Sandhusker
Well-known member
By WENDILYN GRASSESCHI, News-Record Writer
Published: Saturday, March 15, 2008 10:36 PM MDT
After four months of cold and gray and seemingly endless snowstorms, spring has finally come to Empire Ranch.
In the feeding pens, dozens of the winter-wooly Herefords jostle with hired hand John Miles for corn cake treats. The sky is blue and a tentative green is showing under the winter grass. For once, the south wind is warm on Judy McCullough’s ranch.
She watches the calves butt and play, but her mind is on a new, statewide cattlemen’s group — she’s the president of Independent Cattlemen of Wyoming, or ICOW.
She is among some 150 ranchers statewide who are looking out on similar scenes and worrying about the future of their enterprises.
That worry, along with a need for change, led them in June to pull away from the 137-year-old Wyoming Stock Growers Association, or WSGA.
“We feel that a lot of people are not being represented in the state of Wyoming by any trade organization, including the Wyoming Stock Growers Association,” she said. “We kept saying maybe we should start our own organization that would be more responsive to the members.
“So we formed our own group,” she said.
Jim Magagna, WSGA vice president, said it’s not surprising that after more than a century, differences have arisen.
“Not every rancher is going to agree with us on everything,” he said. “I believe in many cases we want the same things that ICOW wants, but we use different processes.”
Here are some issues ICOW members have pointed out:
- SPLIT ESTATE/ EMINENT DOMAIN
“We want to protect our private property rights. They want to compromise too much,” McCullough said. “Now don’t get me wrong — I like to drive a car, too. But the oilers (oil industry) need to pay the price of doing business on private property. They should not be able to drive over our property without compensating for the damage.”
Cheyenne area rancher Taylor Haynes said his allegiance to the Wyoming Stock Growers began to wane when split estate and eminent domain issues came up.
“We’d set policy and they’d go the other way,” said Haynes, an ICOW director.
Magagna said it is important to work with the energy industry.
“We decided we had to work in collaboration with the mineral industry, not in strict opposition. We push, they push back. Eventually we find common ground regarding the split estate issue. The same with the eminent domain issue. But ICOW thinks that this is too much accommodation,” he said.
His group worked on legislation last year to strengthen the surface users’ rights. But, he said, ICOW didn’t think the efforts went far enough.
- NATIONAL AFFILIATIONS
McCullough said that when the country’s main meatpacker organization, the National Livestock Packer and Meat Board and the National Cattleman’s Association merged, the new policies began to favor big meat packing corporations.
“Right now, the packers set the price and the producers get what’s left,” she said. “In the old days, there were a lot more bidders for the animals — now, with these giant corporations, it’s a take-it-or-leave-it situation for us.”
Magagna said stock growers must have an affiliation with all important organizations in the industry — including the new National Cattleman and Beef Association — if it wishes to have any influence with them.
“We might not appeal to everyone,” he said. “But if we can get through our concerns to those in industry, or the packers, good.
“We have strongly disagreed with NCBA at times, especially when it comes to marketing our beef. And when that happens, we make our claim clearly,” he said. “But on other issues, such as nutrition and disease, we often agree. And we think it is important to stay closely associated with the organization in order to have a seat at the table,” he said.
“I’d like to see ICOW working more towards marketing our beef for developing markets,” said LJ Turner, a Wright area rancher and ICOW director.
“I sent my daughter down in Berkeley (Calif.) some of our grass-fed beef and she had the vegetarians licking the pot clean,” he said. “We’d like to see a local restaurant market for our beef; get the Wyoming name out. But we don’t have a processing plant in this area and that needs to be a priority, as well.”
ICOW also wants a stronger relationship the Ranchers-Cattlemen Action Legal Fund, or R-CALF, McCullough said.
“R-CALF is our best advocate” at the national level, she said.
- ANIMAL IDENTIFICATION
ICOW thinks branding — not tagging — is an adequate means of identifying animals, McCullough said. The National Animal Identification Program is too intrusive and too costly.
“It’s not inexpensive — it’s several dollars a tag,” she said. Branding has “worked for over a century.”
The Wyoming Stock Growers are opposed to a mandatory identification program but would work for a voluntary one, Magagna said.
McCullough leaves the Herefords to their breakfast and heads back to her house.
Splitting from the Wyoming Stock Growers Association still is on her mind.
It’s their job to “protect the little guys, cause the big guys have the money to protect themselves,” she said.
