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te: Wed, 14 Sep 2005 16:00:11 -0600
R-CALF cowboy rebellion
Cattlemen's Group Wrangles With Its Former Allies
By JIM ROBBINS
New York Times
September 14, 2005
BILLINGS, Mont., Sept. 10- In a cramped office sandwiched between cattle auction yards and the looming white tanks of an oil refinery is the headquarters of a growing cowboy rebellion against federal trade policies and the large beef-packing companies they once regarded as allies.
It is the office of the Ranchers-Cattlemen Action Legal Fund, United Stockgrowers of America, or R-Calf USA, an organization of ranchers founded in 1999 that says its membership has doubled to 18,000 in the last year.
The organization has found an ally in Montana's governor, a former rancher who last month called the Agriculture Department "stooges" of the meatpacking industry. And it has drawn the ire of a rival beef group and Canadian ranchers by managing to keep the border closed to Canadian cattle for several months this year.
Staking its ground against the Bush administration and meatpackers, who depend on a steady supply of cattle, R-Calf contends that the threat of mad cow disease is still too great to allow Canadian cattle into the United States.
"Our competitive advantage is we produce the best beef under the best conditions," said Bill Bullard, chief executive of R-Calf. The Department of Agriculture, Mr. Bullard said, was "attempting to compromise those very health and safety standards" by allowing the import of Canadian cattle.
For years, most cattle producers were part of the National Cattlemen's Beef Association, based in Colorado, whose members include large packers and cattle feeding operations.
But issues like the North American Free Trade Act, the recent Central America Free Trade Act, mad cow disease and mandatory country of origin labeling have fenced off segments of the industry. Producers have found themselves on the other side of many of these issues from packing houses like IBP and Tyson.
"Anything we've brought forward to help U.S. cattle producers be more competitive, N.C.B.A. has been opposed," said Leo McDonnell, the president and founder of R-Calf, who breeds bulls near Columbus, Mont. "As great as the global market is, we're a dying industry."
An obituary may be premature, but the number of cattle has fallen, to 104 million this year from 125 million in 1981, and producers declined to 989,000 in 2004 from 1.3 million in 1989, according to Agriculture Department statistics.
Some industry observers are surprised by the growth of R-Calf. If anything, ranchers are seen as independent types not quick to join organizations. But the group speaks the same language as its members and is narrowly focused on ranchers' concerns.
"R-Calf is run by people who look and talk like cowboys," said Mikkel Pates, a reporter for Agweek in Fargo, N.D., who has written about the organization. "And they are."
Ty Thompson, a member of R-Calf with a small feeding operation in Lockwood, Mont., said ranchers liked R-Calf "because it's a grass-roots organization that they can talk to."
This prairie populism comes amid three boom years for cattle producers. After the discovery of mad cow disease in an Alberta cow closed the border to Canadian cattle in 2003, prices in the United States rose to $135 per hundredweight from $95 and have stayed close to the higher figure, even after imports resumed in July. Imports of calves younger than 30 months were supposed to resume in March. But R-Calf, raising legal fees from charity auctions, won a temporary injunction to stop the imports after arguing that the Agriculture Department had not done enough to guard against mad cow disease.
The department has argued that the risk of mad cow disease was low enough in young Canadian calves to allow them into the country.
"It's science driving the decision, not politics," said Ron DeHaven, the administrator for the agency's Animal and Plant Inspection Health Service. "Science based on what we know about the disease and international standards. It's safer to eat the beef than it is to drive to the store and buy it."
A three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit lifted the injunction in July. R-Calf seeks a rehearing by all 11 judges on the court.
J. Patrick Boyle, president and chief executive of the American Meat Institute, called R-Calf "isolationist" and said the trade policies it advocated ultimately hurt everyone in the industry.
"It's a shortsighted approach," he said. "Yes, they've enjoyed artificially high cattle prices. But consumers are moving to other protein because our product is at historically high prices."
Ground beef, he said, had risen to $2.50 a pound from $1.85. As a result, he said, "the meatpacking industry has lost 10,000 jobs."
Jay Truitt, vice president for government affairs of the National Cattlemen's Beef Association, said R-Calf was wrong about what it advocated. Country-of-origin labeling - which R-Calf lobbied for and which Congress passed in 2003 - should be sorted out by the free market, not the government, Mr. Truitt said. And, he added, lowering trade barriers will benefit everyone.
Mr. Truitt said his group was also working in behalf of ranchers and understood them. "I was raised a cattleman, and I wear a pair of boots every day of my life," he said.
Mr. Bullard, R-Calf's chief executive, acknowledges that the closed border has been a boon for American ranchers. "There's no question our organization has an interest in higher cattle prices," he said. But, he added, "we're healing from long-term depressed prices."
The ranchers' rebellion has received support from Gov. Brian Schweitzer of Montana, a Democrat who has cultivated a populist streak. He says the large meatpackers have grown too powerful.
"They control not only the market, but the regulatory agencies," Mr. Schweitzer said.
"It's a revolving door," he said.
The governor's stance and R-Calf's legal fights have chafed ranchers north of the border.
"They are looking out for themselves, as far as I can see," said David Penner, yard foreman at the Grunthal Livestock Auction Mart in Manitoba, referring to R-Calf. "They are not worried about us or even worried about the U.S. economy with all the packing plants closed down."
