Riding Herd – JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
August 15, 2020 • www.aaalivestock.com
Volume 62 • No. 8
We’re NOT All In This Together BY LEE PITTS
No Bottom
I
f I hear one more company advertise that we’re all in this Covid thing together I’m going to throw a rock at the TV. I don’t see government employees losing their jobs; I don’t see Congress going out of business like neighborhood stores and last time I checked Congressmen were still getting their checks. The bureaucracy is still in business, unlike 25 percent of the restaurants in this country that are expected to go broke due to the stop-and-start shutdowns. I don’t see dollar stores stacking their inventory outside and burning it up like the pork producers are doing. And I don’t see the market for the Big 4 multinational meatpackers, (2 American and 2 Brazilian) destroyed like the one they demolished for feeders and ranchers. If you believe that we’re all in this Covid thing together you probably also believe in Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy and the Easter Bunny. You ranchers who are hoping for some sort of justice and that USDA’s Report on Cattle Markets will find the packers guilty of collusion and price fixing, you can forget it. Ditto the Justice Department investigation. They won’t say the packers need to be busted up, nor will they even slap them on the wrist or make them pay heavy fines. No sir, the market meltdown that destroyed cattle feeders and ruined many ranchers was all caused by a virus called Covid 19. How convenient!
Do The Math
NEWSPAPER PRIORITY HANDLING
USDA’s Agricultural Marketing Service’s preliminary results of their investigation into the fire last year at a Tyson packing plant and how it killed live cattle markets said it could all
If it don’t seem like it’s worth the effort, it probably ain’t. be blamed on the coronavirus. Yes, the huge price discrepancies and volatility that made it possible for beef packers to make $700 per head could all be blamed on a flu bug that we didn’t even know about at the time, and no Americans were even sick with a year ago when the fire torched live cattle prices. The 20-page preliminary report confirmed that there was massive volatility to both cash and futures markets after the fire (duh). They also concluded that during the Covid pandemic they could find no wrong-doing on the part of anyone, let alone the packers. Let’s look at some statistics about the market meltdown that was nobody’s fault shall we? • According to analysis by IRI, a data analysis firm, from March 15 through July 12 dollar sales at grocery stores were up 35.9 percent while the volume of sales at grocery stores increased 22.5 percent. The
increase translated into an additional $7.4 billion in meat department sales during the pandemic including an additional $3.3 billion for beef. Who got the money? • The higher retail prices for beef along with a “shortage” caused by Covid, occurred while prices for live cattle dropped like a falling rock. • Cattle sold out of Southern feedyards at $95 to $96 as this story is being written, this at a time when beef sales at retail were said to be “robust.” • Many stores reported that they ran out of beef, such was the consumer demand. • R-CALF USA CEO Bill Bullard said, “This is one reason we’ve lost 75 percent of our nation’s independent cattle feeders during the past two decades. Our nation’s farmer-feeders no longer have a competitive market in which to sell their cattle and this has been the situation for years.”
The investigation into why the market for live cattle seemed to have no bottom was prompted by extremely mad ranchers and feeders who saw the packers getting even richer while none of the extra money for beef ended up in the pockets of those who produced it. And all the USDA could come up with was, “The Ag Marketing Service has limited ability to publicly report the full scope and status of the investigation.” This made already-mad ranchers even madder. “Price fixing in the meat industry is not a new phenomenon,” said National Farmer’s Union President Rob Larew. “A century ago, Farmers Union members were contending with similarly high levels of concentration among meatpackers and the anticompetitive practices that kind of market power enables. Recognizing the immense danger of unchecked corporate consolidation, Congress and the White House worked together to restore competition and shield farmers and ranchers from abusive treatment.” Don’t expect today’s spineless Congress to do anything similar. Of course the packer backers at the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association continued on page two
Big Green: How Environmental Groups Got Rich E&E News analysis of financial records filed with the Federal Election Commission. Super PACs supporting progressive climate change and environmental policies are now an onservative outside groups spent nearly integral part of the Democratic election ecosysa year airing ads in Michigan attacking tem. Democratic Sen. “The bottom Gary Peters and boosting line is people are Major green super PACs have his main Republican rival, collectively doubled their fundraising and fired up,” said Pete John James. senior more than doubled their spending in races Maysmith, The attacks went vir- since Donald Trump won the White House vice president of tually unanswered. Then campaigns for the the cavalry arrived. League of ConserA trio of so-called super political action com- vation Voters. “And that’s translating to more mittees, or super PACs, tied to major national money, in part.” environmental groups launched a $1 million ad Super PACs are more important than buy in April touting Peters’ green record. It was a sign of what would unfold in the ever. following months as environmentalists became Sheila Krumholz, Center for Responsive Politics some of the biggest spenders in U.S. politics. LCV, in particular, is emerging as one of preWith less than 100 days until the elections, sumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe green groups are flexing their newfound muscle Biden’s best-funded allies. through super PAC expenditures that far exceed At the end of June 2016, as the presidential their past spending. A super PAC can raise and contest between Trump and Democrat Hillary spend unlimited amounts of money as long as it Clinton kicked into full gear, the LCV Victory doesn’t coordinate with a candidate’s campaign. Fund — the group’s super PAC affiliate — had Major green super PACs have collective- spent a little over $100,000 supporting green ly doubled their fundraising and more than candidates in the election. doubled their spending in races since Donald Trump won the White House, according to an continued on page four ADAM ATON, TIMOTHY CAMA AND NICK SOBCZYK, E&E NEWS REPORTERSPUBLISHED: WEDNESDAY, JULY 29, 2020
C
by LEE PITTS
Moniker Madness
A
s I write this the Washington Redskins are going through very public agonizing spasms trying to come up with a new name that doesn’t offend anyone. One of the suggestions was The Washington Navajo Code Talkers, this despite the fact that Washington DC is 2,000 miles off the reservation. If Washington DC really wanted an appropriate name they’d call themselves the Washington Crooks, or the Washington Swindlers. By the time you read this the Redskins will have a new politically correct name and I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s the Washington BLM Muslim Socialists. After the Redskins change their name can the Atlanta Braves, Golden State Warriors, Kansas City Chiefs and Cleveland Indians be far behind? Frankly, there are many names of the four major professional sports that offend me. (I don’t count soccer.) We have the sexist Milwaukee Bucks but where are the Does and am I to assume that the Nashville Predators are a bunch of perverts and sexual deviants? The San Antonio Spurs are named after an instrument used to jab a horse and the animal rightists can’t be pleased about that. Perhaps they should rename themselves the San Antonio PETA’s. The Los Angeles Lakers are named after the lakes in Minnesota and I’m sure all the old hippies who enjoy baseball would much prefer the name The L.A. Draft Dodgers. New York teams are named after Giants, Knickerbockers and Yankees so to be fair shouldn’t we have The Atlanta Confederates? Perhaps the Yankees would more appropriately be called the New York Leftists and the New England Patriots, in the spirit of the day, should be called the New England Slave-Owning Patriots. I’m sure enviros and greenies are offended by all the references to fossil fuels like the Oilers, Pistons, Flyers, and Jets. The Chargers are probably okay but don’t be surprised if they change their name in the future to the L.A. Solar Panels. And it doesn’t set a very good example for our young peo-
continued on page five
Page 2
Livestock Market Digest
August 15, 2020
TOGETHER (NCBA) were happy with USDA’s non-report. NCBA’s CEO Colin Woodall was quick to cover up the packer’s tracks saying, “There was nothing to indicate any sort of market manipulation.” Adding, “This is just one part of it. I think this is an important piece of the overall puzzle and we needed to see what USDA would find. There are a lot of individuals who believe that anything short of packers going to jail is not going to be acceptable. But I hope that they will take the time to read what is here and understand that USDA spent a lot of time and effort to try to make sure that they get as much information that they can analyze, look at it from a true third party viewpoint, in order to provide the industry some of the best information we could get.” So, according to the NCBA this non-information is the “best information we can get.”
We Can’t Be That Stupid
Amanda & Devin Kanapilly
For more than 100 years, Farm Credit of New Mexico has been farmer and rancher owned. Over that time, we’ve helped countless family businesses prosper and grow. Unlike other financial institutions, we’re not a bank. We’re member-driven. What can we do for you?
farmcreditnm.com 1-800-451-5997
For advertising, subscription and editorial inquiries write or call: Livestock Market Digest P.O. Box 7458 Albuquerque, N.M. 87194
Livestock Market Digest (1SSN 0024-5208) (USPS NO. 712320) is published monthly except semi-monthly in September in Albuquerque, N.M. 87104 by Livestock Market Digest, Inc. Periodicals Postage Paid at Albuquerque, N.M. POSTMASTER-Send change of address to: Livestock Market Digest, P.O. Box 7458, Albuquerque, N.M. 87194
Telephone: 505/243-9515 Fax: 505/349-3060 www.aaalivestock.com EDITORIAL and ADVERTISING STAFF: CAREN COWAN..........Publisher LEE PITTS....................Executive Editor CHUCK STOCKS.........Publisher Emeritus RANDY SUMMERS......Sales Rep FALL MARKETING EDITION AD SALES:
Subscribe Today
RANDY SUMMERS, 505/850-8544 email: rjsauctioneer@aol.com FIELD EDITOR:
NAME
DELVIN HELDERMON, 580/622-5754 1094 Koller Rd, Sulpher, OK ADMINISTRATIVE and PRODUCTION STAFF:
ADDRESS
MARGUERITE VENSEL..Office Manager CITY
STATE
My check is enclosed for:
ZIP
One Year: $25.00 Two Years: $35 Single copy: $10.00 Clip & mail to: Livestock Market Digest, P.O. Box 7458, Albuquerque, N.M. 87194
JESSICA DECKER..........Special Assistance CHRISTINE CARTER......Graphic Designer
Some people think the Justice Department investigation, which is separate from USDA’s investigation, will come down harder on the meatpackers but don’t hold your breath. Not as long as representatives of beef organizations that are under the authority of the USDA keep covering up the packer’s tracks and keep sending signals to Congress that all is well in the beef business. NCBA’s Woodall tried to soothe irritable ranchers by saying, “DOJ employees were in the country interviewing people throughout the entire beef supply chain. There’s more to come on this in terms of whether or not there’s any sort of criminal action that may have taken place.” And we’re sure the NCBA played some role in providing Justice investigators with a list of Kool-Aid drinking NCBA’ers who they should interview. The packers are sure getting their money’s worth from the NCBA, oh I almost forgot, the packer’s don’t have to pay anything into the beef checkoff that keeps the NCBA afloat. It’s the ranchers money, one dollar per head at a time, that’s keeping the packer-biased NCBA alive so they can cut the legs out from under the very people who are financing them. And yet there are still ranchers who willingly join the NCBA and believe every word they say. We can’t be that stupid, can we?
RAMP-UP In response to the unseemly packer profits and subsequent crash in the live cattle market House Agriculture Committee Chairman Collin Peterson, D-Minn., Rep. Frank Lucas, R-Okla. and other House members introduced a bill they called the Ramp-Up Act, (Requiring Assistance to Meat Processors for Upgrading Plants). The bill would “establish a program to make facility upgrade and planning grants to existing meat and poultry processors to help them move to federal Inspection and be able to sell their products across state lines.” “We have seen the importance of having meat and poultry processors of all sizes in Minnesota and across the country over the past few months,” said Peterson. “The RAMP-UP Act will provide grants to help
continued from page one
these rural small businesses meet that demand, wherever their customers live.” Chellie Pingree, a Democrat from Maine and former small farm operator said, “During the coronavirus pandemic, we’ve seen how disruptions in just a few meat and poultry facilities can create ripple effects throughout the entire supply chain. We must shift towards a more diversified and resilient processing model. The RAMPUP Act would help defray the costs of attaining federal inspection for meat and poultry processing facilities, which will give local producers more options to get food to their customers.”
