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Rapid City Journal – Sunday – April 15, 2007
R-CALF
continues to fight for producers
By Andrea J. Cook, Journal staff
After a February upheaval on its board of directors, R-CALF USA is experiencing
the same sense of renewal that spring brings to the prairies of western South
Dakota, according to its supporters.
R-CALF is as capable as ever of looking out for the best interests of cattlemen
and the American consumer, they say.
That's despite an anonymous Web site's innuendos about the financial and
political health of R-CALF USA and the emergence of a new organization focused
on conversation rather than legal confrontations with the U.S. Department of
Agriculture.
"R-CALF is in good shape," said Johnny Smith of Fort Pierre. Smith represents
North Dakota, South Dakota and Nebraska on R-CALF's board of directors. "R-CALF
is up and going and probably stronger than ever and working for our producers
out there," he said.
R-CALF was formed in the late 1990s to advocate on behalf of cow-calf producers.
Its formation came after some ranchers became disenchanted with the National
Cattlemen's Beef Association.
Herman Schumacher of Herreid, a co-founder and past director of R-CALF USA, or
Ranchers-Cattlemen Action Legal Fund United Stockgrowers of America, has spent
much of the past month traveling throughout South Dakota and other states on
behalf of R-CALF.
"I'm very encouraged with the amount of people I've talked to," Schumacher said.
"They want to stay strong with this organization."
Philosophical differences among R-CALF's board of directors came to a head in
February when the board voted 5-4 during a Feb. 8 meeting to oust president
Chuck Kiker of Beaumont, Texas. Like-minded board members replaced Kiker with
Missouri veterinarian Max Thornsberry.
After the board's actions, R-CALF co-founder and past president Leo McDonnell
and directors Dennis McDonald and Jon Wooster joined Kiker in resigning from the
board. Thirteen committee chairmen and co-chairmen resigned the next day.
The leadership change led to a series of regional meetings across the country
intended to dispel concerns about R-CALF's vitality.
"R-CALF is now back having like-minded people at the helm of its organization,"
said Bill Bullard, R-CALF's chief executive officer. "The leaders remaining are
committed to aggressively pursuing the member policies of R-CALF."
The fracturing of the board resulted from philosophical differences on the best
way to carry out R-CALF's goals, according to Schumacher.
The majority of the board believes that one of R-CALF's strengths is its
willingness to use the courts to fight for cattlemen's rights and to protect the
American consumer, he said.
"You had the minority on the board wanting to go a kinder, gentler way doing
more negotiating with people on the inside," Schumacher said. "It's sad that it
got as far as it did."
But Danni Beer of Keldron says the shift to a less confrontational strategy was
helping R-CALF gain stature in Washington, D.C. Beer, a volunteer head of R-CALF's
Country of Origin Labeling committee, is one of those who resigned in February.
"I felt we had built a reputation in Washington," Beer said. R-CALF's status had
been raised, she said. "We had built a team. We were working within the system."
Beer says work going on behind the scenes for the nation's cattle producers is
irreplaceable. There was a growing respect in the capital for R-CALF based upon
the efforts of members and leaders, backed by the day-to-day work of Jess
Peterson, R-CALF's director of government relations in Washington, D.C., she
said.
Peterson left R-CALF at the end of March, Beer said.
"It's really disappointing that the leadership couldn't work together in a
better fashion than they did," Beer said.
Now, Beer concentrates on helping the fledgling United States Cattlemen's
Association get off the ground. She is an interim member of the board of
directors led by president Jon Wooster of San Lucas, Calif. Wooster has a family
cow-calf ranching operation.
The people behind USCA are many of the same people who were in R-CALF; many are
still members, Wooster said.
Legal battles may have given R-CALF some early victories, "but in the long run,
the lasting successes would not come from litigation," Wooster said. Litigation
can persist for years and is expensive, he said.
According to Wooster, differences in philosophies among board members began
emerging about a year ago after Kiker took over as president and several new
members joined the board of directors.
USCA's interim board is busy developing a set of policies. Like R-CALF,
country-of-origin labeling and a voluntary animal identification system are
among issues USCA plans to focus on, according to its Web site,
www.uscattlemen.org.
