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Ranchers.net

Herman Schumacher owns a few cattle, sells a few cattle and takes time every now and then to stir the pot. He’s not your average cowboy.

Let me explain.

He used to own some land, a nice little 9000 acre place where he could graze his cattle. He sold it to Ducks Unlimited and leases it back…to graze his cattle. Can I see a show of hands of people who graze their cattle on land reserved for ducks? You can herd cattle. You might even be able to herd cats with a lot of work. But those damn ducks will just fly away.

He managed the old Herreid Livestock Market until it burned down almost 30 years ago. Today, he’s the co-owner of the new Herreid Livestock Market, a place that moves quite a few animals in South Dakota.

About 8 years ago, he got together with a few friends who thought cattlemen weren’t being treated fairly and organized a small meeting in Herreid. About 1,000 of his closest friends showed up to talk about it and soon afterwards R-CALF was born. One of the three founders of this little rabble-rousing group that now counts over 18,000 people as members, he served on the board for the maximum of 6 years and stepped down a few months ago.

So I decided to spend about 5 minutes with this cattleman, sale barn operator and founding father to see what winds him up in the morning.



How did you get into the cattle business?

I basically grew up in the cattle business. I was the second oldest of nine children of Sebastian and Mary Schumacher of Zeeland, N.D. I grew up on a beef, dairy and grain farm.

After a short time in college, I returned to the family farm and got into the cattle business. In 1969, I began working for a livestock market in Wishek, N.D., as a ring man. In 1970, I went to auctioneering college in Mason City, Iowa.

In 1976, I began managing the old Herreid Livestock Market in Herreid, S.D., until it burned down in 1978. I then started auctioneering at six different livestock markets in North Dakota and South Dakota from the fall of 1978 until Gordie Ullmer and myself built a new market in Herreid, S.D., and opened it up on Sept. 25, 1981. This market has since grown into the second largest feeder-cattle market in the Dakotas.



What do you do in your downtime?

As a livestock market owner and a feedlot owner, it seems like there is very little down time. I do enjoy going to farms and ranches and visiting with the owners.



You operate the new Herreid Livestock Market which puts you in a perfect position to answer this question. Verification programs are supposed to put more money in the hands of producers. Are they delivering on the promise, and how have they affected the way you run your sale barn?

Through the brand programs in North Dakota and South Dakota, we have been source-verifying cattle for years. We have been getting premiums for customers at Herreid Livestock Market using this process for a long time.

But as a feedlot owner, we cannot get the premium for the high quality source-verified cattle when they are marketed. Primarily because of packer ownership and contract cattle, the packer has put himself in a position where he never has to pay a premium for cattle that are source verified, but instead, just buys them on the average.



You're one of the founders of R-CALF. The organization has grown tremendously in size and influence since those early days in the late 1990s. Has it become what you thought it might be and where will it go from here?

R-CALF, as an organization, grew like I thought it would. In my years in the cattle business, the producers were letting me know on a daily basis they felt that nobody was respecting them. I think R-CALF has surprised many people with its past successes, and in my opinion, R-CALF will only continue to grow.



You joined with Kansas cattle feeder Mike Callicrate and Omaha cattleman Roger Koch to file suit against Tyson, Cargill, Swift and ConAgra, alleging they misreported boxed-beef prices between April 2, 2001, and May 11, 2001. A federal jury trial to consider the class action suit began in Aberdeen a few days ago (Monday, April 3). What was the reasoning behind the action and how do you plan to prove your case?

This case, in my opinion, is a no-brainer. These packers – through the help of USDA – missed reporting of boxed beef and were able to buy cattle at artificially lower prices. This also, in my opinion, is ‘collusion’ among the four big packers because they all bid according to the false boxed-beef prices. As soon as USDA corrected the problem, the live market resounded to sharply higher cattle prices.



When the lawsuit over the National Beef Checkoff program was dismissed in the South Dakota federal court with a deal between the Livestock Marketing Association, the Cattlemen's Beef Board and the U.S. government, you were one of two individual plaintiffs who refused to sign. Why did you decide to withhold your signature?

Although we have to accept the decision made by the Supreme Court, it doesn’t mean I agree with it. Also, in the District Court in South Dakota, the Livestock Market Association’s charge was that the USDA had disqualified many producers’ signatures. We never even got to that. The judge called the Checkoff statute unconstitutional primarily because the checkoff was being used for self-promotion. I believe we still have a day left in the courtroom.



Thousands of cattlemen read cattlenetwork.com. What would you like to say to them?

Never before in history has it been more important to an industry to stand together. The domestic cattle industry is facing problems with the implementation of Country-of-Origin Labeling (COOL); packer concentration; a captive supply of cattle; unfair trade; and food-safety issues.

These problems, if left unchecked, will be the demise of the domestic cattle industry. We will become nothing short of contract growers, not unlike the poultry and pork industries. You have to realize power comes in numbers, and again, if the cattle industry comes together, we will continue to win the battle.



This page was last edited Wednesday May 03, 2006.
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