NMCGA President’s Message

PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE by Randell Major NMCGA President

Randell Major President Magdalena

Loren Patterson, President-Elect Corona

Dustin Johnson NW Vice President Farmington

Cliff Copeland NE Vice President Nara Visa

Jeff Decker SE Vice President Lovington

Roy Farr SW Vice President Datil

Joe Culbertson Vice President at Large Amistad

Shacey Sullivan Secretary/Treasurer Peralta

Tom Sidwell Immediate Past President Quay

Pat Boone Past President Elida

Dear Cattle Producers, and All,

As I write this letter, the 2021 Legislature still has several weeks to go. There are plenty of aggressive bills that are damaging to agriculture. The remote process has limited the ability to communicate to say the least. There is a black out from the normal process, and legislation passes along party lines without proper debate. Before COVID, we were able to knock on doors, talk to people and have that face-to-face communication. This is so important in educating legislators on our issues.

A big shout out to New Mexico’s Ag Group. They have been working hard and coming together to push or oppose legislation that advances and protects our farmers and ranchers under difficult circumstances.

New Mexico Cattle Growers’ Association (NMCGA) has been working overtime in getting information to legislative committee members. Just in one day, NMCGA made comments for 13 bills. I want to thank Loren, Michelle, and Taylor for all their hard work. NMCGA has sent letters to the Governor and held meetings with State officials concerning subject bills. Climate change, water, taxes, trapping, and property rights remain key issues for us in this year’s Legislative session. Our President Elect, Loren Patterson will have a full rundown on everything next month.

We would like to thank Tom Sidwell, Tamara Hurt, Alisa Ogden, Bill King, Bill Humphries, Bill Sauble, Joe Culbertson, Phil Bidegain, Bruce Davis, and all those who have helped in drafting comments, attending meetings and have been instrumental in furthering our cause. Always a shout out to our bill readers. Their dedication helps ease the workload of our legislative team. I apologize if I have left anyone out, but the list is large on all who have helped and you are appreciated.

Our Wildlife Subcommittee, being led by Chairman Dave Kenneke, and Co-Vice Chair Tom Patterson, have been a pillar of strength. I would also like to thank Gerald Chacon and Wesley Eaton who have been instrumental in their work on the committee.

As we move forward, one of our plans of action is to contact specific members of our association who personally know and can contact their legislative committee members concerning specific legislation and help support us.

Our Mid-Year meeting is scheduled on June 6th, 7th, and 8th and we have Dr. Frank Mitloehner who will be speaking during that meeting in Ruidoso. He is a professor at the University of California, Davis, and has commented extensively on climate issues in favor of the animal agriculture sector. Please plan on joining us for that interesting presentation.

NMCGA Board of Directors now have private access to their own page on the Association’s website. The new portal offers the ability to read the Association’s resolutions, minutes from past meetings, and all the bills that our association is following. If you need help logging in, just contact the NMCGA office.

I’m pleased to announce that our association’s financials finished 2020 in the black and our membership is continuing to grow. Let us continue to let our friends and neighbors know just how big the issues ranchers are facing and how important NMCGA membership is.

Praying for spring moisture and best to you all, My best to all of you,

Randell Major

WIT &

WISDOM

by Caren Cowan, Publisher

New Mexico Stockman

EGG-regious

Please understand as you read this, I am no novice when it comes to egg production and free enterprise. My first entrepreneurial endeavor was in the raising of chickens and selling eggs. At the age of five, my grandmother gave me a small flock of chickens to work with. For probably the next five years, I had a booming egg business.

Complete with a pet chicken in the Zoom testimony, the New Mexico Senate Conservation Committee heard Senate Bill 347, the Confinement of Egg-Laying Hens Act, in late February. The purpose of the bill is to require that ONLY cage free may be sold in New Mexico. Although most of the Committee commented that the bill was troubling, it passed out of Conservation on a 6 – 3 party line vote.

Many, many bills are going through the Legislature that have stories about them, some good, some bad, some amusing and some that just make you mad. SB 347 falls in the latter category.