In Competition With Ourselves What the industry really needs are courageous ranchers who have the assets to go into competition with the Big Four who are producing a product that can come from almost anywhere in the world. Beef is just another commodity to the packers. They will get their beef from whoever can produce it the cheapest AND THAT’S NOT YOU! Ranchers and breed associations have gone to great lengths to improve their genetics and the quality of the beef they’re producing and yet it’s the BIG Four who have been the biggest beneficiaries. What is needed are more private labels that ranchers can brag about that the BIG Four can’t compete with. That’s beef produced without any hormones, no beta agonists, only the best quality that can be traced back to the producers, and beef that’s produced right here in the United States. The Covid crises has made the American consumer realize just how food insecure they really are. It wasn’t just toilet paper they were stocking up on. Covid 19 has also made Americans mad at China for their reprehensible role in this entire affair. Consumers have never been in a better mood to buy American. If ranchers built a small packing plant and produced a product that would be far superior to the beef from Namibia they would have multiple outlets to sell it. Such a product would by-pass the BIG FOUR packers, the NCBA and their checkoff millions and other middlemen. Profits would go to the shareholder members. It’s been done before and it worked. It would work even better now. When I was a kid nearly everyone had a freezer on the back porch or in the garage that was filled with meat, mostly beef. They bought this beef one quarter or one half of a carcass at a time. Or they could buy a quarter or side of beef from an ad they saw every week in their TV Guide which featured “Prime American Aberdeen Angus Beef”. I’ve never tasted better beef in my life! The menu for every night’s dinner was determined by what was left in the freezer. The producers weren’t afraid to advertise the fact that it was better than the generic beef you could buy in the chain stores that were just starting to take hold. One wonders, what would happen today if the best brand of beef in America, CAB, started a couple packing plants that were the only source of CAB continued on page three
August 15, 2020
Livestock Market Digest
Page 3
TOGETHER beef? In my neck of the woods farmers are selling boxes of mixed vegetables with a bottle of locally produced wine to individual consumers on a weekly basis and are realizing extra profit by getting rid of the middlemen. Farmers Markets are booming and yet beef can’t participate in this food renaissance because it has to be federally inspected. Once again, the feds are the bottleneck. The time has come to go in competition with ourselves. Are the packers and NCBA going to fight it. No, because they’re defending an inferior product and they’d have to answer some embarrassing questions about beta agonists and imported beef. Of course, the NCBA will wail, say that these new packers are traitors and we shouldn’t be bad-mouthing commodity beef
continued from page two
because “we’re all in this together.” They will say this because the NCBA has been a mouthpiece for the packers ever since its inception. 44 Farms is a model many could follow. It used to be that
their ads they are far better than anything the Beef Council has ever done. It was “program cattle” that topped this summer’s auctions and they will be key if we are to transition to a better business
“This is one reason we’ve lost 75 percent of our nation’s independent cattle feeders during the past two decades.” this premier Angus breeder only bought cattle for their branded beef program from ranchers who bought their bulls, but the program has been so successful they were a BIG buyer at this summer’s big video auctions and it didn’t matter if the cattle they bought were produced by their own bulls or not. They needed more similarly great cattle because of the success of their program. If you’ve seen
model. Instead of selling to the Big Four why don’t programs build their own packing plants or rent shackle space, maybe even from the Big Four. That way the rancher shareholders realize the huge profits instead of the packers. Is this all a pipe dream? Perhaps, but the alternative is to end up like pork producers with dead, over-ripe hogs stacked hog-house-high waiting to be
disposed of because there was no place to process them. The pork industry lost 90% of their producers in the last 20 years and it’s estimated they could lose another 90% by the time the Covid wreck is over. Two million hogs are still backed-up and Dr. Steve Meyer said U.S. pork producers have lost nearly $5 billion in actual and potential profits for 2020. He said it appears those losses will continue into 2021. The only alternative the hog farmers have is to beg the government for more bailout money. Is that the future you want? If so, keep walking in their footsteps. What’s becoming increasingly clear is that ranchers are going to have to choose one team or the other. They can drink the Kool Aid, pay their NCBA dues, sell commodity beef that competes
A Billion Dollar Solar Boondoggle in Vegas
BY DR. JAY LEHR |CFACT
O
n May 12 the Interior Department gave approval for the largest solar power project in the U.S. to be built by Warren Buffett’s NV Energy company on 7100 acres of Federal lands in the Mohave Desert. At a cost of one billion dollars, it pales into insignificance on the days we read of the trillions of dollars being spent battling the corona virus economic destruction. But a boondoggle by any other name remains a boondoggle. The plan for this three year project is very specific and quite ambitious and will never fulfill even close to its targets of 690 megawatts that are said will power 260,000 homes, provide 900 jobs, with a massive battery backup to replace the solar system at night, and emit no carbon dioxide. Had the government seen Michael Moore’s brilliant new movie Planet For The Humans before approving the project they may not have approved it. The film illustrates on the ground at various sites, how and why every major solar project in the country has failed
miserably. In just a few sentences we can explain the futility of this mammoth project that will blight this great desert forever, while pulling the curtain down on the futility of attempting to obtain dependable power from the sun unless it is on your roof top. We have been lying to ourselves about this potential for over three decades. In a new book light-heartedly titled The Hitchhikers Journey Through Climate Change one discovers that the renewable energy debate can be summed up with a simple Rule of Thumb which states “in every communities electric grid, an excess amount of fossil fuel or nuclear power must be available at the ready to go on line in seconds, that is equal to the potential output of all intermittent solar energy considered a portion of the grids electric capacity”. No batteries exist on earth that could take up the load when the sun is not shining. If they could it would likely only be for a single night for how would then recharge them. This is a fairy tale of absurdity being sold to Las Vegas just as the snake oil salesmen of
the old west plied their trade. When you digest this simple rule, you will wonder that the pro/con arguments over solar energy have gone on for so long without facing the only reality that can ever allow solar energy to be an important part of our energy portfolio. It must have 100 percent back up with fossil fuel or nuclear power to insure that the communities electric grid can not let them down. Las Vegas of all places can not afford a blackout. Thinking that some special new battery is going to maintain as much power as the absent sun, has been and will be an impossibility for the foreseeable future. The mandatory back up fossil fuel must stand by running near full out and emitting carbon dioxide and producing no electricity until the sun can not fill the bill and it must step in. The excess cost for the excess backup power will show up in the electric bills of the residents of Las Vegas as sure as night shall follow day. CFACT Senior Science Analyst Jay Lehr has authored more than 1,000 magazine and journal articles and 36 books. Jay’s new book A Hitchhikers Journey Through Climate Change written with Teri Ciccone is now available on Kindle and Amazon.
with imported beef, lose their shirts every eight to ten years and try to start all over again. Or they can unhook themselves from this commodity beef business model and go into competition with the packers who have been stealing from them for years. I promise you this, when we get to the other side of this Covid crises the world will have been changed forever. In the beef business you will either be a packer pawn, or you can produce a product you are proud of, that you’d proudly put your name on, and that will make foreign beef look and taste like trash fish. And remember this even if you don’t remember another thing from this article... WE ARE NOT ALL IN THIS THING TOGETHER!
Page 4
Livestock Market Digest
August 15, 2020
BIG GREEN Flash-forward to the 2020 cycle, and by the end of June, the total stood at more than $7 million, FEC records since the beginning of 2019 show. In terms of fundraising, the LCV Victory Fund has taken in at least $33.2 million since the start of last year — the biggest haul of the major green super PACs. Already, the 2020 cycle has been the best fundraising period in the group’s history. Overall, the LCV Victory Fund is the country’s seventh-biggest super PAC in terms of fundraising and the eighth-biggest by independent expenditures, according to data compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics. That’s a change from 2016 and 2018, when LCV Victory sat on the edges of the top 10 in expenditures and fundraising. “Super PACs are more important than ever. They are formally unofficial extensions of the campaign strategy. They’ve really become embedded in the campaign finance system,” said Sheila Krumholz, executive director of the Center for Responsive Politics.
‘A lot of money at this stage’ So far this cycle, four major green super PACs — the LCV Victory Fund; EDF Action Votes, affiliated with the Environmental Defense Fund; Sierra Club Independent Action; and NRDC Action Votes, affiliated with the Natural Resources Defense Council — have made nearly $9 million in independent expenditures. At this time in 2016, those groups had spent less than $200,000. Some had spent essentially nothing at this point in the last two elections. Others didn’t exist yet. The NRDC and EDF super PACs were just established in this election cycle and have already spent nearly $1.5 million, while the Sierra Club’s affiliate has already spent roughly $400,000, more than six times its total from 2016. Meanwhile, the NextGen Climate Action Committee — the super PAC backed by billionaire Tom Steyer that focuses on a variety of progressive issues — has already racked up $1.5 million in independent expenditures this cycle. That’s compared with minuscule numbers by this time in the 2018 and 2016 cycles. “It’s certainly a lot of money at this stage in the cycle,” Krumholz said. After trailing conservative groups for years, she
continued from page one
added, liberal super PACs have emerged over the past two cycles as the dominant spenders. Some activists on the left have bristled at the super PAC spending spree, viewing it as either morally dubious or inefficient compared with voter mobilization and other on-the-ground tactics. But the past few years have seen liberals grow increasingly comfortable with big-money groups, Krumholz said, and their tactics have proved mostly effective. “There will always be some spaghetti on the wall,” she said. “But these are organizations that clearly have successful fundraising operations, connections to mega-donors and pose a formidable challenge to their opponents because they have the money, because this is a major issue that people are concerned about ... and they have the ability to scale.”
‘Going in early’ Airing ads early in the cycle might be the biggest change this year, said Jossie Steinberg, director of NRDC Action Votes. Going up early helps shape which issues will matter in the race and helps control how those issues will be framed, she said. “We’re never going to match [the fossil fuel industry] dollar for dollar, and we don’t have to,” she said. “What going in early allows us to do in a lot of these races is have the public on our side,” she added. “We have science supporting our position, so we don’t need to hide our message or pretend we’re something we’re not. ... It lets us kind of control the messaging in the race.” LCV Victory is operating under a similar theory for 2020. A big chunk of its more than $7 million in independent expenditures so far has gone toward an ongoing ad campaign coordinated with Priorities USA Action, a major super PAC supporting Biden. The campaign, which the groups say will cost $14 million total, seeks to put a magnifying glass on Trump’s environmental record and compare it with Biden’s recently released climate plan. LCV’s research and polling has shown that swing voters in key states believe Trump is wrong on the environment, Maysmith said. “But they think it is more a sin of omission than commission,” Maysmith said. “They don’t actually know how actively
terrible he’s been, and so when we learned that, what that told us was we need to communicate with those folks early.” The Environmental Defense Fund launched its super PAC last May, as election season started to heat up. The new entity comes as the group shifts slightly from its history of not endorsing election candidates. EDF Action, its advocacy affiliate, announced earlier this year that it endorses Trump’s defeat. “The stakes for this election have never been higher for our environment, for science, for our health and for our climate,” said Hannah Blatt, the super PAC’s spokeswoman. “That’s why EDF Action Votes felt it was critical to get involved with all the tools we are able to deploy to defeat Donald Trump, and elect and reelect pro-environment senators and House members.” EDF Action Votes is carrying on the group’s bipartisan tradition. While greens are overwhelmingly supporting Democrats, EDF’s PAC has spent money to back Rep. Brian Mast (R-Fla.) and Dan Driscoll, an unsuccessful candidate who ran in the GOP primary for North Carolina’s 11th District. The surge in green groups’ spending comes as their main foe, the fossil fuel industry, struggles from bankruptcies and falling revenues amid pandemic woes. The industry generally does not have super PACs of its own, though plenty of conservative groups spend money on candidates aligned with fossil fuel interests. For instance, Club for Growth Action has tallied $12.7 million in independent expenditures since the beginning of 2019. And Americans for Prosperity Action, which is backed by the Koch political network, has spent $2.5 million so far, according to FEC filings. Those groups aren’t explicitly tied to industry, but environmentalists nonetheless see their own election spending as a counterweight. Greens need to press their advantage during the industry’s downturn, said Steyer, the billionaire activist and former presidential candidate who founded NextGen and is its main funder. “There aren’t a lot of American oil and gas companies that make money at $40 a barrel or at $1.70 gas. ... And I don’t say that with glee,” Steyer said. “There’s a lot of pain in the oil patch, and so their ability to be politically active and make the donations they’ve made in the past may not be the same,” he added.
Campaign finance puzzle Super PACs came about as a result of two major federal court decisions in 2010 — Citizens United v. FEC and SpeechNow. org v. FEC — that rolled back major limitations on campaign finance. PACs that do not coordinate with specific candidates’ campaigns can raise unlimited money and make unlimited expenditures — dubbed “independent expenditures” — supporting or opposing candidates.