But Mr. McDonnell, the president of R-Calf, said the organization was not just a group of isolationists. "We're trying to prevent a collapse of our industry," he said.
nytimes.com
R-CALF cowboy rebellion
Cattlemen's Group Wrangles With Its Former Allies
By JIM ROBBINS
New York Times
September 14, 2005
BILLINGS, Mont., Sept. 10- In a cramped office sandwiched between cattle auction yards and the looming white tanks of an oil refinery is the headquarters of a growing cowboy rebellion against federal trade policies and the large beef-packing companies they once regarded as allies.
It is the office of the Ranchers-Cattlemen Action Legal Fund, United Stockgrowers of America, or R-Calf USA, an organization of ranchers founded in 1999 that says its membership has doubled to 18,000 in the last year.
The organization has found an ally in Montana's governor, a former rancher who last month called the Agriculture Department "stooges" of the meatpacking industry. And it has drawn the ire of a rival beef group and Canadian ranchers by managing to keep the border closed to Canadian cattle for several months this year.
Staking its ground against the Bush administration and meatpackers, who depend on a steady supply of cattle, R-Calf contends that the threat of mad cow disease is still too great to allow Canadian cattle into the United States.
"Our competitive advantage is we produce the best beef under the best conditions," said Bill Bullard, chief executive of R-Calf. The Department of Agriculture, Mr. Bullard said, was "attempting to compromise those very health and safety standards" by allowing the import of Canadian cattle.
For years, most cattle producers were part of the National Cattlemen's Beef Association, based in Colorado, whose members include large packers and cattle feeding operations.
But issues like the North American Free Trade Act, the recent Central America Free Trade Act, mad cow disease and mandatory country of origin labeling have fenced off segments of the industry. Producers have found themselves on the other side of many of these issues from packing houses like IBP and Tyson.
"Anything we've brought forward to help U.S. cattle producers be more competitive, N.C.B.A. has been opposed," said Leo McDonnell, the president and founder of R-Calf, who breeds bulls near Columbus, Mont. "As great as the global market is, we're a dying industry."
An obituary may be premature, but the number of cattle has fallen, to 104 million this year from 125 million in 1981, and producers declined to 989,000 in 2004 from 1.3 million in 1989, according to Agriculture Department statistics.
Some industry observers are surprised by the growth of R-Calf. If anything, ranchers are seen as independent types not quick to join organizations. But the group speaks the same language as its members and is narrowly focused on ranchers' concerns.
"R-Calf is run by people who look and talk like cowboys," said Mikkel Pates, a reporter for Agweek in Fargo, N.D., who has written about the organization. "And they are."
Ty Thompson, a member of R-Calf with a small feeding operation in Lockwood, Mont., said ranchers liked R-Calf "because it's a grass-roots organization that they can talk to."
This prairie populism comes amid three boom years for cattle producers. After the discovery of mad cow disease in an Alberta cow closed the border to Canadian cattle in 2003, prices in the United States rose to $135 per hundredweight from $95 and have stayed close to the higher figure, even after imports resumed in July. Imports of calves younger than 30 months were supposed to resume in March. But R-Calf, raising legal fees from charity auctions, won a temporary injunction to stop the imports after arguing that the Agriculture Department had not done enough to guard against mad cow disease.
The department has argued that the risk of mad cow disease was low enough in young Canadian calves to allow them into the country.
"It's science driving the decision, not politics," said Ron DeHaven, the administrator for the agency's Animal and Plant Inspection Health Service. "Science based on what we know about the disease and international standards. It's safer to eat the beef than it is to drive to the store and buy it."
A three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit lifted the injunction in July. R-Calf seeks a rehearing by all 11 judges on the court.
J. Patrick Boyle, president and chief executive of the American Meat Institute, called R-Calf "isolationist" and said the trade policies it advocated ultimately hurt everyone in the industry.
"It's a shortsighted approach," he said. "Yes, they've enjoyed artificially high cattle prices. But consumers are moving to other protein because our product is at historically high prices."
Ground beef, he said, had risen to $2.50 a pound from $1.85. As a result, he said, "the meatpacking industry has lost 10,000 jobs."
Jay Truitt, vice president for government affairs of the National Cattlemen's Beef Association, said R-Calf was wrong about what it advocated. Country-of-origin labeling - which R-Calf lobbied for and which Congress passed in 2003 - should be sorted out by the free market, not the government, Mr. Truitt said. And, he added, lowering trade barriers will benefit everyone.
Mr. Truitt said his group was also working in behalf of ranchers and understood them. "I was raised a cattleman, and I wear a pair of boots every day of my life," he said.
Mr. Bullard, R-Calf's chief executive, acknowledges that the closed border has been a boon for American ranchers. "There's no question our organization has an interest in higher cattle prices," he said. But, he added, "we're healing from long-term depressed prices."
The ranchers' rebellion has received support from Gov. Brian Schweitzer of Montana, a Democrat who has cultivated a populist streak. He says the large meatpackers have grown too powerful.
"They control not only the market, but the regulatory agencies," Mr. Schweitzer said.
"It's a revolving door," he said.
The governor's stance and R-Calf's legal fights have chafed ranchers north of the border.
"They are looking out for themselves, as far as I can see," said David Penner, yard foreman at the Grunthal Livestock Auction Mart in Manitoba, referring to R-Calf. "They are not worried about us or even worried about the U.S. economy with all the packing plants closed down."
But Mr. McDonnell, the president of R-Calf, said the organization was not just a group of isolationists. "We're trying to prevent a collapse of our industry," he said.
nytimes.com