NFO-115 (AV10615): Observation of Western Feedlots

welcome to us farm report a public information program brought to you in the interest of agriculture rural business and the well-being of our nation by members of the national farmers organization in this local area the national farmers organization takes pride in inventing a marketing system to meet our needs of the 20th century collective bargaining for agriculture NFO represents new thinking in a new generation of farmers us farm report presents observation of feedlots in the western states here is W. W. Butch Swaim national director of NFO research and public information today on us farm report we have a number of distinguished guests people that are actually raising cattle feeding cattle raising the feed for those cattle through irrigation irrigated farming and one gentleman in the dairy business and one lady who is women's director of a television station in this area and I might say at this time that this is being filmed in Denver Colorado one of the probably best-known cattle feeding areas in the United States and I'd like to introduce my special guests and then you'll come back and visit with them a little bit later but to my immediate left we have Alex Hoffner of Greely Colorado Alex is a longtime cattle feeder rancher raising his own herd and buying others also irrigated farming producing his feed the fatten out those cattle then to his left we have Doris Barry women's director of KTVS television at Sterling Colorado and one of the important things for her being on today we're now starting a series of television shows not over not only just on her station but on Cheyenne Wyoming as well as Scottsbluff Nebraska and Doris berry as one of the ones that was kind enough to help line up this time and it's helped us in a number of ways and I'm sure that you'll have some important things to contribute today them to her left is Wayne Ludwig from Torrington Wyoming and Wayne again is the cattle rancher cattle feeder irrigated farming and there's a little bit of everything in the farming way and most certainly if you're going to make money you should be able to do it when you produce the feed produce cattle fatten them out most certainly if anybody could make money that type of an operation could then do his immediate left we have Richard Raney of Kelsey Colorado Richard is has a large or relatively large dairy herd about a hundred cow herds milking about 65 I believe he told me at this- all the time also he has a beef herd and also fattened out beef cattle and he also has irrigated farming and you can see that he has his hands roll then to his left we have Virgil Sprague Virgil is well known throughout Colorado better known to his friends are Swede he's also a large rancher irrigated irrigation farming raising his own feed and fattening out beef now today we're going to start off with Alex Hoffner here to my immediate left and Alex you've been kind enough to bring along a lot of pictures of feedlots and that's quite a few things that I'm sure you'll all be interested in the Alex well to start with I want to familiarize some of the people which was the feedlots in our area in a radius of ten miles of my home at the present time there's 225,000 that a cattle being fed or more the lots will vary in size from 75,000 head on down and several of them with 15 and 20,000 so we always talk about why are they so big I want to tell you why they're so big the reason they have growed and expanded I better get back to some of these feedlots a little first the reason they have expanded I spent in this business as long as some of those boys have but they didn't have to stand the loss on throwing the crop the only loss they ever had to stand there watch the feedlot lost whenever we get to the position that we will get the cost of production for this feed this feeding will move back out on the farm where it belongs now I like to have some of those pictures it's start with now this is just one of the feedlots in our area they tell me there's about 75 thousand on feed in that plate that is just a mile long from this end to the other the length of the picture now I would like to show you some of the storage for feed this one on my on your left there you can just see this it looks like a gravel pit there that is a pit of [unclear] and that long stick over there is another pit the long strip in the middle you're talking the middle there is about a hundred and seventy thousand tons in those two holes how many dollars would that represent Alex oh I never figured that that's been making me dizzy now there is another pit this on the extreme left is what corn set up one of those pits will hold 6,500 ton it's about a quarter of a million dollars there's a half a million dollars worth of wet corn and those two holes the two on the left we're going to love it yes and the other two sides that is chopped corn chopped corn is we call that we call it insulation our area now there are some of pictures of some of the old-time feed locks you know what if they're not being in use anymore and that man would surely feed 75 head and get fine it I honestly want the next room look there's another one the same way it's it's more a little modern but you don't see much livestock in there but 20 years ago that's how our cattle were fed in our area they were in my immediate area would say we have lost 75% of the small feedlot operators on account finances and account of losses that had to be taken up in farming well this is very good and very interesting because most certainly if they're in the profit in the farming operation the family farm is going to be forced out first the corporate farm setup can stay for a while but in time they will disappear too unless price situation is corrected so it has to be corrected many of those people are beginning to come aware