“But they didn’t. So now we are doing it.”
Published: Saturday, March 15, 2008 10:36 PM MDT
After four months of cold and gray and seemingly endless snowstorms, spring has finally come to Empire Ranch.
In the feeding pens, dozens of the winter-wooly Herefords jostle with hired hand John Miles for corn cake treats. The sky is blue and a tentative green is showing under the winter grass. For once, the south wind is warm on Judy McCullough’s ranch.
She watches the calves butt and play, but her mind is on a new, statewide cattlemen’s group — she’s the president of Independent Cattlemen of Wyoming, or ICOW.
She is among some 150 ranchers statewide who are looking out on similar scenes and worrying about the future of their enterprises.
That worry, along with a need for change, led them in June to pull away from the 137-year-old Wyoming Stock Growers Association, or WSGA.
“We feel that a lot of people are not being represented in the state of Wyoming by any trade organization, including the Wyoming Stock Growers Association,” she said. “We kept saying maybe we should start our own organization that would be more responsive to the members.
“So we formed our own group,” she said.
Jim Magagna, WSGA vice president, said it’s not surprising that after more than a century, differences have arisen.
“Not every rancher is going to agree with us on everything,” he said. “I believe in many cases we want the same things that ICOW wants, but we use different processes.”
Here are some issues ICOW members have pointed out:
- SPLIT ESTATE/ EMINENT DOMAIN
“We want to protect our private property rights. They want to compromise too much,” McCullough said. “Now don’t get me wrong — I like to drive a car, too. But the oilers (oil industry) need to pay the price of doing business on private property. They should not be able to drive over our property without compensating for the damage.”
Cheyenne area rancher Taylor Haynes said his allegiance to the Wyoming Stock Growers began to wane when split estate and eminent domain issues came up.
“We’d set policy and they’d go the other way,” said Haynes, an ICOW director.
Magagna said it is important to work with the energy industry.
“We decided we had to work in collaboration with the mineral industry, not in strict opposition. We push, they push back. Eventually we find common ground regarding the split estate issue. The same with the eminent domain issue. But ICOW thinks that this is too much accommodation,” he said.
His group worked on legislation last year to strengthen the surface users’ rights. But, he said, ICOW didn’t think the efforts went far enough.
- NATIONAL AFFILIATIONS
McCullough said that when the country’s main meatpacker organization, the National Livestock Packer and Meat Board and the National Cattleman’s Association merged, the new policies began to favor big meat packing corporations.
“Right now, the packers set the price and the producers get what’s left,” she said. “In the old days, there were a lot more bidders for the animals — now, with these giant corporations, it’s a take-it-or-leave-it situation for us.”
Magagna said stock growers must have an affiliation with all important organizations in the industry — including the new National Cattleman and Beef Association — if it wishes to have any influence with them.
“We might not appeal to everyone,” he said. “But if we can get through our concerns to those in industry, or the packers, good.
“We have strongly disagreed with NCBA at times, especially when it comes to marketing our beef. And when that happens, we make our claim clearly,” he said. “But on other issues, such as nutrition and disease, we often agree. And we think it is important to stay closely associated with the organization in order to have a seat at the table,” he said.
“I’d like to see ICOW working more towards marketing our beef for developing markets,” said LJ Turner, a Wright area rancher and ICOW director.
“I sent my daughter down in Berkeley (Calif.) some of our grass-fed beef and she had the vegetarians licking the pot clean,” he said. “We’d like to see a local restaurant market for our beef; get the Wyoming name out. But we don’t have a processing plant in this area and that needs to be a priority, as well.”
ICOW also wants a stronger relationship the Ranchers-Cattlemen Action Legal Fund, or R-CALF, McCullough said.
“R-CALF is our best advocate” at the national level, she said.
- ANIMAL IDENTIFICATION
ICOW thinks branding — not tagging — is an adequate means of identifying animals, McCullough said. The National Animal Identification Program is too intrusive and too costly.
“It’s not inexpensive — it’s several dollars a tag,” she said. Branding has “worked for over a century.”
The Wyoming Stock Growers are opposed to a mandatory identification program but would work for a voluntary one, Magagna said.
McCullough leaves the Herefords to their breakfast and heads back to her house.
Splitting from the Wyoming Stock Growers Association still is on her mind.
It’s their job to “protect the little guys, cause the big guys have the money to protect themselves,” she said.
“But they didn’t. So now we are doing it.”