We’re not going to cede the field. Pete Maysmith, League of Conservation Voters
And while super PACs must report their donations, those can come from organizations like nonprofits that don’t need to disclose their donors, thus obscuring the true sources of the money. Environmental super PACs reviewed by E&E News appear to have gotten relatively little of their contributions through “dark money” means. Super PACs have been controversial since they started in 2010, especially among Democrats, who have argued that super PACs can allow industries to exert undue influence over politics and hide their activities. Opponents have made various promises and attempts to further regulate or ban them. Those include the “For the People Act,” which House Democrats passed last year to usher in numerous election-related policy changes, including new restrictions on super PACs. LCV was one of the bill’s backers, as part of its support for campaign finance reforms that would limit the role of money in elections. Environmental groups recognize how controversial super PACs are, but they aren’t deterred. In LCV’s view, to stay out of the existing system would be to buckle to industry. “We’re not going to cede the field,” Maysmith said.
‘Litmus test’ Environmental groups in 2014 cheered increased coordinating and spending upward of $85 million (Greenwire, Oct. 29, 2014). Their money game has only gotten stronger. But the ultimate result of greens’ election influence is still up in the air. In the immediate aftermath of 2020, it could make lawmakers more likely to pay attention to how environmental groups track their votes and public statements. The LCV scorecard, which rates lawmakers based on how their votes align with environmental priorities, only becomes more influential as the group’s super PAC spends more money on elections, said Barry Rabe, a professor of public policy at the University of Michigan who tracks environmental politics. For a group that’s raising and spending in eight figures, “to have a litmus test on different votes becomes really significant,” Rabe said. NRDC President Gina McCarthy, a former EPA administrator, helped write Biden’s expanded climate and jobs plan — a level of direct, public involvement for green groups that’s virtually unprecedented in presidential campaigns. The rhetoric from Democrats on the campaign trail in recent months, particularly since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, has generally mirrored their environmental backers. In that sense, Rabe said, greens are setting themselves up well to be part of the conversation if Democrats sweep in November and look to pass some kind of major stimulus and infrastructure bill to respond to the pandemic-induced economic downturn. Even if this year’s green surge is being driven by a reaction to Trump, the numbers alone suggest “that there really is an underpinning for these kinds of groups and advocacy,” Rabe said.
Big Green The surge in Big Green spending comes at an inflection point for those organizations. They’ve faced criticism for histories that range from disproportionately white to outright racist. That reckoning has also raised questions about their policy priorities (Greenwire, June 5). Smaller, more diverse organizations, like the Sunrise Movement, have driven Democratic Party leaders to mostly embrace a climate framework of massive government spending with a focus on environmental justice. Big Green groups lagged behind on that push, only consolidating around it after it was embraced by Biden. Those Big Green groups are mostly run by — and are most representative of — affluent white people, said Adrien Salazar, a senior campaign strategist and climate expert at the think tank Demos. Their control over the lion’s share of the movement’s money means empowering the same people who neglected environmental justice and failed to build power around climate in past elections, he added. “The environmental movement is not homogeneous. It’s very diverse,” he said. “But largely, it’s the same handful of groups that have enormous political power in Washington, D.C., to help set the environmental agenda.”
Copying ‘our enemies’? Green groups are adamant that they are increasingly emphasizing environmental justice, both in the ads from their affiliated super PACs and in the policies they’re advocating on Capitol Hill, particularly after weeks of nationwide racial justice protests (E&E Daily, June 4). LCV, Maysmith said, is looking to tie Trump’s handling of COVID-19 to his denial of climate science and his regulatory rollbacks to pollution in environmental justice communities. Salazar, however, also questioned the long-term impact of the super PAC spending. Anti-Trump ads might succeed in driving Republicans from office this year, he said, but long-term power will rely on organizing the people who have the most to lose from climate change and the most to gain from a cleaner, fairer economy. The super PAC strategy, he added, seems to mistakenly assume that environmentalists could gain and wield power the same way industry does. “Is it worthwhile to be pumping all this money into the kind of political organizing that our enemies do?” he asked. But Tom Pyle, president of the American Energy Alliance, said green groups have succeeded in capturing Biden and the Democratic Party. “I have been saying for years that Big Green Inc. has supplanted the unions as both the money and the muscle for the Democratic Party, which is precisely why Biden has lurched to the left on these issues and has tossed aside the working class,” Pyle said. “All their rhetoric about saving the planet is just that. What the greens are really after is power, control and access, and the path to all three is through a Biden administration.”
August 15, 2020
Livestock Market Digest
Page 5
Brahman-type Cattle May Require Less Nitrogen; Feeding Them Accordingly Could Reduce Nitrogen Emissions
A
recently funded Texas A&M AgriLife study will determine differences in nitrogen requirements between Brahman (Bos taurus indicus) type cattle and other cattle. Measuring these differences may allow cattle producers to reduce the protein in cattle diets by allowing for precise diet formulations. “Implementation of precision diet formulation in cattle diets can be the answer to producing a more affordable beef with a smaller environmental impact,” said Tryon Wickersham, Ph.D., Texas A&M AgriLife Research, scientist and associate professor in the Department of Animal Science in the Texas A&M College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. “We believe development of feeding systems that account for differences in cattle type will reduce over and under supplementation, allowing us to optimize growth, reproduction and animal health outcomes,” Wickersham said. “Additionally, precise feeding systems will reduce the environmental footprint of beef production.”
Different cattle subspecies, different nutritional needs Cattle are divided into two subspe-
cies, Bos taurus taurus, which generally have no hump and originate from Europe, and Bos taurus indicus, generally having a hump and originating in India. “These cattle were selected under very different conditions and have developed the capacity to thrive under different conditions,” Wickersham said. “These adaptations affect the way they perform and have not been well accounted for in current beef cattle feeding systems, increasing the environmental and economic cost associated with beef production.” Wickersham’s study is designed to address the relationship between urea recycling, microbial nitrogen capture and supplementation strategies in both types of cattle consuming low-quality forage. “Cattle provide a valuable service to society by converting low-quality sources of nutrients such as grasses, crop residues and byproducts into beef, which is a high-quality source of amino acids, minerals and vitamins,” Wickersham said. “However, there is room to improve the efficiency of this conversion to reduce the environmental effects of beef production and increase consumer access to these vital nutrients,” he said, “thus allowing more people to consume a diet meeting their requirements.”
Increasing productivity “We believe reducing the over provision of protein by 10 percent potentially reduces nitrogen excretion from cattle by approximately 22 pounds per head per year or 704 million pounds for the U.S. beef industry per year,” Wickersham said. “The potential savings, on a soybean meal-equivalent basis, is $1.4 billion per year.” Wickersham’s latest research project, supported by an almost $500,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture National Institute for Food and Agriculture, is titled “Enhancing sustainability of beef production by elucidating subspecies differences in urea recycling in response to supplementation.” “We are doing this research because improper supplementation to cattle has environmental and economic cost, which ultimately decreases the affordability of beef for consumers,” Wickersham said.
The role of supplements and their effects Growth, reproduction and health of cattle are affected by the grass and hay they consume — and at times supplements are provided to improve their ability to thrive on their diets, he said.
“Supplements are expensive and represent an increased use of nutrients,” Wickersham said. “By developing feeding systems that account for differences in cattle type, we can reduce the effects of cattle production without compromising the animal’s nutritional status.” Completion of the proposed project will provide data allowing for precise delivery of supplemental nitrogen for cattle grazing low-quality forage across a wide array of production systems, he said. Capturing data in both subspecies enhances the global utility of these projects for meeting the increasing demand for animal proteins. Wickersham chose to address the problem of over and underfeeding of protein in cattle diets by elucidating the differences in nitrogen utilization and recycling to improve the capacity to describe urea recycling and microbial capture of recycled nitrogen, both essential to precision diet formulation. “Ultimately, we believe precision diet formulation will reduce both overfeeding and underfeeding of nitrogen and increase the environmental, economic and social sustainability of beef production,” Wickersham said.
Eliminate Fossil Fuels Now — U.S. “MAGICC” Model Says Why Bother? BY COLLISTER JOHNSON |CFACT
T
he climate alarmist community loves computer models, especially those that predict, with certainty, that the Earth will become uninhabitable by as early as 2050. This of course, unless human production of CO2 is drastically reduced, if not eliminated altogether. A sixteen year old Swedish schoolgirl, a former Vice President of the United States, a member of the British Royal Family, a freshman member of Congress and others actually believe that Armageddon will happen much earlier than 2050. But we will ignore celebrity Apocalyptics for the moment and focus this discussion on the reliance by Alarmists on computer models. These models are represented by what the UN calls General Circulation Models (GCMs). There are more than 100 of them, mostly produced in the early 1980s. So far, they have proven to be spectacularly wrong, drastically over estimating the increase in observed global temperaratures.
Almost as soon as they were created, these predictions ran afoul of satellite data, which replaced land-based thermometers that for years had been “adjusted “ (fudged) by scientists at NOAA and other official organizations in order to support the man-made global warming narrative. The UN, its sister agency, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) believe that these computer projections are correct. After all, they were produced by the best scientists in their fields, weren’t they? So, human-caused CO2 has to be reduced. But how much reduction is enough to save the planet? Some True Believers advocate taxes on “carbon” (True Believer-speak for carbon dioxide), which might reduce manmade CO2 50 percent in the US by 2050. Other True Believers argue that reduction needs to be 100 percent. Moreover, if a “climitate crisis” is truly to be averted, that reduction must occur immediately. This reduction could be ac-
complished, Tue Believers maintain, by the total elimination of the use of fossil fuels for transportation, electricity, manufacturing, agriculture, and building construction.In order to accomplish this reduction now, there cannot be any more fossil fuel powered trucks, cars, or tractors. No more coal, natural gas, or oil electric generating plants. No more buildings, farming equipment, and even plastic straws, as we know them. But what impact would such a scenario – as physically, practically, politically and fiscally impossible as it may seem – actually have on world temperature?
We are glad you asked that question. Just as with the General Circulation Models, the UN and the US Government have developed a computer model which is designed to actually tell us the answer. The name of this model is the Model for the Assessment of Greenhouse Gas Induced Climate Change – MAGICC. (We’re not making this up.) MAGICC
RIDING HERD ple to see mature adults spell team names “Sox” instead of “Socks”. We should call them the Chicago Illiterates. Speaking of Chicago, we have the Chicago Bulls but where are the Chicago Cows or Chicago Heiferettes? There are other sexes, you know? The gay community should insist that the Golden State Warriors have a sex change to The California LGBTQ’s. And while we’re being more honest, the Green Bay Packers would more appropriately be called the Monopolistic Packers, Tyson Packers, Imported Cheese Heads or The Holsteins. We have teams with several references to animals but where are the Las Vegas Vegans, Salt Lake City Vegetarians or Tampa Bay Flexitarians? Isn’t the Milwaukee Suds a much better name than the Brewers? If we’re going to name teams after alcoholic activIties where are the San Jose Winos? There are too many teams named after bears like the Bruins, Cubs, and Grizzlies but where are The Teddy Bears and The Portland Endangered Polar Bears? There are also far too many bird names like Pelicans, Falcons, Eagles, Penguins, Blue Jays, Orioles, Cardinals, etc. But where are the Rodents? I couldn’t find a single team named after rats or mice. The Orlando Magic would be a natural as the Orlando Mice with Mickey Mouse
continued from page one
as their mascot, and the Anaheim Ducks would sound better as The Anaheim Donald Ducks. Several teams are named for disastrous climatic events like The Thunder, Hurricanes, Lightning, Avalanche, Heat, Earthquakes and Flames but this is the 21st century folks, where are The Phoenix Climate Changers? (The Phoenix Sunburns is more accurate than The Phoenix Suns.) There are also lots of teams named after fish like the Rays, Marlins, Sharks, etc., but where are the Monkfish, Sea Bass, Salmon, Suckers or Steelheads? The Miami Dolphins would be more politically correct as the Miami Dolphin-Free Tunas and following recent protests, Seattle’s Seahawks should be changed to The Seattle Communists. I’m outraged I could find only one team named after snakes and one after insects. We have the New Jersey Devils, the Los Angeles Angels and the San Diego Padres but where are The Minnesota Lutherans, Albuquerque Catholics, L.A. Methodists, Dallas Buddhists, Ohio Muslims or Indiana Atheists? We have the Montreal Canadiens and the Vancouver Canucks but not one team is named after the United States. Wouldn’t the best name for our nation’s capital’s football team be the Washington Americans? www.LeePittsbooks.com
was developed by a US Government agency called NCAR – the National Center for Atmospheric Research – the same agency which provides the IPCC with the computer models that it uses to support the GCMs. Located in Bethesda, MD, NCAR is the go-to agency for the US Government and IPCC climate modelers to determine the impact of CO2 on world climate. Moreover, the MAGICC Model projects what exactly would be the impact on the temperature of the Earth if the United States, or any other political subdivision on Earth, ceased the burning of all fossil fuels now– not at some distant time in the future. Scientists and data experts at the Heritage Foundation, lead by Kevin Dayaratna, Senior Statistician and Research Programmer, ran the numbers using the MAGICC model, and inputted the same temperature and CO2 data utilized by the IPCC, to obtain the results.
