture department and the NMSU range task force for evaluation of range conditions. “This was due to a lack of knowledge and experience about this opportunity,” he wrote.

Joyner said that since last fall, “the Forest Supervisor, District Ranger and range personnel had been working closely with the task force (RITF) to review existing information and develop a mutual understanding of monitoring methods and process.”

However, this fall, at least one rancher reported that his scheduled assessment was done by the district and included none of those agencies, their methods or their expertise.

“Lack of knowledge and experience” as Joyner put it, is a lesson paid for on the backs of the Mountainair District allotment owners. An expensive if not devastating lesson. Words of accepted accountability won’t repair the financial damage and certainly never the emotional and generational ravages of one ranger’s signature on one line of one letter based on corrupted information with no science behind it.

Cattle Thefts Underscore Branding, Tattoo Importance FROM BEEFPRODUCER.COM

ike a tale out of some mid-century Western film, cattle rustlers are still on the prowl more than 60 years later.

With lower feed prices and higher demand, cattle prices are up across the country, leading thieves to look for profitable ventures in taking animals in the middle of the night and transport-

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ing them across state borders to neighboring sale barns, NPR reports.

“Our family’s been in this business for 75 years,” Leon Langford, an Oklahoma cattle rancher, told NPR. “Taking care of cattle, all day every day.”

Langford last year had 19 head of purebred Herefords stolen. They were worth an estimated $100,000.

Cattle thieves see higher profits as cattle prices rise

“You know, you’re sick to your stomach because you lost them,” Langford told NPR. “But when you know they’re stolen, it’s even a little worse. Somebody takes things that don’t belong to them, it’s a sickening feeling.”

The perpetrator, Christen Allen, 31, sold 10 of the registered purebreds at the Durant, Oklahoma, Stockyards on Oct. 10, 2013, according to the Texas and Southwestern Cattle Raisers Asso-

ciation.

According to TSCRA, Allen was sentenced to two years in the Oklahoma Department of Corrections for the thefts.

“This case highlights the positive outcomes that are possible when cattle are properly marked, branded or tattooed for identification purposes by the owners,” TSCRA Special Ranger Bart Perrier said.

“America’s Favorite Livestock Newspaper”

November 15, 2014

Page 15

Texas Adopts Rules for Livestock he Texas Animal Health Commission (TAHC) recently held a regularly scheduled Commission meeting on September 16, 2014, at its headquarters in Austin.

The following rules were adopted during the meeting and are now in effect: Chapter 38, Trichomoniasis, Testing/Herd Certification The commission adopted two new Trichomoniasis (Trich) testing requirements and two herd certification program requirements. n Testing Requirements: If a bull is sold and later found to be infected with Trich, other bull(s) from the infected bulls original herd of origin may be required to be tested if the bull was not exposed to female cattle after the sale, and prior to testing by the new owner. A second requirement passed states that if a bull is found to be infected with Trich on property not owned or managed by the original by caretaker of the bull (a stray), other bull(s) from both the unit of origin and bull(s) found on the premises where the bull was last located must all be officially tested for Trichomoniasis. n Herd Management: The first amendment allows the commission to evaluate the effectiveness of a herd control plan and authorizes the TAHC can choose to continue or disapprove the herd plan based on the progress or lack of progress made with the infected herd. A second amendment requires all herd owners enrolled in the Trich Herd Certification Program to have adequate perimeter fences around their property to prevent the ingress or egress of cattle.

Chapter 51, Entry Requirements, Cattle & Swine The commission added two exemptions to Trichomoniasis (Trich) testing requirements concerning the intrastate movement of breeding bulls entering

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Texas. The commission also added an entry requirement for non-commercial swine entering Texas. n Cattle: The first testing requirement exemption is for Texasbreeding bulls moving directly to an out-of-state facility that tests their gain and feed conversion for cattle (bull test stations). Such bulls do not need to be tested to return back to the Texas premises of origin as long as the bulls have been kept separate from female cattle while participating in the feed trial. The second texting exemption is for breeding bulls that originate from a herd that is enrolled in a Trich certification program in another state that is substantially similar to the Texas Certified Trich Free Herd Program, and confirmed by the TAHC. n Swine: For non-commercial swine entering Texas for reasons other than immediate slaughter, the commission now requires accredited veterinarians to include a statement on certificates of veterinary inspection (i.e. health certificates) That the swine represented on the certificate have not originated from a premises known to be affected by Novel Swine Enteric Coronavirus Disease(s) (SECD), and have not been exposed to SECD within the last 30 days.