of this and more willing to help that's right and a lot of these sellers are friends of mine that's owned these big feedlots in fact I talked to one yesterday and that it isn't you can't blame these fellers they've just took advantage of the situation that's occurred and they they could get the finances and they grow with it and this is this is why they've got big and I do believe that if a small farmer would have got finance the whole thinking of our economy across the nation was thinking of being bigger the only way to survive would be bigger I don't think these feedlots would've ever been built well the big ones aren't doing so well either are they we have a lot of them they tell me that to have their financial problems just the same as the small farmer or feeder but he seems to have an outlet where he can hide Oh more money more money maybe it's because he buys his cheap his feed a little cheaper from the other fella like you pointed out didn't take the loss on the feed well I could add a little more to that for the simple reason you you take an average farmer you give him the cost of production on his feed and let him feed those cattle even if he lost his labor on feeding those cattle you're still not gonna break him but when he has to absorb the loss on growing a crop and then absorb another loss on on cattle that he bought putting that feedlot it ain't gonna take long because I know what I'm talking about because I'm in that business you're in that business well this is certainly good to have somebody with authority now we're going to move along the Doris Barry who was women's television director of television station at Sterling Colorado and Doris you're in the business of putting on television programs or the business of operating or helping to operate a television think of all of the extra money or extra possibilities in your television station and for business people in your community if farm prices were restored if fair farm prices were restored it would double the flow of money through all of rural America think what you could do give us a word on what you would do what you think this would mean for Sterling Colorado and other towns USA that might be affected thank you but I'm glad to have this opportunity as you said I am a women's director well this is sort of like being the second lieutenant in the Army and know you do a little bit of everything and I am also a member of the sale staff of our stations and they you just tipped sort of a real tender spot here because Sterling Colorado is I think typical of many small communities throughout rural America and I'm thinking of the additional advertising the additional business that we could have in our station now I don't mean that we're going to make a lot of extra money out of this but we'd make money that's what we're all in business for and I'm sorry to say that all you fellows aren't making money you know but nevertheless if our station prospers then the- the businesses in these small towns in rural America are going to prostitute because we can do the job of selling for them but without you- you rural people that we completely rely on none of us are gonna make any money one reason we like to bring this out is because we like to show that everyone is concerned and everyone will support the National Farmers Organization as soon as they understand what it will do for the family farm or their community and all business in general because statistics of the United States government proves conclusively that every dollar of gross farm income turns into $7.00 of national income well this is the reason why your community is feeling the pinch and to restore it right it would double the flow of dollars through rural America USA and then turn for each dollar of gross farm income and this is what the community lives off of the gross farm income the farmer he has to live off the net but the community lives not only off the gross but the net income and this is what's important your television stations this is why all of the television stations throughout the Midwest here virtually without exceptions are supporting us to a certain extent and helping much more than they used to now we're going to move along again now I want to come back to you again Doris later on if we have time to Wayne Ludwig to her left from Torrington Wyoming Wayne Ludwig how do you see the picture and what has to be done to get this job brought about to serve all the rural America the way it should be well butch I think myself that that our major problem today is a educational one I think that we simply must educate all of the people everywhere to the fact that we must organize we must somehow or another sort of speak fight fire with fire we live in a highly organized society and in this organized society people who are unorganized or simply batting their heads against a brick wall so to speak and I think our major the thing of most importance to to us and NFO is a period of education a period of adjustment for for ourselves and the rest of the consuming public in other words what you're saying is that we all need to organize and understand each other's problem organize together as farmers to bargain together and sell together that the rural communities must be brought in on to let them know what we're trying to accomplish so that they can see whereby they can gain also everybody in America would gain possibly might be an exception of to of a few of the people that might be a little extra but other than that every single American would gain by fair farm prices because why do I say this history records that using the American system the farm price is more or less in balance over the years with agriculture getting its fair share by 1929 the United States of America made up only 6% of the people in the world but yet we had generated and accumulated 