Here is the answer. No matter what assumptions are used for the amount of or increase in fossil fuel generated CO2 in the US, from small amounts to very large ones, complete elimination of all fossil fuels in the US immediately would only restrict any increase in world temperature by less than one tenth of one degree Celsius by 2050, and by less than one fifth of one degree Celsius by 2100. If the US eliminated all fossil fuel use tomorrow, it would have virtually no measurable impact on world temperature. So, this means that if the US developed some kind of carbon tax that would reduce fossil fuel use by, say, 50 percent by 2050, it would have even less of an impact on world temperature than if all fossil fuel use were elimininated immediately. Whoa. Stop right there. Something must be wrong with this model. Heritage must have misinterpreted the model sensitivities. NCAR must be mistaken. The impact really couldn’t turn out be that minuscule.
Actually, no, no, no and yes. Nothing is wrong with the inputs or the model, and nothing is wrong with the conclusion that it reaches. So all this sturm und drang ln Congress about legislation needed to lower fossil fuel use is really much ado about nothing.? The US could, in fact, have a policy of doing nothing about fossil fuels, and the Earth’s temperature would still be the same as if we passed legislation eliminating all fossil fuels – which coincidentally would have the effect of destroying our modern way of life. Why didn’t someone tell Congress this before? Could it be that agenda-driven True Believers have something to hide? It sure seems that way. MAGICC is never mentioned by True Believers. MAGICC is ignored by policy makers gatherings in Amsterdam, Paris, and Madrid. MAGICC lies buried in a huge IPCC data pile. But if one believes in MAGICC, maybe Congress could now stop worrying so much about climate change and focus on real problems – like immigration, the economy, taxes, education, poverty, and similar problems – issues which it could actually do something about. And maybe the adults who shamelessly manipulate and exploit a certain sixteen year old Swedish girl can allow her go back to school and obtain the education she so clearly needs. In short, MAGICC blows the argument for the immediate elimination of fossil fuels in the US, and even the gradual elimination through a tax on carbon, out of the water. Collister Johnson has spent the last four decades working in the public and private sectors in Virginia, primarily in the fields of project finance and maritime transportation. He began his career in public service as Chairman of the Board of the Virginia Port Authority. He was appointed by President George W. Bush, and confirmed by the Senate, as a member of the Overseas Private Investment Corporation, and most recently, as Administrator of the St. Lawrence Seaway Development Corporation. In that capacity, he became knowledgeable in the field of climate and its impact on the Great Lakes. He currently serves on CFACT’s Board of Advisors. Johnson holds a B.A. degree from Yale University, and a J.D. from the University of Virginia.
Page 6
Livestock Market Digest
ICE/DOJ Indicts 4 Mississippi Poultry Plant Administrators BY PETER THOMAS RICCI / MEATINGPLACE.COM
T
he Department of Justice and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) unsealed indictments on August 7, 2020 against four administrators of poultry processing plants in Mississippi, related to a massive immigration raid from Aug. 2019. In that 2019 sting, more than 600 ICE agents raided seven Mississippi poultry plants from five companies (including Koch Foods and Peco Foods), ultimately detaining 680 mostly Latino workers and prosecuting 119; it was, as ICE framed it, “the largest single-state worksite enforcement action” in the U.S.’ history. And now, a year later, the DOJ/ICE indictments are targeting four individuals on a number of charges: • Salvador Delgado-Nieves, a former administrator at A&B, Inc. in Pelahatchie, Miss., was charged with three counts of harboring undocumented immigrant, three counts of assisting undocumented immigrants in falsely representing themselves to be United States citizens, three counts of assisting undocumented immigrants in obtaining false Social Security cards, and one count of making a false statement to law enforcement officials when he denied having hired undocumented immigrants at A&B, Inc. He faces up to 74 years in federal prison and $2.5 million in fines for the violations. • Iris Villalon, also an A&B Inc. administrator,
was indicted on one count of harboring an undocumented immigrant, and one count of making false statements when she denied that she had hired undocumented immigrants for employment, and one count of causing false employer quarterly wage reports to be filed. Villalon faces up to 20 years in prison and $750,000 in fines for those violations. • Carolyn Johnson and Aubrey “Bart” Willis — respectively, the HR manager and manager of Pearl River Foods in Carthage, Miss. — were both indicted on harboring undocumented immigrants following the execution of federal warrants at the Pearl River Foods facility on August 7, 2019. Johnson was indicted on six felony counts of harboring an undocumented immigrant, as well as one count of wire fraud and two counts of aggravated identity theft; Willis was indicted on five counts of harboring an undocumented immigrant. If convicted, Johnson faces a maximum of 84 years in prison and $2.25 million in fines, while Willis faces a maximum of 50 years and $1.25 million in fines. “This office has a successful history of prosecuting employers for violating our immigration laws, and today marks another step in ensuring that justice is fairly and impartially done, no matter the law-breaker,” said U.S. Attorney Mike Hurst. “The indictments unsealed today mark the beginning, not the end, of our investigations and prosecutions. Rest assured that we will continue to pursue criminal wrongdoers and enforce our criminal laws wherever the evidence may take us.”
Senators Get a Meaty Education A CEO instructs critics on food production and safety in a pandemic. BY THE WALL STREET JOURNAL EDITORIAL BOARD
P
roducing meat is tough going in a pandemic, especially when you’re getting slaughtered by politicians. Last month Senators Elizabeth Warren and Cory Booker denounced America’s four largest meat processors for allegedly putting profits over workers, and Smithfield Foods CEO Kenneth Sullivan’s unapologetic response deserves attention. Meat-processing plants became virus hot spots this spring, and factory closures caused shortages of some meat products at grocery stores and led to the culling of hogs, chicken and cattle. But as Mr. Sullivan notes in a letter to the Senators co-signed by more than 3,500 employees, “processing plants were no more designed to operate in a pandem-
ic than hospitals were designed to produce pork.” Smithfield has adjusted its production lines and improved worker protections against the virus at considerable cost. The company has bought millions of masks and face shields to equip each employee, as well as tens of thousands of sanitizer stations. It has installed plexiglass on production floors and break rooms and implemented thermal temperature checks for employees entering plants. “An oft-repeated demand is that the industry ‘slow line speeds for more social distancing,’” Mr. Sullivan writes. But “slowing line speeds by 50 percent, for example, means euthanizing half of our nation’s livestock, the collapse of farm prices (law of supply and demand), burying food in the ground, food insecurity and higher food prices for everyone including, most importantly, those that can least afford it.”SIGN UP Smithfield says it has also hired private health-care provid-
ers for every processing facility to provide free on-demand testing. Workers over age 60 or with underlying conditions have been offered paid leave. In addition, 11,000 who were quarantined but did not test positive were guaranteed pay. Workers have also received hazard pay averaging $4 per hour. “Do these sound like the actions of a company that does not care about employee health and safety or is putting profits ahead of its team members?” Mr. Sullivan writes. “We have no desire to stand alone in the breach between the American people and food shortages, particularly with Monday morning quarterbacks everywhere.” Running a business isn’t as easy as being a Senator, especially in a pandemic. Nearly all corporate leaders are doing their best to protect workers while continuing to serve customers, and it’s refreshing to see a CEO aggressively rebut political attacks that suggest otherwise.
August 15, 2020
Trump Administration Invests $462 Million to Modernize Water & Wastewater Infrastructure in Rural Communities Funding will Improve Rural Water Infrastructure for 467,000 Rural Americans
T
he Trump Administration has announced that the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) is investing $462 million to modernize critical drinking water (PDF, 367 KB) and wastewater infrastructure across rural America. “Upgrading the infrastructure that delivers safe drinking water and modern wastewater management facilities will improve public health and drive economic development in our small towns and cities,” Deputy Under Secretary for Rural Development Bette Brand said. “Under the leadership of President Trump and Agriculture Secretary Perdue, USDA continues to be a strong partner with rural communities, because we know that when rural America thrives, all of America thrives.”
Background: USDA is funding 161 projects through the Water and Waste Disposal Loan and Grant Program. These investments will benefit 467,000 residents. The following are examples of projects being funded under today’s announcement. In North Bend, Wash., the Sallal Water Association will use a $6.5 million loan to construct a reservoir, a new headquarters building and a new well. The Association supplies potable water to about 1,700 connections serving approximately 5,000 people throughout its service area, which includes the Wilderness Rim Association. The system currently delivers 190 million gallons of water each year from three wells. The Sanbornville Precinct in New Hampshire
will use a $2.9 million loan and a $695,885 grant to replace outdated water system infrastructure dating from the 1930s. This project will resolve health and sanitary issues by upgrading the source pump house facility and replacing 2.3 miles of failing bituminous-coated steel water mains. These improvements will bring the system into compliance with state and federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration regulations and provide enhanced water quality and reliability for 1,056 residents. The town of Lawndale, N.C., will use an $872,000 loan and a $1.5 million grant to provide sanitary sewer service to an area of the town that is currently without sewer service. Many homes in the area depend on individual onsite septic systems which are failing. The proposed project will install approximately 16,785 linear feet of eightinch gravity sewer line, 60 manholes, 141 cleanouts, service laterals, and make other upgrades to service 141 additional residences. Approximately 600 residents will benefit from the project. The investments that USDA announced today are being made in Alabama, Arkansas, Arizona, California, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, Vermont, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin and Wyoming.
August 15, 2020
Livestock Market Digest
Page 7
Selling residential, farm, ranch, commercial and relocating properties. COLETTA RAY
Pioneer Realty 1304 Pile Street, Clovis, NM 88101
REAL ESTATE GUIDE
575-799-9600 Direct 575.935.9680 Office 575.935.9680 Fax coletta@plateautel.net www.clovisrealestatesales.com
Bar M Real Estate
Scott Land co. Ranch & Farm Real Estate
1301 Front Street, Dimmitt, TX 79027 Ben G. Scott – Broker Krystal M Nelson –CO/NM QB#15892 800-933-9698 day/eve. www.scottlandcompany.com
521 West Second St., Portales, NM 88130
575-226-0671 www.buenavista-nm.com
Quality Rural Living on Pavement in Eastern New Mexico Beautiful 4 bdrm, 4 bth home with 3843 sq. ft living space on 59.6 ac grass. Scenic elevated view of valley from 1242 NM 480, has well with septics. $499,900 Please bring Pre-Qualified Buyers
WE NEED LISTINGS ON ALL TYPES OF AG PROPERTIES LARGE OR SMALL!