Chapter 39, Scabies and Mange Mites The title and content of this chapter was modified to accurately identify that scabies and other contagious skin diseases identified in the chapter are caused by mange mites and to allow the use of new types of acceptable treatments for mange mites.

Chapter 45, Reportable Diseases, Novel Swine Enteric Coronavirus Disease(s) The commission added Novel Swine Enteric Coronavirus Disease (SECD) to the list of reportable diseases.

The following rules were proposed:

Chapter 43, Tuberculosis, Movement Restriction Zone Based upon the recommendations of the 2014 "Bovine Tuberculosis Risk Assessment for El Paso and Hudspeth Counties," the commission proposed amendments that would redefine the Movement Restriction Zone (MRZ) and specify that the El Paso and Hudspeth County MRZ restrictions are limited to bovine. The proposal would also remove the previous annual and bi-annual TB test requirements. Further, future TB testing of susceptible species in the MRZ would only be required if determined epidemiologically to be necessary by the commission.

Chapter 49, Equine, Piroplasmosis Testing Racetrack Facilities The proposal would broaden the existing definition of a "racetrack facility" to include facilities that are not licensed by the Texas Racing Commission. This requirement is intended to ensure that horses that compete at unsanctioned racetracks are tested negative prior to entry into facility.

Chapter 40, Chronic Wasting Disease, Movement Restriction Zone In 2012, the commission established two Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD) zones (Containment and High Risk) in portions of El Paso, Hudspeth and Culberson counties in West Texas to protect against the spread of CWD. Because the two original zone movement requirements were identical when passed, the commission has now proposed to combine the two separate geographical zones into a single new zone defined as the "Containment Zone". There is no change in zone requirements or boundaries, but simply a name change.

The High Risk zone concept is still valid, and may be applicable for other locations in the future if necessary.

Chapter 51, Entry Requirements, Swine

To be consistent with USDA animal disease traceability and interstate movement requirements, the commission proposed changes to swine entry identification requirements to accept registration tattoos and ear notches as official identification methods.

Chapter 57, Poultry, Larynogotracheitis Vaccine Virus For poultry entering Texas, the commission proposed an amendment to require accredit-

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Classifieds

ed veterinarians to certify on the required health certificate that the poultry listed on it have not originated from an area that has had "active chicken embryo origin Laryngotracheitis vaccine virus" circulating within it in the last 30 days.

To view the details of the rules recently passed visit http://www.tahc.state.tx.us/regs/ code.html.

For more information, visit www.tahc.texas.gov or call 1800/550-8242.

KADDATZ Auctioneering and Farm Equipment Sales New and used tractors, equipment, and parts. Salvage yard, combines, tractors, hay equipment and all types of equipment parts.

ORDER PARTS ONLINE.

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Our Next Bull Sale: February 14, 2015 at the Ranch NE of Estelline, TX Ranch-Raised ANGUS Bulls for Ranchers Since 1955

M.L. Bradley 806/888-1062 Fax: 806/888-1010 • Cell: 940/585-6471

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Issu CHANGE OF ADDRESS INSTRUCTIONS

RED ANGUS

Phillips

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Spring & Yearlings For Sale CeCil FelKiNS • 209/274-4338 email: CwCowboY@att.Net 5500 bueNa ViSta Rd. ioNe, Ca 95640

A SOURCE FOR PROVEN SUPERIOR RED ANGUS GENETICS 14298 N. Atkins Rd., Lodi, CA 95240

209/727-3335

If you’re moving or changing your mailing address, please clip and send this form to:

Livestock Market Digest, P.O. Box 7458, Albuquerque, N.M. 87194

BRANGUS

SANTA GERTRUDIS

Dan Wendt

Name Old Address

City, State, Zip

520/384-3654

S

4995 Arzberger Rd. Willcox, Arizona 85643 Willcox, AZ

Santa Gertrudis Cattle Polled and Horned HERD ESTABLISHED 1953

S

New Address

R.L. Robbs

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City, State, Zip

P.O. Box 867 Española, N.M. 87532

S

Call: 979/245-5100 • Fax 979/244-4383 5473 FM 457, Bay City, Texas 77414 dwendt@1skyconnect.net

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Livestock Market Digest

November 15, 2014