50% of the entire wealth of the whole world and this came from our agriculture commodities when they were receiving a fair price now they're deteriorating America is reaching a danger point all over in the newspaper and you'll know what I'm talking about now we're going to pass on to Richard Rennick over here from Kelsey Colorado Richard is in the dairy business also has a beef cow herd Richard why don't you tell us your outlook on this situation which I'd like to go back up for a minute and kind of elaborate a little bit what Alex had mentioned here really is my hometown now elekid mentioned the fact that within ten miles radius of his farm you could pick up and see about 250,000 cattle in feedlots I took a compass the other night and took Greely as the center point of my my little area and I drew a 12-mile circle out around the Greely area and as close as I could figure I believe we could go out and see approximately 350,000 cattle in feedlots now this is not range cattle this is not dairy cattle this is just cattle that are in the feedlots so this will give you kind of an idea what kind of a concentration of livestock that we do have within the Greeley Colorado area now naturally with a situation like this the first question that is asked is can you produce enough feed within that area to feed this many livestock but we cannot in fact we buy more feed or import more feed than what we produce in our own state so naturally this leaves a situation where we have a few more stumbling stones for farmers within the area and I believe this is usually true where you have a large concentration of big feedlots now first of all nearly all farmers produce feed of some kind for livestock after the feed has been produced they are financially embarrassed they can't feed or get financing to feed their own livestock so naturally these people are obligated to sell this feed when they sell this feed butch it is usually on a market that has been established by the feedlots within an area and this price is usually less than the market price and they claim to be less than the neighboring state of course they will they use this too in order to be able to buy cheap feed but yet at the same time when they buy your neighboring states feed they will buy it for as little as they can and a lot of instances even less because their neighboring states has too much corn too and down there they're giving it away they use this dough there's kind of a leverage to put the pressure on the people in their area to sell a little cheaper to them this is true butch although at the same time I may sound like I am condemning our big feedlots it's quite the contrary we've got to recognize these people that are operating your large feedlots these people are intelligent they are just merely taking advantage of the stumble stumbling blocks that the farmer has hasn't been able to get over I'd liked it at one point just a moment the stumbling block I see for coming for them in the near future a stumbling block for them also because they're going to have nobody out here producing the bead if they break the farmers but they're producing it now wouldn't you say this is about right yes this is true I think an easy way to do away with this for this particular situation as do as the the feeder the big feeder has done he is throwing away his his wishbone and he's using his backbone and this is a way in order that the farmer can put himself with it in a position in order to get his cost of production for what he does produce by banding together all of those cattle feeders could get a price they would be bigger than any of the chain stores or any of the processors that buy from them and they're entitled for a price too so this is a reason that more and more of those are learning the NFO story and what it can mean to them and filling out membership applications in the National Farmers Organization and we hear more and more of this all the time they're changing their attitude and somebody remarked about that before the program started here I don't know which one of you fellows it was who was it who wanted to speak on that particular thing I'll take we have to be brief because we've got 10 minutes left that I was at the Cattlemen's Association convention just a week ago and they're just as concerned about in the cattle industry as the farmers are I'd like to put this out for the public for every animal that's grade choice heifer or steers the American cattle industry is pumping $100 per head into the economy somebody along the lines has lost $100 I don't mean some individual the grain grower though the calf producers of feeders they have lost $100 and all they can talk about is we've got to organize we've got to get bigger we've got to concentrate of course they were just talking cattle and I don't think that'll ever work for the simple reason if it we got to the cattle end of it and really got profitable everybody would be in the cattle business but if we take an overall pitch and let's live and live and let live peace immortal I believe then the cattle industry would hold its own the farmers would hold their own each man do as he wanted to do out there with this piece of land and I'm also concerned it was also concerned and so are we about these guys joining these organizations and that's all that doesn't do any good we've got to have participation we've got to stick together we've got to get it done I think it was real significant this year at this particular convention that you mentioned but Orne Lee Staley national president of the national farmers organization was one of the guest speakers of that organization and I think this is significant more and more of the farm groups are working together and as you pointed out there if everybody got in the cattle happening business who would raise the calves or the feeder stock