While the sponsor of the measure is a long-term, well respected, caring legislator, Senator Pete Campos’ support of the concept of limiting choice and increasing costs for consumers is perplexing. The proponents of this measure are not even New Mexicans if you don’t count animal rightists. There were several New Mexicans in support of the bill, including the pet chicken.

SB 347 is an initiative of the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS). Hickman Cage Free Eggs, an Arizona company who sells eggs to Costco and other outlets, has teamed up with HSUS to pass these cage free egg bills in a few western states, including Arizona and Utah. Hickman tried to pass a cage free bill in Arizona during their last Legislature and failed.

Glenn Hickman, Hickman Eggs and Hickman Cage Free Eggs chief executive officer, is working to pass the measure in Arizona again, according to a tucson.com story by Howard Fisher with Capitol Media Services. In Arizona, Hickman claims that passing a bill is necessary to avoid a ballot initiative like the one passed in California a few years ago. In the Arizona measure Hickman gives himself until 2025 to comply with a cage free law. In the New Mexico bill Hickman wants compliance by 2022. Hickman is the only Arizona egg producer who would be affected by his bill.

Work is already being done for an Arizona ballot initiative for 2022. Ballot initiatives are not an option in New Mexico. An option in New Mexico is a constitutional amendment.

Testimony by Hickman and his hired gun lobbyists on SB 347 made it very clear that there is no consumer push in New Mexico for cage free eggs. In an effort to demonstrate a growing preference for cage free eggs, Hickman’s expert witness stated that cage free use in New Mexico has grown from six percent to less than 40 percent – a far cry from any kind of majority.

The push is coming from animal rights groups and corporate America they have duped including Walmart, Smith’s, and Taco Bell who have all pledged to be cage free by 2025. Maybe the corporate deals to develop their mandates came with a promise of a legal mandate for cage free eggs in individual states.

The Conservation Committee was repeatedly told that there was no cost differential between conventional eggs and cage free. That myth can be dismissed with a quick trip to a grocery store.

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in the New Mexico Stockman. Call: 505/243-9515.

At the Johns Brooks Supermarket near our home, you can buy a dozen Grade A eggs for as little $1.89. The prices range to $3.19 for EggLands Best – that probably pays for Egglands television advertising campaign. Hickman’s comes in at $2.39 for Grade AA eggs. A dozen brown cage free Egglands Best will cost you $3.99 a dozen.

Amazon’s Whole Foods sells only cage free eggs starting at $2.99 for a dozen brown and $3.29 for a dozen white. Walmart has a dozen white for as low as $1.39, while Smith’s Grade AA white eggs are available for $1.39 while cage free and free range (that probably comes next) start at $4.79 a dozen.

Looking at these numbers, it isn’t rocket science to see that New Mexicans already disadvantaged in most rankings for the county, will pay a high price for HSUS and Hickman’s whims.

I guess these people didn’t have parents that taught them that you got to h_ll for lying the same as for stealing. Hickman and HSUS are going for a double header.

But the real kicker here is that there are no egg producers in New Mexico of the scale for this proposed law to prevail. What SB 347 does do is create an unfunded mandate for the New Mexico State University Board of Regents and the New Mexico Department of Agriculture to certify any cage free egg producer anywhere who wishes to sell cage free eggs in the state.

At this writing, there is three weeks left in the 2021 Legislature. We have 21 days to keep this bill from getting to the Governor’s desk. Please call your local representatives and senators and ask them to VOTE NO on SB 347 anytime and every time they have an opportunity.

And there is more…

SB 347 is not the only bill in the Legislature that will be costly for New Mexicans if they make it to the Governor’s desk. There is SB 67 that will require any new or reconstructed energy generation facilities shall generate only clean energy… we saw how well that worked for Texas in mid-February.

There is SB 130 requiring that at least 75 percent of all state vehicles be electric by January 2030. SB 113 requires that all new resident construction after July 1, 2021 in New Mexico have photovoltaic systems (solar panels) and at least one electrical receptacle for charging electric vehicles. These bills have all passed their first committee and are awaiting hearing in their second committee.

Then there is Senate Joint Resolution (SJR) 3 that says: The people of the state have the natural, inherent and inalienable right to a clean and healthy environment, including water, air, soil, flora, fauna, ecosystems and climate, and to the protection of the natural, cultural, scenic and healthful qualities of the environment.

