Straight Arrow
Well-known member
More irrational bar-talk BS; thank-you. QED!
American prairie. What's the issue?
- Thread starter hossblur
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longbow51
Guest
As to the "feeling like serfs" comment, I have an anecdote.
Many ranches along the Sun River were bought up by a large company, and combined into one huge ranch. The guy who put the deal together was a friend of mine, and we fished and duck hunted there on occasion. Both beyond belief.
Eventually, the story came out. He took no money for putting the deal together, but had fishing and bird hunting rights, and could take his family and a few friends.
Even the cowboys who worked the ranch for a pittance couldn't take a fish from the river. Pretty close to "the King's deer".
Fittingly enough, when the owner passed on it was sold to a Walmart in-law (and was about a tenth of his real estate portfolio), and my friend was verboten, as were the rest of regular Montanans.
So yes, I understand the feeling of loss when family farms and ranches are bought by billionaires and locked up.
Is APR the answer? In the long term, who knows? But absentee landlords have historically rarely been kind to the local peasantry.
That's what made America different, at least until the last four decades or so. When I grew up, I could hunt any ranch I wanted as long as I asked, and I'm sure many of you could too.
But, to be fair, @EricAlbus, outfitters leasing up the same ranches and excluding the public (at least the ones who don't have $12K to shoot a bull) produces very much the same outcome.
The answer seems to be more public land, maybe, a la John Dutton, soak the tourists and newcomers with taxes and use that money to purchase same.
And, at the same time, the game belongs to the people; no more paid outfitters and guides. If you want to catch lots of trout, learn to fish. Want to shoot a bull? Learn how to hunt.
Ranchers form a union to cut their own beef and sell directly (one ranch in Belt is doing that) making up for lost revenue from leases and cutting out the sharks in the middle who reap all the profit. Then newcomers could actually enter the business as well.
But as both parties worship $$$ and growth (the ideology of the cancer cell per Abbey) such a scenario is unlikely.
Not impossible though; something seems very near the tipping point.
Many ranches along the Sun River were bought up by a large company, and combined into one huge ranch. The guy who put the deal together was a friend of mine, and we fished and duck hunted there on occasion. Both beyond belief.
Eventually, the story came out. He took no money for putting the deal together, but had fishing and bird hunting rights, and could take his family and a few friends.
Even the cowboys who worked the ranch for a pittance couldn't take a fish from the river. Pretty close to "the King's deer".
Fittingly enough, when the owner passed on it was sold to a Walmart in-law (and was about a tenth of his real estate portfolio), and my friend was verboten, as were the rest of regular Montanans.
So yes, I understand the feeling of loss when family farms and ranches are bought by billionaires and locked up.
Is APR the answer? In the long term, who knows? But absentee landlords have historically rarely been kind to the local peasantry.
That's what made America different, at least until the last four decades or so. When I grew up, I could hunt any ranch I wanted as long as I asked, and I'm sure many of you could too.
But, to be fair, @EricAlbus, outfitters leasing up the same ranches and excluding the public (at least the ones who don't have $12K to shoot a bull) produces very much the same outcome.
The answer seems to be more public land, maybe, a la John Dutton, soak the tourists and newcomers with taxes and use that money to purchase same.
And, at the same time, the game belongs to the people; no more paid outfitters and guides. If you want to catch lots of trout, learn to fish. Want to shoot a bull? Learn how to hunt.
Ranchers form a union to cut their own beef and sell directly (one ranch in Belt is doing that) making up for lost revenue from leases and cutting out the sharks in the middle who reap all the profit. Then newcomers could actually enter the business as well.
But as both parties worship $$$ and growth (the ideology of the cancer cell per Abbey) such a scenario is unlikely.
Not impossible though; something seems very near the tipping point.
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Hunting Wife
Well-known member
Interesting perspective. Most Montana hunters who were not lucky enough to be born into a land-owning family similarly feel like serfs as we are barred from access to our public trust resources by the landed gentry. This is the appeal for many of us of AP which, for the foreseeable future at least, restores and provides us access to those resources that are rightfully ours.
Guess it’s all in the eye of the beholder.
shoots-straight
Well-known member
Words regurgitated often by the Tribal mentality (Trump cult) we're living under.
Good stuff.
