Stockmen to hold district meetings

Despite a tough winter and issues relating to the environment and animal health, leaders in the state’s cattle industry believe this year should be as good as recent years for state farmers and livestock producers.

Working to help farmers and livestock producers get their cattle to pasture and preventing environmental regulations from passing that may have adverse impacts on the industry are key concerns for leaders of the North Dakota Stockmen’s Association.

NDSA officials are hosting their annual Spring Roundup meetings from June 1-6 with each of the six stockmen’s association districts in the state. The District 5 meeting is at 5:30 p.m. on Saturday, June 6, at the Watford City Golf Club.

NDSA executive vice-president Julie Ellingson said one of the biggest concerns is recovering from this year’s rough winter and the flooding that followed in many areas of the state.

“We certainly had an interesting year. Mother Nature is always a wild card, and it was pretty wild. Many producers are stuck with repairing a lot of infrastructure right now,“ said Ellingson.

Ellingson said a major set of issues the NDSA is paying attention to are environmental. This includes legislation being considered in Congress that is being pushed by various environmental and animal rights groups.

“We don’t want them to be regulated out of business. We take great pride in making these farms better for the next generation. These people are true environmentalists, they take care of their land so it can be used year after year,” said Ellingson of the NDSA membership.

Ellingson is attending each spring roundup meeting with a presentation on how the latest state legislative session went. She also is to explain what the NDSA is doing regarding various legislation and working to protect producers.

NDSA President Jack Reich thinks the upcoming year is shaping up fairly well despite the tough winter, flooding and the late spring.

“Export markets are doing pretty well; the dollar has been going up and down but not too bad. As far as the overall industry, I think some optimism would help a bit. It’s good to finally see some green grass, and the forecast of a cool, damp summer should make things alright,” said Reich.

Moving forward, Reich believes environmental and animal health issues are the important ones for the NDSA to work on. He said there is a lot of hard work ahead to preserve farmers’ and cattle producers’ ways of doing things without too much interference from the state and federal government.

“One thing that’s a bit of a worry to me is a lot of these environmentalist and animal rights groups are starting to push a bit harder in some states and have more stronger mainstream allies in Congress now,” said Reich.

Reich isn’t upset with the groups trying to force new regulations through Congress, but he wishes these groups knew that much of what they want to try to push seriously hurts farmers and producers in North Dakota and other farm states.

“They don’t seem to understand that a lot of what they want to put in practice doesn’t make a lot of sense and would put a lot of people out of business,” said Reich.

One issue relating to animal rights and the humane treatment of cattle would make things much more difficult for producers to do their jobs. He said they already do their work in the most humane ways known. Any uproar from animal rights groups is based upon the occasional bad apples.

Another troublesome issue Reich said is in the federal Clean Water Act. He said there is a push to take the word “navigable” out of a key portion of the legislation. If passed, it would put the government in charge of all bodies of water, even on private property.

Reich said this would make it extremely hard for producers to water cattle or crops because they would need to get permission to use water they already had on their property.

“We don’t want these things to become overreaching; it could sure put a lot of people out of business,” said Reich.

Rachel Aja, a national representative for the Stockmen’s Association, also said environmental issues and animal health issues are what the organization should be looking into at the state level and national level.

“We have staff in Washington working with members of Congress each day so that we are heard,” said Aja.

Aja agreed that some of the regulations being proposed would hurt producers. She said these issues are key to people being able to make a living.

“Animal welfare issues should be paid attention to; their ability to produce makes us able to do business at all,” said Aja.

Aja is to attend the upcoming meetings to bring a national perspective to the meetings.

The rest of the district meetings around the state are as follows:

*June 1 �” District 2 at the Memorial Park Country Club in Grand Rapids.

*June 2 �” District 3 at the Legion Club in Steele.

*June 3 �” District 1 at the Eagles Club in Rugby.

*June 4 �” District 6 at the VFW hall in Towner.

*June 5 �” District 4 at the Grant County Fair Building in Carson.

For more information on the NDSA, visit its Web site at www.ndstockmen.org.