■ VALENCIA SPRINGS RANCH-GUADALUPE CO., NM – 15,583.87 +/- deeded acres, 1,640 NM www.ranchesnm.com State Lease, 120 BLM, 837 Private Lease, beautiful new home plus ranch manager’s home, good pens, 575/622-5867 water and fences. 575/420-1237 Ranch Sales & Appraisals ■ CAN BE DIVIDED! BLANCA CREEK RANCH – Quay/Guadalupe Cos., NM – 10,191.44 Deeded ac. + 1,640 State ac. – Well improved ranch with excellent access. Level to gently rolling with some arroyos. Located along I:40 between Albuquerque, NM and Amarillo, TX. A beautiful, new, custom built home is situated at the headquarters along with a Paul Bottari, Broker well-built 150 X 115 shop (80 x 150 enclosed and 775/752-3040 heated), outdoor arena, horse barns, pens & other improvements. The ranch is well watered and has NevadaCallFarms very575-226-0671 good to excellent fence. Buena Vista Realty at or the listing agent
■ ELK RIDGE RANCH – Capulin, NM area, 100hd. +/- herd of Elk seen on property from time-to-time, 5,520 ac. +/- w/nice home, barns & pens, watered by wells & live water, no outside access through the property. Brochure being prepared! ■ PRICE REDUCED! WEST HAYDEN RANCH – Union/Harding Counties, NM – 9,670.76 ac. +/(8,350.76 ac. +/- Deeded, 1,000 lease/purchase acres, 320 ac. +/- NM State Lease) of really good ranch land, well watered by a large spring, mills & subs, on pvmt., home, barns & 2 sets of pens. Consider dividing! ■ ELK CANYON RANCH – Harding County, NM - Another “hunter’s paradise” listed by Scott Land Company, LLC along w/the Elk Ridge Ranch, great opportunity for livestock/hunting/recreation, 2,240 Lori Bohm 575-760-9847, or Melody Sandberg 575-825-1291. ac. +/-, well watered w/good fences. Located just & Please view our website for details on these properties, Many good pictures on MLS orNMwww.buenavista-nm.com choice TX, & CO ranches (large & small), choice west of the West Hayden Ranch. PrOPerTY
SCOTT MCNALLY
6757 NM 206 near Dora, NM is 2963 sq.ft 3 bdrm, 2 bth on 24.6 ac with well / septic. Shop bldg w/ lots of storage, animal shelters with some corrals - very nice place. See complete details w/pictures at www.buenavista-nm.com $295,000
See these and other properties at www.buenavista-nm.com M U R N E Y , ASSOCIATES, REALTORS®
Bottari Realty
www.bottarirealty.com
AG LOANS AGLAND LAND LOANS AsLow LowAsAs 3% As 3.5% OPWKCAP 2.9% OPWKCAP 3.5%
INTEREST RATESAS AS LOW 3% INTEREST RATES LOW ASAS 3.5% Payments Scheduledon on2525 Years Payments Scheduled Years
Missouri Land Sales • A STUNNING HORSE FACILITY. Situated in a desirable area, Rogersville schools, beautiful 4,139 sq.ft home. 4 bdrms and 4 baths, a 7,200 sq. ft. indoor riding arena, 5 horse stalls expandable to 7 (12 x 12), a 72 x 12 walkway, 36 x 12 tack room, feed room, 72 x 24 hay loft, outdoor wash rack, 120 x 12 outside overhangs, individual fenced horse runs from stalls. Entire property is fenced annd cross fenced, 5 pastures and acreage for hay. This home has geo-thermal heating and cooling, as well as a full Generac backup generator, all set up. Also included is a full sprinkler system on all floors of this home. Three fireplaces (one on each level). So much to offer, and quite unique to find something this well-built. A must-see property. MLS#60148528 • GREENFIELD TRADING POST. Available for sale at the corner of Hwy. 160 (Grand) & H Hwy. Newer tile floors, ADA bathrooms, outside storage tanks, 4 double side gas pumps. Owner reports a brisk business with sales around $1m last year. Store features a bait room for fishing at nearby Stockton Lake. Property has roll up garage door for easy storage of equipment and inventory. Vendor for popular Hunt Pizza with small eat-in area. Multiple coolers, coffee makers and shelving are included in sale. 2080 sf in store, 1120 sf for storage of inventory. This is an unbranded station. MLS# 60140876.
ranches in the high rainfall areas of OK, irr./dryland/ CRP & commercial properties. We need your listings on any types of ag properties in TX., NM, OK & CO.
SOCORRO PLAZA REALTY On the Plaza
Donald Brown
Qualifying Broker
Joe Stubblefield & Associates 13830 Western St., Amarillo, TX 806/622-3482 • cell 806/674-2062 joes3@suddenlink.net Michael Perez Associates Nara Visa, NM • 575/403-7970
See all my listings at: paulmcgilliard.murney.com Paul McGilliard - Cell: 417/839-5096 • 1-800/743-0336
505-507-2915 cell 505-838-0095 fax
116 Plaza PO Box 1903 Socorro, NM 87801 www.socorroplazarealty.com dbrown@socorroplazarealty.com
521 West Second St. • Portales, NM 88130
575-226-0671 or 575-226-0672 fax
Buena Vista Realty
Qualifying Broker: A.H. (Jack) Merrick 575-760-7521 www.buenavista-nm.com
TEXAS & OKLA. FARMS & RANCHES
O’NEILL O’NEILL LAND, LAND, llc llc
208 AC #) MILES OUT OF DALLAS High traffic count, long frontage on US Hwy ready for a developer. $14,000 per ac, 25 ac $700. Ready to develop.
P.O. Box 145, Cimarron, NM 87714 • 575/376-2341 • Fax: 575/376-2347 P.O. Box 145, Cimarron, NM 87714 ••575/376-2341 • Fax: 575/376-2347 land@swranches.com www.swranches.com
land@swranches.com • www.swranches.com
NM big quality 2,715 asqft WAGON MOUND RANCH, WAGON MOUND RANCH, Mora/ home, shop, wildlife, true adobe million home, fruit trees Mora/Harding Counties, Harding Counties, NM. 8,880.80NM. +/- dollar viewbarn, at thegrounds, end of a private road. and mature pri8,880.80 Total Acres, a with sub- $489,000. Total Acres, a+/substantial holding Also trees. listed Extremely with the house vate REDUCED stantial with mix of and good mixholding of grazing landgood and broken onesetting. parcel for $375,000$353,000. country off rimand into broken Canadiancountry River. MIAMI This is20 a must see.Colfax Also County, listed with grazing land ACRES, NM Hasrim modern system located same2,715 housesqft with 10 +/deeded off into water Canadian River. Has quality adobe home, barn, 17 miles east of Wagon Mound off acres forfruit $308,000 modern water system located 17 grounds, trees and mature trees. pavement 3 miles Mound on county miles eastthen of Wagon off Extremely private setting. REDUCED MAXWELL 19.50 ACRES, Colfax road. Two bedroom historic house, pavement then 3 miles oninclude county $355,000. must see.extensive Also listed County, This NMis aquality once a stage stop. Wildlife same house withbedroom, 10 +/- deeded road. Twomule bedroom historic remodeled two one antelope, deer and somehouse, elk. with acres for $310,000 once a stage stop. Wildlife include bathroom home with water rights, $2,710,000 $2,440,000 antelope, mule deer and some MAXWELL 19.50 ACRES, in Colfax outbuildings for livestock NE FRENCH TRACT FARM, 491.55 +/- County, elk. $2,390,000 NM quality extensive remodNM. Great south facing porch for deeded acres, Colfax County, NM two eled two bedroom, one bathroom home RATON sipping iced tea cooling off at pivots, someMILLION gated pipe, DOLLAR 371 irri- with waterftrights, outbuildings liveColfaxinCounty, NM. 97.68 VIEW, 6,000 elevation. Wouldformake gation shares AVID, House, barn, stock in NE NM. Great south facing porch +/acres 2 parcels summer closedeeded to exit 419 offinI25 on HWYwith 58. great sipping iced teagetaway cooling and off atwinter 6,000 All in onehome, contiguous parcel with for excellent big shop, wildlife, ski base. $270,000 ft elevation. Would make great summer all sides. $700,000 aaccess trueon million dollar view at the getaway MORAand COUNTY 160 +/-$270,000 ACRES, winter ski base. end of aMILLION private road. $489,000. RATON DOLLAR VIEW, MORA COUNTYsouth 160 +/-east ACRES, miles 12 miles of 12 Wagon Also withNM. the97.68 house+/and one south Colfaxlisted County, deedeast ofremote, Wagon Mound, remote, Mound, excellent solarexcelwell parcel ed acresforin$375,000 2 parcels with excellent lent solarmix well mix of sub good of good sub irrigated andirrigated range. range. Small$154,000 cabin. $154,000 MIAMI 20 ACRES, Colfax County, and Small cabin.
UNDER CONTRACT
230 AC GAME & RETREAT that is a dream. Lakes, woods, meadows, game galore, 35 miles out of Dallas, Kaufman Co.
SOLD
CONTRACT P E N D IN G
133 AC - Miles of Dalles, ready to develop. $13,000 per ac.
SOLD
Joe Priest Real Estate
1-800/671-4548
joepriestre.net • joepriestre@earthlink.com
BAR BARMMREAL REALESTATE ESTATE New Mexico Properties ForForSale... New Mexico Properties Sale...
THE100 100 RANCH – Ifare you are looking forRanch a quality cattle ranchfrom then downtown the Ranch iscattle just what need. 100 include Ranch is THE RANCH – If you looking for a–quality cattle Property ranch suitable for100 a registered operation. Improvements POQUITA MESA RANCH Roswell, NM you along andThesouth of U.S. a scenic, well improved cattle ranch with The stunning views of the nearby Sacramento and Jicarilla Mountains. Located approximately Price: $2,500,000 Call for then the 100 Ranch is just what you need. 100 Ranch is two sets of pens, shop, and hay barn. located approximately 35 miles north of Roswell, NM Highway 70/380. Improvements include a custom mileswell northwest of cattle Carrizozo, Mexico on the Chupadera Mesa. The ranch is comprised of 15,931 deeded acres, 30,680 a brochure or view on my website: www.ranchesnm.com a30 scenic, improved ranchNew with stunning views of the infederal Chaves DeBaca Counties between Highway designed rockcapacity home, guest Barn, nearby Sacramento and Jicarilla Mountains. Located approxBLM& lease acres and 9,208 NM State lease acres. 285 The maximum grazing of the ranchhouse, is listed atQuonset 1,200 A.U.Y.L. BLACKWATER DRAW RANCH – an Niceextensive well improved ranch barns, and awith good set ofandpipe pens. Partitioned into and Highway 20. It isofaCarrizozo, first offering of a start ranchup costs. imately 30 miles northwest Mexico onno the The ranch is fully operational, readytime toNew turn out with Watered six wells pipeline system. property located just 15Access minutes downtown NMwith Chupadera ranchthe of 15,931 Amplehas big Mesa. game The hunting onis comprised the ranchownership to includedeeded elk, antelope and oryx. to from the public landRoswell, is limited larger pastures and two smaller pastures. Acreage that been under same andmule man-deer,two alongincludes and south U.S.vehicles Highwayand 70/380. Improvements acres, 30,680 lease acresThe and 9,208 State approximately 7,000 acres of private landranch gatedNM locked. The price all ofranch equipment. TheState 100include Ranch includes 2,185 deeded acres and 320Quonset NM Lease agement forfederal four BLM generations. isandcomprised a customwith designed rock home, guest house, Barn, LLC. lease acres. The maximum grazing capacity of Ittheisranch is listed has had just two owners since the 1940s. one of a kind. Co-listed Mossy Oak Properties NM Ranch & Luxury, Thea good Blackwater Draw Ranch is adjacent to the of over 32,000 deeded acres and a small amount of acres. barns, and set of pipe pens. Partitioned into two larger atPrice: 1,200$11,000,000 A.U.Y.L. The ranch is fully operational, ready turnwebsite: out www.ranchesnm.com Call for a brochure or view ontomy federal BLM leaseWatered land. Grazing Capacity is owner Cochise Ranch, the two may be combined pastures and two smaller pastures. Acreage includesvery 2,185easily. with no start up costs. six wells and just an extensive COCHISE RANCH – Ranchwith property located west of Roswell, NM along toState U.S.Lease 70/380 to Ruidoso, deeded acresand andadjacent 320 NM acres. The Blackwater controlled with an big honest grazing $1,450,000 Call for aHighway brochure or view on my pipeline system. Ample game estimated hunting on the ranch tocapacity include Price: NM. Comprised of 6,607 deeded acres and 80 acres of NM State Lease Water is provided three solar wells Draw acres. Ranch is adjacent to the by Cochise Ranch, the and two pipelines. may be elk, mule deer, antelope andcows oryx. yearlong. Access to the public landisiswell website: of approximately 700 The ranch www.ranchesnm.com Fenced into several pastures and small traps suitable for a registered cattlevery operation. Improvements sets of pens, $1,350,000include Call fortwo a brochure or combined easily. Price: limited with approximately 7,000 acres of private land gated and improved withbarn. an Price: excellent water distribution system. shop, and hay $2,500,000 Call for a brochure or view onon mymywebsite: www.ranchesnm.com view website: www.ranchesnm.com CALDWELL RANCH – First time offering of a locked. The price includes all ranch vehicles and equipment. Water originates had from 6two wells equipped with submersBLACKWATER Nice the well improved property ranch locatedproperty just 15 minutes from Roswell, NM The 100 Ranch hasDRAW just RANCH owners–since 1940s. It is ranch quality located in downtown northeastern PECAN ORCHARD – 10.2guest acres with over 230 Chaves ible solar pumps, andOak windmills. This ranch&include is KELLEY along of U.S. 70/380. Improvements a custom designed rock home, house, Quonset Barn, one ofpumps, aand kind.south Co-listed withHighway Mossy Properties NM Ranch County, New Mexico approximately 20of Roswell, miles northmature producing pecan trees located just west and aPrice: good set of pipe pens. Partitioned into larger and two smaller pastures. Acreage includes 2,185 deeded abarns, cowman’s dream designed cowmen and ready $11,000,000 Callby for a brochure or two view on topastures Luxury, LLC. NM. Artesian water rights with one well supplies irrigation west of the small community of Elida. Configured in acres and 320 NM State Lease acres. The Blackwater Draw Ranch is adjacent to the Cochise Ranch, the two may be combined my www.ranchesnm.com go.website: Co-listed with Mossy Oak Properties NM Ranch & water through a newly installed sprinkler system to the orchard. tracts of a total of 7,200 deeded acres and 640 very easily. Price: $1,350,000 Call for a brochure or view on mytwo website: www.ranchesnm.com Luxury, LLC. Price: $13,200,000 Calljust for west a brochure or Improvements include a large 5,400 square foot two story coloCOCHISE RANCH – Ranch property located of ofproducing state lease. Watered by three wellsofand pipeKELLEY PECAN ORCHARD – 10.2 acres with over 230 acres mature pecan trees just west Roswell, nial style residence that has been located featured in Southern Living view onNM myalong website: www.ranchesnm.com Roswell, and adjacent to U.S. Highway 70/380 to NM. Artesian water rights with one well supplies irrigationlines. waterGrazing through a newly installed sprinkler system to the capacity is estimated to be 130 AUYL. Magazine. This property is one of a kind. Call for an appointment Ruidoso, NM. Comprised of 6,607 deeded acres and 80 acres orchard. Improvements include aRANCH large 5,400 foot storyaatlook colonial residence that has$975,000 been featured Price: Call for ain to take or forstyle a color brochure. Priced $370 per deeded acre. DRAW – square Nicewells well two ofBLACKWATER NM State Lease acres. Water is provided by three solar Southern Living Magazine. Thislocated property just is one15 of aminutes kind. Call brochure for an appointment take a www.ranchesnm.com look or for a color brochure. or view on mytowebsite: improved and pipelines.ranch Fenced property into several pastures and small traps Price: $975,000 Call for a brochure or view on my website: www.ranchesnm.com
Bar Bar M M
Real RealEstate Estate
CONTACT CONTACT
raNch
1625 E. Primrose • Springfield, MO 65804 • murney.com • 823-2300
Scott McNally, Qualifying Broker
Scott McNally, McNally, Qualifying Broker Bar M Real Estate, LLC Scott Qualifying Broker P.O. Box 428, Roswell, NM 88202 Roswell, NM NM 88202 Roswell, 88202 Office: 575-622-5867 Cell: 575-420-1237 Office: 575-622-5867 575-622-5867 Cell: 575-420-1237 575-420-1237 www.ranchesnm.com Office: •• Cell:
www.ranchesnm.com www.ranchesnm.com
Page 8
Livestock Market Digest
The View FROM THE BACK SIDE
Ramblings of Corndogs and Rodeos BY BARRY DENTON
(the view expressed in this column are not necessarily those of this publication)
T
he New Mexico State Fair is shut down this year due to an over zealous Democrat governor making you think she is saving her state from the made in China coronavirus. I don’t know how it becomes a
noble gesture to save citizens from a virus with a 99 percent recovery rate. That is so much higher than those that recover from auto accidents. Please don’t tell her that the coronavirus has been in New Mexico cattle for over 20 years now, because she will be quarantining them as well. Probably all you ranchers and cowboys should be shut down because you have been with those cattle.