Are we shocked that people with limited earning potential in agriculture (for a variety of reasons) look at wildlife as a source of revenue for their operations? Every landowner I've talked with that has gone to outfitting or leasing is doing so because of the cost of doing business, lack of hunter ethics and a need to make ends meet. There's generally a shared love of the resource.
406dn
Well-known member
- Joined
- Dec 12, 2019
- Messages
- 2,266
While you and I view the world from different perspectives, it continues to amaze me that farmers and ranchers never seem to realize that there is hardly an industry more subsidized with public dollars than production agriculture. Talk about a safety net. Really, it's not a sweetheart deal to get a blm grazing lease? Do you know anyone leasing private grazing land for that rate?
The extremes of each party do not often offer a solution that most can accept. The far right does not have the answers either.
I do hope this cold snap is not causing too much of a headache. I threw my horses extra hay this morning and pulled out some ice along the edges of their water bowl. I'll have to check the water a couple times a day the next couple of days.
There are two paths to take here: conflict and more battles or work to find the right kind of incentive that works for everyone.
The more we look at this as us versus them, rather than a community issue to be solved through hard work and compromise, the more we end up just fighting. That's been the model since 2003. It's gotten all of us nowhere. Eric may not be for single-payer healthcare or support choice, but he's been at the table and working towards real solutions on wildlife issues for a while now. Like yesterday - when the 313 amendment died. Eric had a big part in that but you'd never know it because if he said anything publicly here, he'd get roasted for being disingenuous.
rogerthat
Well-known member
- Joined
- Aug 29, 2015
- Messages
- 2,918
Great comments Ben. As with anything there are pros and cons to everything. An echo chamber is never good for anyone’s perspective. Sometimes we forget that.
Bunch of them here. mtmuley
L
longbow51
Guest
As an aside, we just watched episode 7 of Yellowstone, and when John told Beth "we sell cattle, not beef", I told my wife they should cut their own like some ranches here do. Couple of meat markets here supplied by local ranches exclusively. One from Belt, as I mentioned before, one from the HiLine.
Lo and behold, the next scene was about 6666 beef (owned by Taylor Sheridan's group after the last of the Burnett family died, not coincidently, a little in-show advertising). Checked their website, 2 8 oz tenderloins $56 (over $300 free shipping). Something weird too about cattle guaranteed to be in USA at least 100 days. That's more than a little odd.
This could revolutionize the beef industry, insure Americans eat American beef (sorry Stanford, eff off),
and lessen pressure on ranchers to lease.
To combat the "bad hunters" Ben referenced, more stringent hunter ed (more like Germany, although not that strict), and some sort of system to know who is on the property when. Fines for bad behavior/poaching vastly higher than now.
Lo and behold, the next scene was about 6666 beef (owned by Taylor Sheridan's group after the last of the Burnett family died, not coincidently, a little in-show advertising). Checked their website, 2 8 oz tenderloins $56 (over $300 free shipping). Something weird too about cattle guaranteed to be in USA at least 100 days. That's more than a little odd.
This could revolutionize the beef industry, insure Americans eat American beef (sorry Stanford, eff off),
and lessen pressure on ranchers to lease.
To combat the "bad hunters" Ben referenced, more stringent hunter ed (more like Germany, although not that strict), and some sort of system to know who is on the property when. Fines for bad behavior/poaching vastly higher than now.
Cole Mannix is doing some really cool stuff with local beef around Helena.
Old Salt Co-op
Old Salt Co-op, More Than a Meat Company, located in Helena, Montana. Old Salt processing plant, butchery, retail store & restaurants provide premium, hormone-free, antibiotic-free, farm-to-table, 100% grass-fed and finished fresh and cured beef, lamb, & pork. Buy a meat bundle! Order online...
www.oldsaltco-op.com
The biggest issue with selling direct to the consumer is the FDA and the inability to handle slaughter at a smaller scale as well as the meatpacker stranglehold on the industry, as I understand it.
Economic scale is needed here - school districts, department of corrections, Air Force bases, etc could all be scaled customers that make the difference between opening a butcher shop on mainstreet and selling enough beef to make a profit.
A buddy out of Hysham was trying to go this route with mixed success. Best beef I've ever had too.
