Ranchers seek bigger part of federal farm bill

Ranchers seek bigger part of federal farm bill

August 9, 2001

By CHRISTOPHER THORNE
Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON — With stricter — and more expensive — feedlot regulations from the Environmental Protection Agency looming, ranchers are abandoning their disdain for federal handouts.

Cattlemen and their industry groups are lobbying Congress in an attempt to reshape what has been a traditional focus of farm bills on Midwest grain farmers to include new spending for the beef industry.

At issue is how to spend about $16 billion that is expected to be devoted to conservation.

Cattlemen want the money to offset anticipated costs of bringing their ranches and feedlots up to new federal standards to protect water quality from animal waste.

Grain farmers want more of that spending to be focused on soil-protection efforts, such as the Conservation Reserve Program, which pays farmers to take land out of production.

"In the past farm bills, the ranching sector has been ignored, the last one to get funding for programs," said Myrna Hyde, environmental director for the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association.

Ranchers can’t afford to ignore the farm bill this time around, said Merrill Karlen Jr., a rancher and feedlot operator from Reliance, S.D., who was attending the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association summer conference in Denver this week.

"We’re pretty independent-minded people. We don’t like someone telling us how to mind our business," said Karlen, who is also president of the South Dakota Cattlemen’s Association.

But compliance with the proposed feedlot regulations, he said, won’t be possible without federal aid.

For example, existing farm legislation gives feedlot operators up to $10,000 annually for waste-control measures like construction of manure sheds. Cattlemen would like to see that increased to $50,000 annually.

"There’s just no place else to go for help," but Washington, Karlen said.

At the time the EPA announced its new regulations for Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations, or CAFOs, last December, it called large livestock farms "among the greatest threats to our nation’s waters."

Designed to protect groundwater from pollution by animal waste, the new CAFO rule would require smaller livestock producers, including hog, chicken and cattle growers, to acquire permits and adhere to stringent pollution controls.

Cattle-producers predict they will face an undue burden, as much as $940 million a year nationally, to comply with the new regulations.

"Implementing conservation practices (is) not cheap," Hyde said. "In order to provide the public with the benefits they are asking for, we’re asking for their help to be able to do that."

Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman has promised livestock producers that the Bush administration would work with them — possibly rewriting the CAFO regulation — before imposing the new rules.