Feed the world? Not from Texas!

Deer Haven Ranch

It has been dreadfully hot and humid and void of precipitation. Going outside is like walking into a blast furnace. The livestock are huddled beneath shade trees and are decidedly off their food. The general human atmosphere is glum for lack of rain and the impending need to sell more cattle rather than purchase hay and feed at inflated costs.

 

The countryside here is riddled with long and low outbuildings that once housed pigs or chickens. The former were a staple here for many many years. Then the price of feed began to rise reaching a point at which it was more economic to slaughter than feed newborn piglets. That marked the end of the small farmer hog industry. It is now in the hands of very large corporations that are also heavily invested in grains.

 

Recently, a bid was made by China to purchase our largest producer of pork and pork products. As far as I know, the sale is still pending.

 

Much the same happened to the chicken industry but with the additional problem of major liability issues. I often have morning coffee with the owner of a 400,000 strong egg producing facility. He could not keep up with the cost of meeting federal agricultural and environmental regulations and feared the prospect liabilities resulting from of a case of salmonella or bird flu. He sold out to a large corporation and is now in the process of cleaning up storage pits for chicken manure. To date, he has removed 1,600 tanker truck loads of the stuff which he sells to local farmers and ranchers for fertilizer.

 

It looks like the beef industry will go the way of chicken and pork. This has already happened to the dairy industry. Central Texas was once full of Jersey dairy farms. Much of the problem related to that family business was the unrelenting work involved in maintaining a productive dairy. When the offspring finally decided to go to college rather than work the dairy, mom and pop sold out to the big boys.

 

We grow a lot of field corn around here for seed and fodder markets. This season started off with a bang owing to frequent rains. Then the drought hit us again. Thousands of acres of dried up and un harvested corn is a poignant reminder of our agricultural predicament.

 

The good old boys at the various coffee shops are managing to keep their sense of humor as they continue to joke and spin tales of cattle and weather. Beneath the surface, however, is a sense of gloom and depression over what the future will bring. Too many years have passed which the farmers and ranchers  wrote off as exceptionally bad times while living on the hope that next year will be better.

 

We are seriously thinking about stripping off some 15 acres of land for development purposes. Our plan is to construct a modest house that would appeal to the hoards of baby boomers that are currently invading the countryside. There are four properties for sale along our 3-mile long road. Nearby, grazing land is being regularly subdivided into plots of 12 of so acres for the same purpose.

 

The human imports from the big cities are resented for breaking up the land into small plots. The new residents often lease back some of their land to ranchers for cattle grazing purposes. In this manner, home owners can benefit from substantially lower property taxes levied at agricultural rather than residential rates.