THE BEST ADVERTISING VALUE IN WESTERN LIVESTOCK INDUSTRY!
Dammit cowboys and cowgirls, mask those cattle! Just think if cow emissions don’t get you, then cattle coronavirus will. I think it’s safe for me to say that we will all die one day, but 99 percent of us won’t die from the coronavirus. Okay Governor Grisham, let’s get kids back to school and people back to work. Your great hoax should be about over. Now you can go back to letting in as many illegal aliens as possible on your southern border that should make you happy. I think it’s interesting that the majority of voters that democrats can get, are non-Americans. I doubt you will be able to buy a corndog at a California fair as well. Just this week Governor Newsom is shutting down 29 California counties. Included within those counties will be fitness centers, places of worship, personal care services, hair salons, bars, barbershops, and malls. These people were just getting over the last wave of shutdowns and now it is back. The governor can tell you to shutdown your business, but they offer no solutions to help you pay your bills. Isn’t it funny that it’s primarily democrat governors or republican governors that act like democrat governors, hat want to shutdown the commerce of their states? They are also the ones that enjoy a crisis more than anyone, especially one made in China. Remember one of our presidential candidates is in bed with China. I think it is also sad that the National Education Association (the teachers union) which by the way is the Democrat party’s largest contributor doesn’t want the children to go back to school. It’s not because the teachers are concerned about themselves or the children getting sick, but they are trying hard to influence the November election. The fewer normalcies, the better the Democrats chances are of winning. It’s that simple folks.
August 15, 2020 We need to have the kids back in school with a few protective measures in place. Now let’s talk about the BLM. No silly, not the Bureau of Land Management, they are bad enough, but we finally have something worse, it is called “Black Lives Matter”. Of course in reality “All Lives Matter”, but not to this racist group. This is just more of the Marxist wing of the Democrat party from what I can tell. They are having a good time causing plenty of racism themselves. Who wants to be friends with people that go to several Democrat run cities and tear down monuments to truly “Great Americans” that the American taxpayer paid for and maintained for many years? Ol’ BLM is raising money from liberal run corporations such as Disney to continue their rampage of destruction. I can just imagine Walt Disney turning over in his grave now that his name is being used in vain. The other interesting point is BLM seems to have enough money to pay its protestors. The nice thing about being good citizens is that we no longer have to support any of these fools. Have you noticed that virtually no politician has raised a hand against this movement? Where is the clergy? Most of the clergy in this country seem to be changing the tenets of their religion to fit modern society which no longer has any tenets. Even the Pope acts like a Marxist. Traditionally popes have been hard core conservative. It’s incredible how the left has been gaining recently, but of course they have the major media helping them. All is not lost here, because I’m certain that there are more good people in this country than bad. Good must prevail. Our founding fathers were brilliant men that gave their souls, fortunes, and sacred honor to establish freedom. It is beyond me why anyone in this country that we are so lucky to live in, would
California Loses Thousands of Jobs and Crucial Fuel as Marathon Martinez Refinery Goes Idle BY RONALD STEIN |CFACT
C
What is happening to the beef market... and why? For Ad Sales, call Randy at 505.850-8544 or email rjsauctioneer@aol.com
want to relinquish that. It would seem to me that ol’ BLM would be over in Egypt tearing down the pyramids since they were built with slave labor, but have you noticed how lazy they are about that. They only want to tear down a few defenseless statues; they do not want to take on the pyramids. We are shut down in Arizona once again as the governor says the cases have spiked again. I still fail to see where shutting down state offices and some businesses have anything to do with helping anyone. There is no proof to any of this that we can see, nor is there any in regard to wearing masks. I think Arizona’s Governor Ducey among others, could take a lesson from South Dakota’s Governor Christy Noem. She has not shut down her state once. They have had a few flare ups here and there, but business and government have remained open. The wonderful thing about Prescott, Arizona is that they kept the “World’s Oldest Rodeo” rodeo going over the 4th of July. They had to limit the seating, but the cowboys and cowgirls were still great nonetheless! There were also other rodeos running too, but some were closed like Cheyenne Frontier Days. I think rodeo committees had an awful lot extra to deal with this year, but I’m thankful for the ones that found a way to have theirs. I haven’t heard of any spike in COVID because of the Prescott Rodeo. People thrive on a normal routine to life, so that’s why having rodeos and other events are so important. If you only listen to the news you will be convinced that you are living in the “Twilight Zone”. In spite of goofy governors, outlandish politicians, paid protestors, and the Chicken Little’s of the world, try keeping your life as normal as possible. Stay fun, stay out of the hospital, and don’t be a sheep.
alifornia just experienced a catastrophic loss from the COIVD-19 impact on the economy, as one of its major refineries, Marathon Martinez, has just announced it will be idled indefinitely. With airlines and cruise ships virtually shut down, and vehicle transportation at an all-time low, the demand for fuels and petroleum derivative products manufactured from petroleum, are at an all-time low, the Northern California refinery, one of the largest in the state has just become a COVID victim. We have all seen the photos of those foreign tankers with crude oil parked off the coast of California as the refineries had no use to manufacture products that were in limited demand. With in-state crude oil production at an all-time low and going lower with pressure from the Governor, California’s dependency on other suppliers has increased imported crude oil from foreign countries from five percent in 1992 to 58 percent today of total consumption. The imported crude oil costs California more than $60 million dollars a day, yes, every day, being paid to oil-rich foreign countries, depriving Californians of jobs, careers, and business opportunities. The future looks very bleak for ALL 40 million residents of the state as the economy starts to recover back to near-normal fuel demands for the 5th largest economy in the world. The near-normal daily energy use for California’s 145 airports (inclusive of 33 military, 10 majors, and more than 100 general aviation) was 13 million gallons of aviation fuels, or one-fifth of the nation’s jet fuel
consumption. California’s 31 million registered vehicles were consuming 10 million gallons a day of diesel and 42 million gallons a day of gasoline. Collectively, that is about 65 million gallons of various fuels needed daily to run the CA economy, but now with Marathon Martinez out of business the future supply may not be able to meet the demand. The immediate impact on the California economy will ONLY be 1,000’s of jobs, most of Marathons’ 700 employees and those of the companies that have been providing products and services to support the refinery. Most of the 40 million residents of the state will not be impacted immediately, but later. As we recover from the pandemic, the economy demands for fuels will not be readily available. With the state being an energy island and an energy hog, California is heavily dependent on in-state manufacturing for its fuel demands. California is an “energy island” situated between the Pacific Ocean and the Arizona/Nevada Stateline, with no existing pipelines over the Sierra Nevada Mountains. The state is inhabited by roughly 40 million citizens and is an energy hog demanding more than 65 million gallons of various transportation fuels daily from suppliers to drive (no pun intended) the 5th largest economy in the world. Californians already pay almost $1.00 more per gallon of fuel than the rest of the country due to a) the state sales tax per gallon which are some of the highest in the country; b) refinery reformatting costs per gallon; c) cap and trade program compliance costs per gallon; d) low-carbon fuel continued on page nine
August 15, 2020
Livestock Market Digest
Page 9
NY Attorney General Sues to Dissolve NRA over Alleged Self-Dealing BY ZACHARY EVANS / NATIONAL REVIEW
N
ew York attorney general Letitia James sued to dissolve the National Rifle Association on Wednesday, accusing senior members of the organization of fraud stretching over a period of decades. The lawsuit alleges that four senior current and former officials at the organization, including Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre, engaged in “a culture of self-dealing, mismanagement and negligent oversight.” James accuses the officials of
using NRA funds for private expenses including meals, flights, and vacations. “The NRA’s influence has been so powerful that the organization went unchecked for decades while top executives funneled millions into their own pockets,” James said in a statement. “The NRA is fraught with fraud and abuse, which is why, today, we seek to dissolve the NRA, because no organization is above the law.” The NRA slammed the lawsuit, with the organization’s president, Carolyn Meadows, saying “we will confront it and prevail.” “This was a baseless, pre-
meditated attack on our organization and the Second Amendment freedoms it fights to defend,” Meadows said in a statement. “You could have set your watch by it: the investigation was going to reach its crescendo as we move into the 2020 election cycle. It’s a transparent attempt to score political points and attack the leading voice in opposition to the leftist agenda.” President Trump also weighed in on the lawsuit. “That’s a very terrible thing that just happened,” Trump told reporters. “I think the NRA should just move to Texas and live a great and beauti-
ful life.” James began an investigation into the NRA in 2019 just as the organization was going through a leadership dispute. In a 2018 interview with Ebony, James said that while the NRA presents itself as a “charitable organization,” “in fact, [it] really [is] a terrorist organization.” The lawsuit accuses LaPierre of “routinely” abusing “his authority as Executive Vice President of the NRA to cause the NRA to improperly incur and reimburse LaPierre for expenses that were entirely for LaPierre’s personal benefit,” including “private jet travel,”
“trips to the Bahamas to vacation on a yacht owned by the principal of numerous NRA vendors,” and gifts to friends. Similar allegations of self-dealing are made against the NRA’s general counsel, John Frazer, as well as former chief of staff Joshua Powell and former chief financial officer Woody Phillips. James also accuses the organization itself of failing to report compensation for senior employees. “The NRA’s filings included false or misleading statements relating to compensation and benefits conveyed to top employees and officers,” the lawsuit states.
