Friends of ‘livestock friendly’ eye new approach

By ART HOVEY / Lincoln Journal Star | Posted: Saturday, October 3, 2009 11:30 pm |

So far the cows aren't coming home.

Despite the maroon and gold welcome signs posted along highway entry points, eight of the 11 counties designated as "livestock friendly" by the Nebraska Department of Agriculture between 2005 and January 2009 had lower cattle numbers entering this year.

That includes Morrill County, home of Chimney Rock and the first county to qualify for the state designation in 2005. The county began that year with an estimated 161,000 cattle, according to the Lincoln office of the National Agricultural Statistics Service, and started this year with 155,000.

Gov. Dave Heineman flew to Bridgeport to congratulate the first county to go on the list and said it "serves notice across this great state that Morrill County is open for agricultural business."

Proponents of the program had hoped a welcoming attitude might matter in where new livestock operations located and others expanded. Now there's a push for a revolving loan fund or some other type of financial incentive to accomplish that mission.

The program is patterned after the approach used by the state Department of Economic Development. The idea is to identify specific and - in the case of livestock - relatively isolated sites that could add clout to the state's livestock economy without encroaching on the quality of life of other rural residents.

Sen. Ken Schilz, whose family has a long history in the cattle-feeding business in the Ogallala area, is among the believers in the benefits that could come with financial incentives.

"At first, we wanted to tie it to 'livestock friendly,'" Schilz said. "But as we've looked at it, if it brings livestock to any part of the state, we wouldn't be against that at all."

There have never been any financial incentives attached to the "livestock friendly" pitch. Four years after the program's debut, its friends in and outside state government say its symbolic appeal has been trumped by droughts that dried out pastures and other factors.

"Given the economic times, I don't know that it proves out today," said Steve Martin of the agricultural promotions staff at the Nebraska Department of Agriculture. "But when things do turn around, I think they'll be in a better position to move forward with what they want to do."

It's not possible to measure county-by-county results from a pork perspective, because federal statistics gatherers no longer count snouts on a county basis.

Meanwhile, 80 counties remain outside the livestock friendly fold. And several of the state's most prominent cattle counties, including Cuming, Custer and Dawson, started the year with higher numbers than in 2005 and without a livestock welcome mat.

Craig Head of the Nebraska Farm Bureau Federation, the state's largest farm organization and part of the "livestock friendly" cheering section, doesn't regard its early effect - or lack of effect - as a matter of major significance.

He described livestock as "a pretty cyclical business" and said there could be "a lot of different reasons" for results in individual counties.

Ginger Langemeier, second in command at the state Department of Agriculture, agrees.

"If we want to talk about these numbers," Langemeier said, "I don't think we can look at it as 'livestock friendly' alone. I think we have to talk about it in trends."

Right now, for example, Texas is feeling the drought pressure, "so they now have a number of cows leaving the state coming to Nebraska."

What's more important to Head and others than the state's early experience with "livestock friendly" is what happens from here in capitalizing on the state's livestock-related strong points, including the availability of grain byproducts from some two-dozen ethanol plants.

"If you're in California or Texas and there's urban sprawl all around you," Head said, Nebraska might be the place to be. And designated locations, paired with financial incentives, could be "a different twist on livestock development in a way we've never looked at it before, as economic development."

John Hansen, president of the Nebraska Farmers Union, is all for expanding the livestock economy, but he prefers certain approaches to others. He also prefers that it gets done on the basis of county land-use plans that were crafted with community input.

"We're generally supportive of efforts to look for ways to incent family farm, traditional farmer-owned facilities," Hansen said. "We're not interested in turning Nebraska into the new version of the North Carolina North or South of hog or cattle development."

So far, counties have been able to get the "livestock friendly" designations without major land-use adjustments.

But that's not to say that North Carolina's corporate-style hog growth hasn't been on some people's agendas, according to Hansen.

"What the vertical integrators and the mega-operations have wanted for a long time is a predetermined road map of where they go.

"We call it 'the plug and play' type of development system," he added, "where you've already got a pre-determined free zone where you can go and plug in your operation. And you don't have to worry about local folks being opposed, because you're already good to go."

The possibilities of an accompanying corporate overlay are more of a risk now that Initiative 300, the state's anti-corporate farming law, has succumbed to court challenge, he said.

"And we're not going to support that."