This bill too has passed and is up next in Senate Judiciary. It is worth remembering that a Resolution, which is an amendment to the state Constitution, requires a twothirds vote to get out of the Senate. If passed in both the House and the Senate will appear as on the next general election ballot.

A bill that had rural New Mexico in an uproar was SB 312. This 241-page beauty would have renamed and revamped the Department of Game & Fish to a wildlife conservation agency. It would have done away with the Jennings Law that allows landowners to take depredating wildlife (not wolves) a year after the depredation is reported to the Game Department. Its original version would have put outfitters and guides out of business.

This is one bill that has been put on the table at least as a result of a 4 – 4 tie on a motion to table. There was an effort to

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revive it in late February but a 4 – 4 vote left it on the table. This needs to be watched carefully, but it could have seen its last hearing.

The definition of insanity…

The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. President Biden’s Executive Order on the Mexican Border and the wall certainly fit that definition.

Even the far left CBS News has had to admit that there is a new crisis at the border. Biden has had to resort to the use of housing facilities for unaccompanied minors entering the US illegally. It is worth remembering that Biden and his running mate both railed against these facilities during their campaign.

But that’s just the national front. Only Fox News (not quite so liberal) has recognized the plight of ranchers living along the border who have suffered from illegal crossings, vandalism, theft, and bodily harm for decades. The wall along the Johnson family’s ranch was less than a mile from completion when Biden ordered workers off the wall.

The issues are even greater in a worldwide COVID pandemic. Our nation was just starting to see the light of day from the carnage the virus has caused in the past year. Combining illegal crossings into the country with the new variants from around the world is a recipe for disaster.

Rodeo is back!

While many livestock shows and rodeos cancelled early in the year, including the Arizona National, Denver, Fort Worth and Houston, the San Antonio Stock Show & Rodeo and The American Rodeo are big draws on the Cowboy Channel. Other events are lining up to get back to normal including the Calgary Stampede.

Some of those venues that opted out for 2021 may face some challenges if and when they decide to come back. In place of the Denver Livestock Show & Rodeo, a Cattlemen’s Congress was pulled together in Oklahoma City. All the reports are that the event was a huge success. The State of Oklahoma got behind the show complete with the Governor of Oklahoma greeting contestants at the gate. There was no rodeo with this event but who knows what will happen when folks have more than four months to create an event.

The Houston Livestock Show & Rodeo initially canceled their show, new dates of May 4 through 23, 2021 were announced in early February. However by that time a new show dubbed The International, a multi-breeding cattle show, is scheduled for March 23 through 27 in Waco, Texas.

New Mexico’s rodeo cowboys and cowgirls are back on the road. Shad Mayberry and Taos Muncy had some hard luck in San Antonio, but Socorro’s own Leon Fountain made the finals with great saddle bronc rides. Fountain covered four bronc with scores and winning that could drive him up in the Professional Cowboy Rodeo Association standings.

Nicole Baggarley, Las Cruces has been in the top 10 breakaway ropers and Monument’s Jake Cooper is back on the road and in the header standings.

March’s American will likely have a big impact in the standings moving forward. While there is $1 million at stake as well as $100,000 per event, only $50,000 of winnings will be applied to rankings.

The Black Helicopter Looms Large…

We continue to get Groupon offers to buy acreage on Mars… and now the Moon and Venus. The website selling this land is buyplanets.net which is copyrighted by the Nobel Society Service, a German company. You can buy fake lordship titles too.

The scary part of this is that these services are getting four star ratings… and 1,000 people have paid good money for this nonsense. It may only be $11 at a time, but that adds up.

The reviews are complimenting the PDFs that look great in frames and talking about how excited their children are about owning real estate in space. While parents and grandparents may think this is funny or cute, what happens in the future when space travel is readily available and those kids grow up and want to claim their piece of the rock?

Is this just another diabolical plot to undermine property rights? After all, deeds are just pieces of paper…

I know. I am close to the edge, but Legislature is in session and the world seems to be in a mess… ▫