LMD Nov 2016

Page 1

Riding Herd

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

by LEE PITTS

– JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL

November 15, 2016 • www.aaalivestock.com

Volume 58 • No. 11

Chickenized BY LEE PITTS

I

hope that my Chicken Little routine that I’ve been doing these past 33 years on the front page of this newspaper hasn’t made anyone apathetic to the changes occurring in our industry. After all, I’ve been preaching that if we were not vigilant the sky could fall and the beef industry could go dark too as it was transformed into something akin to the poultry industry. If I’ve played the role Chicken Little it was only because I was so afraid of what BIG CHICKEN LICKEN would do to the rank and file of my friends, cattle ranchers.

Chicken Little Was Right

NEWSPAPER PRIORITY HANDLING

The only reason the cattle business hasn’t been vertically integrated and concentrated to the degree the poultry and hog business were is because it had something they didn’t: R CALF and competitive bidding at weekly cattle auctions and monthly video sales. Instead of a rancher getting one bid in the country for his calves, and that from a big feeder and their packer backers, they had marketing options. Competition was alive and well. And one can only speculate that if pork producers had an R PIGLET maybe they wouldn’t have lost 90 percent of their producers and those that remain wouldn’t be forced to sign one-sided con-

Dogs have owners. Cats have staff. tracts if they wanted to remain in the business. It was auctions and competitive bidding that discovered fair prices for cattle and prevented the widespread use of contract production as seen in the poultry industry with their 24 page contracts. Contracts that, by the way, confined the responsibilities of the packer to three paragraphs while the rest of the 24 page contract listed the responsibilities of the producer. For awhile even the hog industry was able to fend off the packers because they had

auctions too, but eventually too many hog producers signed on the dotted line to become contract producers, so with fewer and fewer hogs being sent to auction the pig markets dried up. Of course, there were other causes, the Chinese were allowed to buy Smithfiled, America’s largest pork packer, and the National Pork Producer’s Council (NPPC) got too powerful and cozy with the packers thanks to checkoff cash. Sound familiar? The final stroke came after a burst of great prices fol-

lowed by an eight cent hog market. Sure, it’s higher now, but that doesn’t resuscitate all those broke hog farmers. Chicken Little’s sky above America’s pig barns did come crashing down on hog farmers, and before you pass it off as just another fairy tale or child’s play, be advised that although my Chicken Little warnings may have gotten a little stale, the cattle business is currently very much in the process of what R CALF’s Bill Bullard calls “Being Chickenized.”

An Industry In Decline There are ominous dark clouds in the sky over cattle country and we find ourselves in the midst of a great storm. According to R CALF’s CEO Bill Bullard, “Over 40 percent of U.S. cattle operations in business about 30 years ago are gone today, we’ve lost over continued on page two

Lynx Rule Becomes Law of Land, But Will the Law Stand? BY ROB CHANEY / MISSOULIAN.COM

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court order to do more work on protecting Canadian lynx in Rocky Mountain forests could become a late-season battleground for congressional action this winter. In mid October, the Supreme Court let stand a U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruling that the U.S. Forest Service has to take a big-picture look at how it protects critical lynx habitat across 12 million acres touching 11 national forests. While wildlife advocates claimed a major win for the Endangered Species Act, timber industry supporters vowed to rewrite laws to speed up logging projects. “It’s now known as the Cottonwood decision, and it affects pretty much the whole Northwest,” said Julia Altemus of the Montana Wood Products Association. “I’m hoping we can find a path forward, either legally or by a congressional path.” Altemus referred to Cottonwood Environmental Law Center, whose Bozeman attorney John Meyer argued the Cottonwood vs. U.S. Forest Service USFS) case. “It’s our job to ensure the Forest Service is doing its job,” Meyer said. “We’re not looking to stop every timber sale. We’re trying to ensure we have communities that can log legally.” The case dredges up the long history of lynx protection over the past 16 years. The

U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service (FWS) declared Canada lynx a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act in 2000. It wrote management guidelines affecting snowmobiling, wildland firefighting, logging and thinning projects and other forest activity. In 2006, FWS mapped out lynx critical habitat in National Park Service (NPS) lands, but left out national forests. The next year, FWS consulted with the USFS and concluded that its national forest standards and guidelines wouldn’t hurt the wild cat. The Endangered Species Act requires any federal agency whose actions might affect a threatened species to consult with FWS to avoid harming the species. But an investigation into the critical habitat maps found that former Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Interior Julie MacDonald improperly excluded millions of acres of federal, state and private lands. MacDonald resigned and FWS redid its lynx habitat analysis, increasing the cat’s critical territory from 1,841 square miles to about 39,000 square miles. However, the USDA didn’t restart its consultation process with its sister agency on its own lynx standards and guidelines. Cottonwood Law and others sued the USFS over that omission and won at both the U.S. Discontinued on page four

Bullish

F

or years purebred bull breeders didn’t get paid what they deserved for making such a big investment in better genetics, so I’m glad to see them finally getting paid handsomely for their better bulls. Having said that, the rise in price has made it difficult on cheapskates like my friend Patch who never spent more than a $1,550 on a bull before in his life. Despite being one of the richest guys in the county he’s a sub-optimal spender who wears big patches on his drugstore pants. Hence the nickname. Patch is tighter than the wires on a brand new fence, looks in vending machines for any change left behind and worships the almighty dollar. In his 66 years of life he has never been known to utter the words, “Keep the change.” Most ranchers I know study all the bull sale catalogs and step up when it comes to buying better bulls because they know it will pay off when it comes time to sell their calves. Not to mention the added bonus of building a front pasture kind of cow herd. Granted, the typical wife of a rancher may be driving a 15 year old Yugo but the rancher will not hesitate to spend $7,000 for a bull. Not so Patch. For 35 years he has called me before every bull sale season and asked me to buy a couple bulls for him but to keep the price under $1,500 each. I didn’t mind buying bulls for him if he would just keep it a secret but no, every time his calves hit the sale ring he’d stand up, interrupt the auctioneer and say, “These calves were all sired by bulls selected by Lee Pitts.” And then the sorriest looking calves you ever saw would sell fifteen bucks behind the market toppers. Yes sir, if you wanted to crash the market then Lee Pitts was your guy. He never mentioned his cheap budget for bulls or that his wallet was rusted shut. One year I went fifty bucks over my limit on a better type of bull and you should have heard Patch cry. continued on page four

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