Straight Arrow
Well-known member
With respect to this thread, I don't think it's anti-rancher per se. It's just that those waging opposition and who are anti-AP are mostly ranchers and those who subscribe to the irrational ideology of UPOM's "property rights" and "save the cowboy" bunk.
This animosity toward purchases of large ranches is misdirected toward the AP. When you consider the impacts of those large ranch purchases such as described above on the Sun River, Wilks" acquisitions, the dramatic change on the Climbing Arrow (CA) Ranch and others, the focus and animosity would more appropriately be on those. Those dramatic changes to the smaller operation, family ranch legacy of the west are much more undesirable than a conservation approach to preservation, protection, and advocating for open lands as seen by the AP operation.
This animosity toward purchases of large ranches is misdirected toward the AP. When you consider the impacts of those large ranch purchases such as described above on the Sun River, Wilks" acquisitions, the dramatic change on the Climbing Arrow (CA) Ranch and others, the focus and animosity would more appropriately be on those. Those dramatic changes to the smaller operation, family ranch legacy of the west are much more undesirable than a conservation approach to preservation, protection, and advocating for open lands as seen by the AP operation.
The Mannixes in the Blackfoot are doing the same. Seems to be working well for them. Also for the Oxbow folks, who even have a self-serve honor system cooler full of beef set up, like folks do with firewood and eggs.
same folks.
Thought as much.
FWIW they have some land enrolled in BMA over here that I’ve used too. Seem like good stewards and all that.
SAJ-99
Well-known member
If they all got $0.25 more per lb ($150 to $200 more per yearling), do we really think they will have a change of heart and not lease to an outfitter?
I suspect that economic horse has left the barn and getting it back in isn't going to happen until the value of elk and deer declines. To Ben's point, I would love to find solutions that benefit all, but I think it is more a sharing of pain at this point. That is why these threads end in mostly pointing out the conflicts.
These are always interesting threads to follow. The plight of small-scale agriculture in this country is like watching the same movie over and over and over. This same dynamic has happened to many other industries, where small producers got squeezed and large operations backed with tax-subsidized Wall Street money are the ones doing the squeezing. In the process, the "little man" fights to hang on as long as possible, but eventually he can hold on no longer.
The social turmoil, the pain, the angst, repeats itself again and again and again. I saw it happen in my home town in the late 70's and early 80's when the Wall Streeters and their friends in the timber/paper industry saw how much leverage they would have if they could convince Congress to open our borders to Canadian timber/lumber/paper imports. Canada subsidizes their timber industry like we support our farming industry. Not a chance a small independent producer or mill near the border could fight against that. Now, rather than a lot of smaller operators, we have big operators, or those who operate for the mills; mills owned by foreigners and venture capital firms.
Small communities dry up. Jobs become harder to find, putting the labor pool at each others throats for the few jobs that exist, giving the big mills the advantage when negotiating wages, benefits, working conditions. Knowing their position of power, these big groups then leverage small cities and counties for tax breaks, with threats to close or move if such are not provided. We don't have small mills anymore. The big guys pushed them out. We have very few small loggers, my brother being one, who has to work harder, risk more capital, and expect lower returns.
The same has happened to small ag in much of the Midwest and the south, and the same is happening to small ag in Montana and the Great Plains. It is painful to watch. I spend a lot of my summer in Phillips County, a stronghold of the anti-AP sentiment. They are some of the nicest people you could ever meet. They work hard. They help each other and help strangers. They take a ton of risk and each year the Big Man operators who control the critical parts of their markets squeeze them harder and harder.
I don't share the anti-AP sentiment that is strong in Phillips County, but I share a ton of concern for them and their communities. Having lived through a similar event where a lot of Boogey Men were blamed by locals, I see a lot of parallels. If AP went away, the economic trends, the pressures, the increased risk for lower returns, are not going to lessen. Those impacts to locals will continue to increase, whether AP expands, contracts, disappears, or stays at their current landscape footprint. I suspect many locals know that. Having lived through such turmoil and watching the circling of the wagons as the bigger parts of our capitalist society look at this through a Darwin-ian lens, I have a ton of concern for small agriculture and their future. Not just the future of those small operators, but those communities they sustain.
