Cattle ranchers find themselves alone on the range


Tim Koopman is the first of four generations of cattlemen to take a second job, outside of his Sunol ranch. While both of his adult children own small beef operations, they too earn their livings from careers other than ranching.
Koopman hopes to continue running his 150-head herd even if the ranch can't completely sustain them financially.
But a number of American cattle families are throwing in their branding irons, either selling off their land or planting crops. While the price of beef is at record highs, the cost of doing business for some is impossible.
"Although revenues are up, expenses are increasing just as fast or even faster," said Kevin Kester, president of the California Cattlemen's Association. The cost in California is especially high because land is pricey and scarce, he said.

Losing beef operations

The United States lost 9,000 beef operations from 2009 to 2010 (2011 numbers have not been released) and the inventory of cattle is the lowest since 1952, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
As of Jan. 1, U.S. ranchers held 29.9 million head of beef cattle, down 3 percent from a year earlier. In California, there are fewer than 600,000 head - a number that neared a million 20 to 30 years ago, Kester said.
The shrinking beef supply is affecting consumers, who on average paid 10 percent more per pound for meat in 2011 than they did the year before, said Steve Kay, editor and publisher of Cattle Buyers Weekly, a trade publication based in Petaluma.
"Consumer prices could go up another 10 percent this year," he said.
Still, demand hasn't faltered.
Last summer, 700-pound feeder calves in California sold for historical highs at $1.35 a pound on the hoof, and the price is predicted to rise this year. U.S. beef also has found a strong market outside the country. Last year, 14 percent of the nation's beef supply was exported.
Ranchers, agricultural experts and the USDA cite a number of reasons for the beef decline: loss of grazing land to development or other farming purposes, the high cost of feed and energy and the fact that the average age of a rancher has crept up to 59 and their children don't necessarily want to take the reins.
"Our offspring is not enamored with working their asses off for not a lot of return," said Koopman, 59.

Southern drought

The drought in the South, including Texas, the top producer of beef in the country, is also to blame for the decrease in inventory, said Travis Averill, a USDA statistician. Without rain there was no grass, forcing ranchers to sell or slaughter animals rather than incur the cost of feeding them hay or grain. The price of both alfalfa and corn reached record highs last year.
Darrel Sweet, a fifth-generation rancher, who like Koopman owns a cow-calf operation in the East Bay, raises his herd on pasture land until the calves reach about 700 pounds, when he sells them to Harris Ranch. The beef company raises them to their full slaughter weight of about 1,200 pounds.
Although Sweet and his family have 1,000 acres in Livermore and Altamont for his 100-head of cows to graze on, there have been times during dry years when he's had to supplement grass with alfalfa hay.
But the price of alfalfa has shot through the barn roof, partly because many hay farmers have switched their fields to corn - a subsidized commodity with growing global demand for ethanol and other uses. Alfalfa is running $250 to $300 per ton - it was $100 three years ago - which Sweet said is cost prohibitive.
"Everyone keeps looking up at the sky" for rain, he said, adding that it takes 10 acres of good pasture to feed a cow and her calf for one year. When the land is rocky, shady and dry, it's more like 20 to 25 acres per cow and calf.
But there is no more land to buy to expand his fields, he said.
"Even land to lease in the Western United States is difficult to come by," he said.

Refusing to give up

Kester said he remembers when the Central Coast, where he lives, was cattle ranch after cattle ranch. "Now they're ranchettes - big houses on small parcels of land - or vineyards," he said.
Today, he can count on his fingers the number of full-time cattle ranches in that part of the state. The land is worth more for development or growing grapes than it is for raising beef, he said.
But cattlemen like Kester, Koopman and Sweet aren't giving up. It's in their blood.
"It may not be a way to support a whole family anymore," said 64-year-old Sweet, who went into agricultural banking because it was a more reliable way to earn a living. "But there's no question that ranching is a great lifestyle. It may be seven days a week, but neighbors still help each other out, and it's a great way to see the grandkids grow up."

Stacy Finz is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. sfinz@sfchronicle.com

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2012/02/20/BUDU1N8L6M.DTL

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