Beef Demand and Macroeconomics This article was first published in the Cow/Calf Corner Newsletter and is republished with the author’s permission. BY DERRELL S. PEEL, OKLAHOMA STATE UNIVERSITY EXTENSION LIVESTOCK MARKETING SPECIALIST
T
he U.S. economy was wracked like never before in the first half of the year. The Bureau of Economic Analysis released preliminary estimates showing that U.S. Gross Domestic Product declined by an unprecedented 32.9 percent year-over-year in the second quarter of 2020. This follows a 5% first quarter decrease compared to last year. This highlights questions about the impact of the pandemic on beef demand in the first half of the year and, more importantly, beef demand for the remainder of the year. The first half of 2020 was a confusing mix of beef demand and supply dynamics, complicated by dramatic disruption of beef supply chains. Overall beef demand was difficult to judge accurately as surging retail grocery demand was offset by sharply diminished food service demand and all obscured by temporary supply shortages that reduced overall beef availability. Record overall wholesale and retail beef prices masked a variety of impacts in various beef product markets related to the
CALIFORNIA standard program compliance costs per gallon; and e) renewable fuels standard program compliance costs per gallon. With the future supply unlikely to meet the states’ demands, fuel prices will most likely rise further, just for the 40 million residents of the state. Over the years, we have all seen the impact on California fuel prices when one of the few refinery manufacturers goes down for maintenance, or what the industry refers to as a ’turnaround’. Gas prices spike during these temporary outages, but with Marathon going idle indefinitely, the outage will NOT be temporary, but permanent. Ironically, it wasn’t the bi-
type of demand for the product and the ability to shift product from food service to retail grocery supply chains. Beef supply conditions have stabilized, albeit at higher levels of production year-over-year in the second half of 2020. Beef demand will be critical in determining overall beef prices and, subsequently, cattle prices going forward. Beef demand, as for any product, is generally a function of consumers’ willingness and ability to purchase specific quantities of the product at various prices of the product. Willingness to purchase beef consists of a couple of components. Underlying consumer preferences determine overall demand for beef. Tastes and preferences tend to be relatively stable, evolving over longer periods and generally appear strong — i.e., beef is popular. In the short run, willingness to purchase beef will depend on the relative prices of other products, particularly substitute products that may be consumed in place of a particular product. For specific beef products, this is a complicated consideration, including other proteins such as pork and poultry, as well as the multitude of other beef products that may be chosen by consumers. In periods of low income, beef consumers may “trade down” from high cost beef products to lower valued products. Food service demand, which remains diminished, will
continued from page eight
zarre laws and regulation from the AQMD, or the union labor agreements, or the other business unfriendly regulations, but COVID-19 that will impact the state for the foreseeable future. Hispanics and African Americans that represent 45% of the 40 million residents of California are some of the folks that can least afford more expensive energy in perpetuity and make California’s economic recovery from the pandemic even more challenging. Ron Stein is an engineer who, drawing upon 25 years of project management and business development experience, launched PTS Advance in 1995. He is an author, engineer, and energy expert who writes frequently on issues of energy and economics.
emphasize this impact going forward. Ability to purchase a product is related to the level of consumers’ discretionary income. Consumers must have income to buy a product regardless of how much they desire the product. Generally,
year. Unemployment peaked at 14.7 percent in April before declining to 11.1 percent in June. Unemployment is expected to decline but will remain elevated in the second half of the year. GDP is projected to be lower for the remainder of the year with annual estimates down in
Western Trading Post TV as seen on the Cowboy Channel
Monthly Auctions, Check Website for Schedule
macroeconomic conditions, including overall GDP levels along with unemployment, are indicative of income levels. The U.S. economy is in recession and will be for the balance of the year and likely into next
a range of 6.5 to 8.0 percent year-over-year. In the first half of the year, the dramatic drop in GDP and increase in unemployment did not correspond directly to similar beef demand impacts because federal stimu-
lus and unemployment benefits partially offset direct negative economic impacts on consumers. Macroeconomic conditions as well as the status of economic support will play a key role in overall beef demand going forward.
Page 10
Livestock Market Digest
Collectors
Corner
Handmade Versus Hand Assembled
W
hy is it important to know the difference between handmade and hand-assembled (or hand-crafted)? Value! The differences can sometimes be slight, but it’s worth knowing if you want to be an informed collector. As savvy collectors, we anticipate the items we collect
will appreciate over time, or at the very least, retain their value. Sometimes that can be difficult to predict with market changes and what-not, but one of the things we can do to help sway chances in our favor, is to collect better stuff. An example is the so-called Fred Harvey era jewelry. We know this refers to turquoise
CLASSIFIEDS 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.
www.kaddatzequipment.com • 254/582-3000
g•u•i•d•e
and silver items (mostly jewelry) made in the first half of the 20th century. In recent years, Fred Harvey era items have been very popular with collectors. However, there are some (bracelets for example) from that time period which sell in the $100 to $200 range, while others may sell for $1,000 and up. The difference—the higher value ones are completely handmade and discerning collectors know the difference. Which do you rather grandma have bought back in the day? The ones now worth $100 or the ones now worth $1,000 or more? So what constitutes “handmade?” A definition found in the dictionary says: hand·made (adjective) made by hand, not by machine and typically therefore of superior quality. Handwrought and hand-forged are synonyms. Basically, it means the artist or maker made the item from scratch and did not buy precast parts and assemble them together. Hand-assembled or handcrafted items generally consist of items put together from two or more pre-made or precast pieces (most of the time precasting is done by machine or in mass-produced methods). As a matter of disclosure, very, very few things are completely handmade anymore, but the closer you can get to being purely handmade, the better off you are. For example, you can have a pair of spurs using precast spur blanks cast in a factory somewhere or you can make a pair of spurs by forging them from a single piece of steel. You can have belt buckles made using precast buckle blanks bought from a supplier or you can hand forge them from silver (or other metals). You can have a turquoise bracelet made from a bracelet blank (bought at the jewelry supply store) or you can start with ingots of silver and create it yourself. All of the above can then be decorated with precast
August 15, 2020 silver, gold or other non-precious embellishments, or the artist can cut the embellishments out by hand or even hand engrave the items. “When you buy something made by a person, there is something special there, and you do feel it. The consciousness with which a thing is made is often more important than the thing itself.” - J. Donald Walters As a collector, it is important to know the difference between completely handmade and the various stages of hand-assembled for yourself. Do not take anyone’s word for it unless you know the person knows what they are talking about and you trust that person’s judgement. A lot of items will be presented to you as “Handmade” when in fact they are mostly hand-assembled. To some, that is a small difference and they may think we are splitting hairs, but down the road, it will most definitely make a difference in value when you present those items to the collector marketplace for resale. Just know this, if the item you are buying was assembled using parts the artist purchased at the store, it is NOT completely handmade. Sure, it may have a good look to it and may be hard to tell at a glance the difference from a completely handmade item, but you will most assuredly realize the difference when you want to resell (if your buyer is a knowledgeable collector). In the realm of so-called handmade items, there is a big difference between a true craftsman who can take raw materials and build a piece of art from scratch vs. the person who, although they may have an artistic eye, are merely assembling pieces together and saying it is handmade. And the advanced collectors know the difference. One of the best ways to describe it I can think of is a paint by numbers piece of art. If you have a piece of art whereby the “artist” sat down with a paint by
numbers kit and it told them where to paint and what colors went where and they were basically just filling in some blanks, you could argue (weakly in my opinion) that it is hand painted. However a paint by numbers artwork will never be valued in the collectors world in the same way a piece of art is where the artist sat down with a blank canvas and painted a wonderful scene from the imagination using an image in their head or perhaps a photo. What’s worse than not even being hand-assembled however, is if a piece is completely machine made. With technology the way it is today, they can mass produce items which to the untrained eye look like the real deal. My advice is to avoid those types of items completely as they are almost never “collectible” in the long run. Hand-assembled is much better than machine made, but the purist prefers as close to completely handmade as possible. If you are not sure how to tell the difference, start talking to reputable dealers and collectors who can show you the little tell-tale signs. So the next time you see a belt buckle that was made using a buckle blank and then had precast embellishments applied to it, or perhaps a bracelet made in a similar manner, think of the difference between a paint by numbers piece of art vs. a truly hand drawn, hand painted masterpiece. Both may have a good look to them, but when you go to sell the items in the market of collectibles, there will be a big difference in price. Of course, you will likely have to pay more for the completely handmade item in the beginning, but you are a lot more likely to see appreciation, or at least have it hold its value, when you buy handmade over hand-assembled. Jim and Bobbi Jeen Olson © 2020, www.WesternTradingPost.com
BRANGUS
Baxter BLACK ON THE EDGE OF COMMON SENSE
R.L. Robbs
www.baxterblack.com
520/384-3654
Just Words
4995 Arzberger Rd. Willcox, Arizona 85643 Willcox, AZ
angus
CORRIENTE
Bradley 3 Ranch Ltd. Charolais Bulls & Angus Bulls
— BULL SALE — FEBRUARY 13, 2021 At The Ranch NE Of Estelline, Texas
www.bradley3ranch.com M. L.: 940/585-6471 James: 940/585-6171.
Ranch-Raised Bulls For Ranchers Since 1955
BEEFMASTER
210.732.3132 • beefmasters.org 118 W. BANDERA ROAD BOERNE, TX 78006
T
1987
hey were just words. “Tear down the Berlin Wall!” — Reagan to Gorbachev at the Brandenburg Gate,
“Chance of rain.” — Weatherman in Louisiana before Hurricane Katrina, 2005. “Give me liberty or give me death.” — Patrick Henry, 1775 “I wish I’d never read this book... so I could read it again for the first time”. —Dan Trimble about Hemingway’s “Old Man and the Sea”. 1992 “The Grass is Always Greener Over the Septic Tank.” — Erma Bombeck. 1976 We often underestimate the value of words. “Good job, son.” “Best cobbler I ever ate.” “Did you paint that yourself?” “I’m really proud of you.” “Thank ya, Love.” We underestimate their power. “You shouldn’t a let that kid beat ya.” “Maybe you should lose some weight, Hon.” “You should’a tried harder.” “ Not again, they’ve heard those stories before.” “ You do that everytime!”