I know this thread was started in a direction that would stir the pot. I hope that in spite of whatever differences we have on the topic of AP, we can see the consequences of subdividers or out-of-state land barons ending up with ownership of these working ag properties. If any hunter, or anyone interested in rural communities, thinks squeezing out small operators is helpful, I would suggest they take a look at the Gallatin Valley and what happens when small ag operations feel no other option exists. Or, look at the Little Snowies. Look at the Madison Valley. Look at (insert here).
I'm confident that someday folks with the anti-AP slant will realize that the focus on such a small group is very unlikely to make much change in the future of small ag in Phillips County, in Montana, or in the US. I am thankful for those small operators who were able to cash out at full value, thanks to AP money. Those willing sellers seem to be overlooked in much of the discussion. There is a never-stated but implied tone to the anti-AP sentiment that those willing sellers should have sold to someone else. That attack on willing-buyer/willing-seller outcomes has a level of hypocrisy that hits at the intellectual honesty anti-AP groups.
I also hope the UPOM-type groups who build memberships and raise money by creating the most profitable Boogey Man someday fade away or they get called out and challenged by their members to do something that actually helps. All UPOM has done, at least from where I sit, is to give me multiple reasons to question my support for small ag, rather than give me reason to do more for that way of life. Being the CPA for many small ag operations, I can see through the BS and my interest in supporting small ag is unaffected by the UPOM smoke screens.
I suspect if one could measure what UPOM's net impact has been for the long-term future of small ag operators in Montana, it would be a long-term negative. Yeah, they provide some feel-good BS campaigns that take the easy route and blame it on AP. If they really wanted to do something helpful, they would start efforts with more substance than cute little soundbites; efforts that would enlist the support of a lot of people who worry about small ag rather than instigating efforts that drive the wedge further and builds a moat around small ag issues.
Sorry for the ramble. Montana without small ag is not the Montana I hope for our future. That said, UPOM and their short-sighted campaigns of anti-AP provide nothing that I see as helpful to the cause of small ag. If any UPOM members can tell me the benefits to small ag that come from UPOM's efforts to get rid of AP, to pass hypocritical anti-property rights legislation focused on AP, to distract from the real issues facing small ag, or driving a wedge between hunters and small ag producers, I'm all ears. I have asked some UPOM members that question and the responses have not been very compelling.
Until someone gives me compelling answers to that question, I am still pro-small ag operator and still pro-"willing buyer/willing seller" and pro-property rights. I hope we can find a way that hunters and small ag operators can focus on our huge amount of mutual interest. So long as UPOM and similar conspiracy purveyors fear a loss of influence when small ag operators work with others, my hopes are likely forlorn.
Carry on ......
The social turmoil, the pain, the angst, repeats itself again and again and again. I saw it happen in my home town in the late 70's and early 80's when the Wall Streeters and their friends in the timber/paper industry saw how much leverage they would have if they could convince Congress to open our borders to Canadian timber/lumber/paper imports. Canada subsidizes their timber industry like we support our farming industry. Not a chance a small independent producer or mill near the border could fight against that. Now, rather than a lot of smaller operators, we have big operators, or those who operate for the mills; mills owned by foreigners and venture capital firms.
Small communities dry up. Jobs become harder to find, putting the labor pool at each others throats for the few jobs that exist, giving the big mills the advantage when negotiating wages, benefits, working conditions. Knowing their position of power, these big groups then leverage small cities and counties for tax breaks, with threats to close or move if such are not provided. We don't have small mills anymore. The big guys pushed them out. We have very few small loggers, my brother being one, who has to work harder, risk more capital, and expect lower returns.
The same has happened to small ag in much of the Midwest and the south, and the same is happening to small ag in Montana and the Great Plains. It is painful to watch. I spend a lot of my summer in Phillips County, a stronghold of the anti-AP sentiment. They are some of the nicest people you could ever meet. They work hard. They help each other and help strangers. They take a ton of risk and each year the Big Man operators who control the critical parts of their markets squeeze them harder and harder.