now we're going to call on Virgil Sprague better known as Swede and I'd like the camera to move in over there after it gets going a little bit we have an article out of a newspaper showing what happens to the profit on a steer who gets it Virgil well thank you but I don't know it's a possibly the sickest industry in the world today is agriculture I think approves it by only three nations Australia New Zealand and United States having any food available to export and Canada has some from the Mexican border on north but it's the sick part of the industry is the man producing can't make a living and cannot hold this together and cannot keep other industries from moving in and taken over your production of all commodities in the the culture industry at a sick point as far as cost of production of anything that you can make a living out of there's nothing wrong with the feedlots there's nothing wrong with the quality of feed produced I think Mike Cervi's Journal come out with the answer especially to the beef end of it this was printed in Denver Colorado Wednesday January the 11th chains make huge beef profits hikes price one hundred and eighty eight dollars on each carcass well in short it's supermarkets sold for four hundred and eighteen dollars beefs at custom two hundred and twenty eight dollars that isn't all they sold the beef collected the money before they ever paid the supplier now the carcasses on which supermarkets were making the gross profit of up to a hundred and ninety dollars a piece or the same cattle on which producers and feeders lost up to forty dollars apiece so I think that most people that read The Denver Post very noted rancher in our state Wyatt Hinman he stated in the Empire section of the Denver Post last Sunday he says I think we are assured and I a quote that quote his article here I think if we were assured over thirty to thirty two cent market on these seven to eight hundred pound steers and maybe thirty to forty on these steer calves we could get along I don't say your be as well-off as any other business but you could make ends meet know that's coming from a man that's been in the ranching business for a good many years and the industry as a whole it's the marketing agencies for it the fewer cattle that's making the top price on a coal and on a quoted market on a days on a particular day well it's probably 10% of them make the top the rest of them have bought anywhere from Oh two dollars a hundred less in between there I'd like to inject one point here Swede I recently attended the meeting in Washington DC called by the Secretary of Agriculture of different groups were all over rural America over America I should say and they pointed out that they're really concerned Assistant Secretary of Agriculture George Marin pointed out he says unless there are substantial increases can be made in the livestock prices in the near future but public is really going to suffer there isn't going to be enough meat to go around what do we do about it I'd like the camera to come over and on the map of the United States here and take a look a brief look and what we're doing about it through the NFO the National Farmers Organization we bring you in many of rural areas of America a program known as US farm report and all those stars on that that map will indicate the big stars indicate a half-hour television show once every week the smaller stars you can't can't see the color of course we have about 60 of those half-hour programs we have 12 15-minute live television programs every week we have a hundred and fifty radio programs every week telling rural America's story telling everyone that we all profit by fair farm prices as we did in the past let's take one quick minute to look at what took place in World War two when prices were throws in balance with the rest of society and we had the most prosperous time ever in the history of these United States now let's get back on that map of the United States again I want to cover the area that we're already over organization-wide start in there in New York City area where the stars are there to- over there on the map and you can go clear across the United States from Denver Colorado with the exception of a small portion of counties in the state of Pennsylvania all of those counties are organized in NFO farmers joining together filling out a certificate of friendship on paper showing their willingness to work with other farmers in their area to get a price for what we have to sell and that what NFO is all about and we would like to encourage all other farmers to join with us support our efforts join our organization support our efforts and get a price for rural America a price that will preserve our private enterprise system that has made America great by private enterprise system I mean this includes everybody in their own business such as merchants in town all types of business people farmers corporations the entire thing so that to be owned by the individuals and that for today is something to think about really be concerned about because if the economy goes on down the line and we lose this enterprise system the family farm structure of agriculture in America the thing the type of agriculture that made America greater than any other nation in the world won't you join the NFO and support our efforts now before it's too late thank you for listening [music] us farm report is presented observation of feedlots in the western states members of the national farmers Organization invites you to tune in again next week at the same time for more facts on agriculture and rural America which is the gear wheel in our economy that produces the majority of our nation's new wealth the farm income pattern sets the nation's prosperity and the national farmers organization represents new thinking and a new generation of farmers [music]