Although it's less than a month old, USCA has enough financial support to start
putting a team together in Washington, Wooster said. Memberships are coming in
by word of mouth, he said.
USCA should have a presence in Washington soon to act as a voice for cattlemen
in developing the new farm bill, he said.
"We just want to pick up and continue with what we were doing in the old
organization," Wooster said. "We felt that for the last two years, we'd been
making progress."
Events that allegedly led up to the February confrontation on the R-CALF board
are chronicled on the Web site www.swifthorses.com. People maintaining the Web
site prefer to remain anonymous.
"When we created Swift Horses, we decided to maintain our anonymity because we
wanted the content, the facts to shine," Swift Horses replied to an e-mail
inquiry. "As for our identities, we are a few members who decided to express the
concerns that many members have in a public forum."
Swift Horses' allegations that R-CALF has serious financial problems are
unfounded, Smith said. "We're in as good a financial shape as we've been," he
said.
When R-CALF started in 1998, it had an $800,000 legal bill for its first trade
investigation case, Bullard said. Half of that debt has been paid off in the
past seven years. R-CALF's only obligation is the remaining $400,000 of that
initial debt, Bullard said. "All other legal expenses have been paid in full."
Meanwhile, R-CALF is holding its own in Washington, with Bullard there on a
weekly basis, Schumacher said. "Bill has done a wonderful job. We're right on
top of things."
The biggest threat facing the livestock industry is USDA's plan to open the
Canadian border to live cattle 30 months and older, Schumacher said. The recent
confirmation of another case of bovine spongiform encephalopathy in Canada
clearly indicates there is a danger in allowing older Canadian cattle into the
United States, he said.
"Canada clearly, clearly has a problem," Schumacher said. "And we need to keep
litigating on the table."
Last month's ruling by a federal court that Creekstone Farms Premium Beef has a
legal right to test cattle for BSE, known as mad cow disease, increases the
likelihood of success in getting the courts to protect the nation's food supply,
Schumacher said.
Having a lobbyist in Washington is an effective tool, but R-CALF needs to keep
all weapons in its arsenal, including litigation, Schumacher said. R-CALF built
its reputation on its willingness to attack the issues and use the legal system,
he said.
"The 'L' in R-CALF stands for legal, not love," Belvidere rancher Kenny Fox
said. Fox is co-chairman of South Dakota's R-CALF membership committee and a
regional vice president of the South Dakota Stockgrowers Association.
The Stockgrowers Association renewed its affiliation with R-CALF in February
after the board shake-up. Stockgrowers president Rick Fox of Hermosa says the
group is standing firm with R-CALF.
Rollover auctions, where donated cattle are repeatedly sold, raised more than
$50,000 for R-CALF after the leadership change, he said.
"That made the Stockgrowers pretty confident that the producers of South Dakota
are still behind R-CALF and the direction they're going as far as keeping
Canadian cattle out," Rick Fox said.
He has fielded questions about the viability of R-CALF, but almost everyone
believes the Stockgrowers are on the right track by staying affiliated with
R-CALF, he said. "You don't just bounce around or jump in and out of an
organization on a whim," Rick Fox said.
Since affiliating with R-CALF, the Stockgrowers Association has seen a
resurgence of interest in its organization because it is involved in more state
and national issues, he said.
Rick Fox speculates that R-CALF is going through the same evolution many
organizations experience. There are still people who refuse to join the
Stockgrowers because of something that happened 30 years ago, he said.
"R-CALF started as a fresh face. Right then, they had no baggage," Fox said. "As
R-CALF goes along, they're starting to pick up a little baggage."
Bullard says R-CALF's strength will always be in its 15,000 members. Volunteers
are coming forward to replace those who left the organization, he said.
"R-CALF's successes have been by engaging its individual members and empowering
them to become effective representatives of the U.S. cattle industry," Bullard
said.
http://www.rapidcityjournal.com/articles/2007/04/17/news/top/news06.txt
Contact Andrea Cook at 394-8423 or
andrea.cook@rapidcityjournal.com |