I don't share the anti-AP sentiment that is strong in Phillips County, but I share a ton of concern for them and their communities. Having lived through a similar event where a lot of Boogey Men were blamed by locals, I see a lot of parallels. If AP went away, the economic trends, the pressures, the increased risk for lower returns, are not going to lessen. Those impacts to locals will continue to increase, whether AP expands, contracts, disappears, or stays at their current landscape footprint. I suspect many locals know that. Having lived through such turmoil and watching the circling of the wagons as the bigger parts of our capitalist society look at this through a Darwin-ian lens, I have a ton of concern for small agriculture and their future. Not just the future of those small operators, but those communities they sustain.
I know this thread was started in a direction that would stir the pot. I hope that in spite of whatever differences we have on the topic of AP, we can see the consequences of subdividers or out-of-state land barons ending up with ownership of these working ag properties. If any hunter, or anyone interested in rural communities, thinks squeezing out small operators is helpful, I would suggest they take a look at the Gallatin Valley and what happens when small ag operations feel no other option exists. Or, look at the Little Snowies. Look at the Madison Valley. Look at (insert here).
I'm confident that someday folks with the anti-AP slant will realize that the focus on such a small group is very unlikely to make much change in the future of small ag in Phillips County, in Montana, or in the US. I am thankful for those small operators who were able to cash out at full value, thanks to AP money. Those willing sellers seem to be overlooked in much of the discussion. There is a never-stated but implied tone to the anti-AP sentiment that those willing sellers should have sold to someone else. That attack on willing-buyer/willing-seller outcomes has a level of hypocrisy that hits at the intellectual honesty anti-AP groups.
I also hope the UPOM-type groups who build memberships and raise money by creating the most profitable Boogey Man someday fade away or they get called out and challenged by their members to do something that actually helps. All UPOM has done, at least from where I sit, is to give me multiple reasons to question my support for small ag, rather than give me reason to do more for that way of life. Being the CPA for many small ag operations, I can see through the BS and my interest in supporting small ag is unaffected by the UPOM smoke screens.
I suspect if one could measure what UPOM's net impact has been for the long-term future of small ag operators in Montana, it would be a long-term negative. Yeah, they provide some feel-good BS campaigns that take the easy route and blame it on AP. If they really wanted to do something helpful, they would start efforts with more substance than cute little soundbites; efforts that would enlist the support of a lot of people who worry about small ag rather than instigating efforts that drive the wedge further and builds a moat around small ag issues.
Sorry for the ramble. Montana without small ag is not the Montana I hope for our future. That said, UPOM and their short-sighted campaigns of anti-AP provide nothing that I see as helpful to the cause of small ag. If any UPOM members can tell me the benefits to small ag that come from UPOM's efforts to get rid of AP, to pass hypocritical anti-property rights legislation focused on AP, to distract from the real issues facing small ag, or driving a wedge between hunters and small ag producers, I'm all ears. I have asked some UPOM members that question and the responses have not been very compelling.
Until someone gives me compelling answers to that question, I am still pro-small ag operator and still pro-"willing buyer/willing seller" and pro-property rights. I hope we can find a way that hunters and small ag operators can focus on our huge amount of mutual interest. So long as UPOM and similar conspiracy purveyors fear a loss of influence when small ag operators work with others, my hopes are likely forlorn.
Carry on ......
Straight Arrow
Well-known member
Yes, they are overlooked in discussion here and even criticized in other discussions. The reality is that in many cases the old rancher has no children or heirs interested in the tough, challenging ranch life, so sells the place.
And there are others overlooked, such as the ranchers who have benefitted from the AP by grazing their cattle on AP lands. They understandably remain neighborly quiet and continue to "cowboy" on the open prairie grass lands.
Irrelevant
Well-known member
Ranching isn't easy and it's only getting harder, but many of the ranchers I know are actively making decisions that'll make their lives harder not easier. Why waste that little bit of profit on advertising against a non-profit? The co-op idea is great. Start your own brand of beef. Montana beef. Try a CSA-type program. Everyone buys a share of the farm/ranch products. You could add value to it by allowing every share holder access to hunt 3 days a year, or something, or maybe not even hunting, just recreational access. I have two high school friends that have bought into the ranching business. Both are making money and growing, and while it's been a while since we had beers, they both attributed their success to thinking outside the box. There are literally millions of Americans that have too much money and are just looking for ways to spend it. Connect with them the same way the AP connects with people thousands of miles away. Give them a unique product to spend their money on, make them feel good about doing so.
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