There are people whose opinions we truly value. There are people whose praise we’d die for. They are often two different things. Sometimes we genuinely would like to improve ourselves. “Yer lettin’ your rope go too soon.” “Give him his head.” “Always check the hind feet when you set him up.” Sometimes we just need encouragement. “You did the best you could.” “You looked like you won from where I sat.” “It sure runs better after you worked on it.” Most everyone is the most important person in someone’s life. It is no small responsibility. It should be a crime if we don’t realize and recognize that importance because what you say can have such long lasting effect. “I believe you got the makin’s of a world champion.” — Kaycee Field’s dad. “I know you can do it, but be careful.” — Gus Grisham’s wife, Apollo 13 crew. “Believe in yourself.” — Martin Luther King’s Sunday School teacher. “Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country...” — JFK “Write about what you know.” — My college English professor after giving me an F on a poem I wrote for a class assignment. “You’ll never amount to anything.” — Too many of us, too many times. Words... like burrs under a blanket, like nails in a coffin. Like a single match in a sea of gasoline. www.baxterblack.com
August 15, 2020
Livestock Market Digest
Page 11
Another Tough Month for Beef Exports SOURCE: U.S. MEAT EXPORT FEDERATION
J
une exports of U.S. pork fell below year-ago levels for the first time this year but exports remain on a record pace in 2020, according to data released by USDA and compiled by the U.S. Meat Export Federation. Beef exports were down sharply from a year ago in June, reflecting a lingering impact of a temporary slowdown in beef production combined with restrictions on foodservice and weakening economies in major import markets. June lamb exports trended higher, posting the second largest totals of 2020. “We expected that the interruptions in red meat production would continue to weigh on June exports, but anticipated more of a rebound from the low May totals – particularly for beef,” said USMEF President and CEO Dan Halstrom. “But it takes time for the entire chain to adjust to supply shocks, and thus it was another difficult month for exports. However, weekly U.S. export data suggest an upward trend in demand in most markets, and with production recovering the U.S. has regained its supply advantage. So we expect beef and pork exports to regain momentum in the second half of the year.” June pork exports totaled 207,181 metric tons (mt), down 3% from a year ago, while export value fell nine percent to $516.3 million. Exports continued to trend higher than a year ago to China/Hong Kong, but were the lowest since October. Exports also increased year-over-year to the ASEAN region, the Caribbean, Honduras and Taiwan and were sharply higher for Albania and Ukraine. But shipments trended lower to Mexico, Japan, South Korea and South America. Despite the June decline, first-half pork exports were still 24 percent ahead of last year’s record pace in volume (1.55 million mt) and 29 percent higher in value ($4.05 billion). Exports accounted for 24 percent of total pork production in June and 22.2% of muscle cut production, down substantially from a year ago (27.8 and 24 percent respectively). For the first half of the year, exports accounted for 31.5% of total pork production and 28.6 percent for muscle cuts, up from 25.8 and 22.4 percent respectively, last year. Export value per head slaughtered averaged $46.19 in June, down 19 percent from a year ago and down sharply from the high levels achieved in April and May. The January-June average was $63.61 per head, up 27 percent from a year ago. June beef exports were close to the May lows, down 33 percent from a year ago to 79,013 mt, with value falling 32 percent to $492.3 million. Exports were below year-ago levels to most markets but trended higher to Canada, China and South Africa. For January through June, beef exports fell nine percent below last year’s pace in volume (591,609 mt) and ten percent lower in value ($3.63 billion). Exports accounted for 9.7 percent of total beef production in June and 8% for muscle cuts, down sharply from a year ago (15.4 and 12.7 percent respectively) and the lowest in 10 years. First-half exports accounted for 13.3 percent of total beef
production and 10.9 percent for muscle cuts, down from 14.2 and 11.6 percent respectively, last year. Beef export value per head of fed slaughter averaged $219.53 in June, down 32% yearover-year. The first-half average was $300.43 per head, down 4%.
China’s moderating pork demand highlights importance of diversity June pork exports to China/ Hong Kong totaled 77,883 mt, up 55 percent from a year ago but the lowest since October. Export value was $168.3 million, up 65 percent. This pushed first-half exports to China/Hong Kong 170% above last year’s pace at 604,156 mt, with value up 232 percent to $1.42 billion. “With China’s pork industry still dealing with the impact of African swine fever (ASF), we expect demand from China/ Hong Kong to remain strong through the end of this year and into 2021,” Halstrom explained. “But the unprecedented volumes of imported pork entering China – not only from the U.S. but other suppliers as well – will begin to moderate. This underscores the importance of maintaining strong demand in other key markets and continuing to develop new destinations for U.S. pork.” While June pork exports to Mexico remained below last year at 48,658 mt (down 19%), valued at $70.6 million (down 41 percent), shipments rebounded to some degree from the low totals seen in May. First-half exports to Mexico were 6% below last year’s pace at 324,481 mt, with value down five percent to $543 million. June exports to Japan, traditionally the leading value market for U.S. pork, were down 25 percent from a year ago to 23,910 mt, valued at $109.6 million (down 17%). But through June, exports to Japan remained one percent above a year ago in volume (193,822 mt) and five percent higher in value ($813.6 million). Even as U.S. slaughter levels rebound, limited labor availability has restricted production of value-added and boneless cuts, as well as some variety meats. This is especially challenging for serving markets such as Japan, which demands value-added cuts like single-ribbed bellies.
Other first-half highlights for U.S. pork include: • Exports to Canada were steady with last year’s pace at 105,811 mt, while value increased two percent to $388.1 million. • Led by exceptional growth in Vietnam, exports to the ASEAN region increased 13 percent to 28,950 mt while value jumped 17 percent to $71.2 million. In Vietnam, where pork production has also been heavily impacted by ASF, exports climbed 148 percent from a year ago in volume (8,232 mt) and 164 percent in value ($18 million). Exports to the Philippines, the top market in the region, had slowed earlier this year. But June exports were the highest since October, bringing the first-half total to 19,319 mt (down 12 percent) valued at $42.5 million (down 6%). • Exports to Central America increased two percent from last year’s record pace to 45,296 mt, while value was up 5% to $112.3 million. Solid growth was achieved in mainstay market Honduras, with exports also
increasing to El Salvador and trending significantly higher to Nicaragua. • Strong growth in the Dominican Republic pushed exports to the Caribbean 4% above last year at 29,809 mt, valued at $70.6 million (up two percent). This was fueled by higher muscle cuts to the Dominican Republic and an increase in pork variety meat exports, which climbed 19% in volume (2,341 mt) and 18 percent in value ($3.9 million), led by the Dominican Republic, Trinidad and Tobago and Haiti. • In Eastern Europe, pork exports to Albania (1,873 mt, up 19 percent; $3.8 million, up 74 percent s), were the largest since 2012and exports to Ukraine (557 mt, up from just 22 mt last year; $1.35 mil, up 441 percent) were the largest since 2014. Exports to Macedonia reached 1,164 mt valued at $2.89 million, up from zero a year ago.
valued at $10.5 million (up 56 percent). June beef exports to leading market Japan rebounded to some degree from the low totals posted in May, but were still well below last year at 20,743 mt (down 30 percent) valued at $143.7 million (down 20 percent). First-half exports fell two percent below last year’s pace in both volume (154,881 mt) and value ($985.5) million.
Other first-half highlights for U.S. beef exports include:
• After racing to a strong start in 2020, exports to South Korea have fallen 8% below last year’s record pace at 116,724 mt valued at $828.3 million. U.S. beef has a very strong retail presence in Korea, which has helped offset some of the sharp, COVID-19 related decline in foodservice demand. • Beef exports to Taiwan were China, Canada among few also record-large in 2019 but fell bright spots for June beef 7% below that pace at 29,101 exports mt, valued at $252.1 million Capitalizing on the recent- (down 9%). The United States ly implemented U.S.-China still dominates Taiwan’s high-valPhase One Economic and Trade ue chilled beef market, capturAgreement, June beef exports to ing nearly 75% of the country’s China climbed 125% from a year chilled imports. ago to 1,986 mt, valued at $15.2 • With devaluation of the million (up 111 percent). This peso compounding the impact pushed first-half exports to Chi- of COVID-19 restrictions in na 80 percent above last year’s Mexico’s foodservice and hospace in both volume (6,912 mt) pitality sectors, beef exports to and value ($54.1 million). Mexico fell 24 percent below “While Phase One was signed last year’s pace at 86,904 mt, valin January, the red meat trade ued at $394.6 million (down 27 provisions weren’t implement- percent). Mexico is the leading ed until late March,” Halstrom volume destination for beef vanoted. “That’s when beef from a riety meat exports which have larger percentage of U.S. cattle fared better in 2020, falling three became eligible, and more es- percent year-over-year in volume on her blog, “Buzzard’s Beat.” She contablishments were approved for (42,879 mt) and by ten percent in nects with readers sharing stories about($104.9 raising cattle and starting a ranch export to China. So U.S. beef value million). with her husband, raising their young exports are really just beginning • Although June exports were daughter, and more. Frobose will keynote to scratch the surface in the down slightly year-over-year, Afthe first day of Cattle U, as well as conduct world’s largest import market. As rica continues to emerge as a he High Plains Journal is once again a breakout session on advocacy methods China’shosting foodservice sector grad- strong growth market for beef a two-day learning oppor- for today’s cattlemen. ually recovers from meat. First-half tunity, Cattle U & COVID-19 Trade Show, July variety Another confirmed speakerexports will be restrictions Australia’s 87 owner percent to Farms 15,131 29 and 30 and at theas United Wireless exArena, climbed Dave Nichols, of Nichols in portDodge volumes remain limited, the mt, valuedIowa. at $11.3 millionfamily (up City, Kansas. southwest The Nichols The event will feature keynote ses- 79 markets bulls,led semen and embryos potential for growth will increase percent), by South Africa throughout the world. Davegrowth Nichols will and breakouts aimed at cow-calf, but evensions further.” also with strong in stocker and feeder producers. Sessions speakd’Ivoire, to the importance usingAngoevery Following a down year in Cote Gabonofand will provide practical, actionable, infor- tool available to today’s cattle producers 2019, first-half beef exports to la. These markets are among the mation on topics such as: animal health, in order to make the best herds Canada increased percent to top destinations for U.S. beef liveven better. genetics, marketing,13 nutrition, reproduc55,099 with 14 per- ers,The kidneys and hearts.will feature tion, mt, forage andvalue rangeup management, two-day program centfinance to $370 million. Last year and more. keynote speakers each day, breakout One of theheld first confirmed sessions, fuels a trade rebound show, and ain special exports were back tospeakers some is Mexico June lamb exports Brandi Buzzard Frobose, a Kansas rancher, social event planned exclusively for degree by retaliatory duties on blogger beef and communications profes- Cattle U attendees at the Dodge prepared products, which June exportsJuly of29 U.S. lamb sional who was named National City Roundup Arena prior to the Roundup were removed in May 2019. were the second largest of 2020 Cattlemen’s Beef Association’s 2019 Rodeo performance. Rodeo tickets are Canada is the largest destination March) 2,289 mt, available as an add-on toatregistration for Advocate of the Year. Frobose writes (following for about U.S. her exports in their thisKansas categopercent a year ago, family and ranch up $19113 for adults 13 andfrom older and $10.25 for ry. Beef variety meat exports to while value climbed 29 percent Canada were particularly strong to $2.23 million. First-half export in the first half, increasing 35 volume was nearly even with last percent in volume (4,983 mt) year at 7,752 mt, though value
Cattle U Comes to Dodge City, Kansas July 29 & 30
T
was down 21 percent to $10.43 million. Growth in June was led by a large increase in both muscle cut and variety meat exports to Mexico, the leading destination for U.S. lamb. Exports have also trended higher this year to Hong Kong and Kuwait. Complete January-June export results for U.S. beef, pork and lamb are available from USMEF’s statistics Web page.
NOTES: Export statistics refer to both muscle cuts and variety meat, unless otherwise noted. One metric ton (mt) = 2,204.622 pounds. U.S. pork currently faces retaliatory duties in China. China’s duty rate on frozen pork muscle cuts and variety meat increased from 12 to 37 percent in April 2018, from 37 to 62 percent in July 2018 and from 62 to 72 percent on September 1, 2019. The rate on pork cuts was reduced to 68 percent on January 1, 2020, through a reduction in the most-favored-nation (MFN) rate and to 63 percent on Feb. 14, 2020, through a reduction in the Section 301 retaliatory duty. The duty on pork variety meat was reduced to 67 percent on February 14. U.S. beef faces retaliatory duties in China. China’s duty rate on beef muscle cuts and variety meats increased from 12 to 37 percent in July 2018 and from 37 to 47 percent on September 1, 2019. It was reduced to 42 percent on February 14, 2020. In February 2020, China announced a duty exclusion process that children 12 and under. to apply for allows importers Attendee registration now open at relief from dutiesis imposed in www.cattleu.net. EarlySection Bird Discount response to An U.S. 301 rate of $85 is good through April 30. duties. When an application Regular registration price starting May 1 is successful, the rate for U.S. will be $135 per person. beef can decline to the MFN Cattle U Trade Show space is currently rate but of 12 percent andExhibitors the rate available, filling up quickly. pork can decline to 33 havefor theU.S. opportunity to save 20 percent on booth space until April as well. percent forrates muscle cuts30and 37 To inquire about youroffal company percent forhow pork (the can 25 exhibit at this Section premier educational event percent 232 retaliatory for cattle producers, contact Zac Stuckey duty on U.S. pork remains). at 316/516-3670 or zstuckey@hpj.com. Some importers reported reFor more event information and to see duty relief beginning the ceiving general schedule at a glance, visit on March 2, 2020. Mexico’s www.cattleu.net. duty rate on pork muscle cuts increased from zero to ten percent in June 2018 and jumped to 20 percent the following month. Beginning in June 2018, Mexico also imposed a 15 percent duty on sausages and a 20 percent duty on some prepared hams. Mexico removed all duties in late May 2019.
▫
MAY 2020
35
Page 12
Livestock Market Digest
August 15, 2020
PASTURE, RANGELAND, FORAGE
INSURANCE IS A BIG INVESTMENT ... Chisholm can assist you in making informed decisions about your investment. Connie Cowan 602.944.0044 cowan@chisholmco.com NPN 1800930 AZ/NM/TX