Master Cattle Commodity Meeting a

the problems and the credits that come from every area he helps me bargain on Packer agreements so I want Ron to give you a brief rundown when we're through here then I hope that these men have left you with enough questions in your mind about what we're going to do and what we are doing that we can wind this out with a question and answer type panel and I definitely think that you've got to participate I don't think that any of you come in here without any questions in your mind on Scott or kettle so Ron if you don't mind would you want to stand up and give them a rundown I'll try to be as brief as possible I think because probably it is the aspect that I'm involved in in cattle I think probably the thing that I want you to carry back home would be motivation among the membership to participate to take an active part one of the things that I've seen in the year that I've been in the home office is the dependence on the people in the country on the people the staff and the and the leadership there seems to be a general attitude that I'm a member of this organization therefore I want you to give me something I'm paying check off on my cattle I want the service in return you're going to get that service but this is a members organization this is your organization and each local area has to take care of their own problems we can assist you but we can't assist you if we don't know the specifics of the problems there are not enough of us here to cover the entire country there is not enough money in the United States to completely saturate this country with representatives it's your organization you can keep your checkoff cheap you can keep your costs down by doing the work yourself it'll help you be informed and you'll be more in touch with what's going on specifically in your area one of the problems we run into almost every day is that people will come to us and member specifically they'll say well I can sell my cow to this cattle jockey down the road he'll give me cash or he'll he'll give me a little better price I can go down to sale barn and get a little more money most of the people in this in this room I recognize as being informed about this but one aspect I think you should carry home to them is that when we sell a cow or a block of cows for as an example 45 cents on a live basis we have locked in that price we have build the market to 45 cents when you take that same bunch of cows and market them in the open market for 44 cents you're gonna come out with more money in your pocket as an individual on that cow or that group of cows but you have put a bearish effect into the market in that by selling those cows and putting that dollars in your pocket you put the market from 45 cents to 44 cents and you've taken the air out of it you're holding your own markets down these are the things that concern me cooperation among the membership we're right now in a position in agricultural because of the activity generated by the American agricultural movement as a legislative body and as a public representative they've made a lot of noise they've done a lot of good they've made the consumer aware of the problems in agriculture with pricing they have diverted that consumer and informed him educated him to the point where he the resistance from the consumer is minimal at this point they're prepared to pay a higher price for their food they're paying more for their oil and they think that the oil industry is conning them they're paying more for their food but they don't believe that you're conning I think that we need to go back out into the country with an attitude of total cooperation with the other farm organizations they are an asset to us we offer something exclusive to this organization and that is a marketing service this is not a marketing organization it is a bargaining organization but in order to bargain you have to have something to market because what you're bargaining for is what you're planning to market I think we need to carry that back out there so first of all I want you to inform the producers keep them informed and make them participate make them be a functioning part of what's going on because it is they are going to reap the harvest not the staff in corny secondly I think that we should have in cooperation with the other farm organizations and of course last I think that each one of you guys as leaders should get out there and get after it not sit around and wait for something to happen don't sit around and cry in your milk because everything is not going good we've got a lot of we have a lot of weak areas but the potential is there capitalize on every positive thing that happens take a positive attitude away from this convention I came with the National farming organization about a year ago and I made considerably more money than I'm making working for the farmers but I saw something in agriculture that I haven't seen anyplace else I saw a marketing system that's atrocious the oil companies don't let you take the gas and then let you determine what you're gonna pay for it nobody does I don't have to go into detail to explain that atrocity you guys are in a world of your own in agriculture the time is coming when that's gonna change corporate industry is consuming either young people like myself and Steve Bohr aren't gonna sit around for the next 20 years while you guys write and complain and and cry in your milk we're just not gonna do it because we're positive people and we're gonna go out and make it work if we can't work it through the National Farmers Organization then probably not us but someone else like us will work it from the other end they're doing it now the farm Bureau is trying to set up a market service for cattle in Iowa they sold some cattle the American agricultural movement last week announced that they are going to analyze the possibilities of going into a marketing service you are right now twenty years ahead of every every other agricultural group of any kind in the country with your marketing service you're gonna have to act fast because time is running out it's not gonna happen complaining and it's not gonna happen if you depend on me to do it it's only gonna happen if you get out there and stay with it if you take a positive attitude instead of the old you know fist you remember that from the 60s when I was in college that was a sign for everything power farm powers what we're preaching this time we want a positive farm power we don't want a forceful farm dollar we want power through intelligence through smart marketing through smart organizing national everybody farmers that's a specific type of people and it is an organization organize it I'd like to open for questions anybody Ellen asked me what do you want I think that I think that when you when I hear individuals like Ron Shaw and I sit and I hear Ron and I look out at people considerably more tenure in this organization and he has I think that you specifically as delegates have got to be two things you got to be impressed with the type people that are governing this water kettle but you got to be ashamed also because I said here and heard him tell you just now and I've never heard that before but I heard him tell you more in six seven eight minutes than I heard for 15 years as far as positivity is concerned coming from this organization I think that you've got to do as Ron has said I think you have got to put your attitude in the right context now people get well hung up on attitudes and I think that's wrong too because when you're trying to get your head straight you're losing production as far as I'm concerned so I'd say as you're going down to get production get your attitude right I missed a man from Michigan that does the coordinating for the slaughter cattle division I don't I just saw Dale Bowen would you stand up Dale I apologize if you were sitting here I missed you when I was introducing the fellas Dale is from Michigan Dale does specifically what these other coordinators supervisors do for the slaughter cattle division and other Dale's as valuable as all of them are Dale's got Cal's going this morning out of Michigan that 90 cents a pound that'll give you an indication of what he's doing in the state of Michigan have I missed it Steve have I missed any of our I don't see another right there Harry you want to stand up this is Harry divorce from Ghent Minnesota runs the ginn Minnesota collection point now Harry isn't a state supervisor but I'll tell you what Harry divorce does Harry divorce does exactly what Ron Shaw was discussing I don't know how many cattle he'll block in a year's time or a month's time it's it's phenomenal and he does it with one method that's a positive constructive contact with the membership whether they're members or actually non-members whether they're participants or non participants he puts the results of the program up in front of those people in Minnesota south western Minnesota area and it's phenomenal what he blocks and runs through that again Minnesota collection point he is probably a premier example of what every collection point should do and I'm gonna suggest to you that if you got questions on how to make a collection point work that when you when we get to the question answer end of this thing you talk to Harry or a scary questions you talk to urban stri because he does some the same thing in southwestern Wisconsin in those points these are the people that you have absolutely got to groom and motivate and educate in those areas are the people run those points because if we don't have them we lost one tooth off of the gear and it really hurts so keep that in mind as we progress here this morning now Gerald Cox is from Monta Vista like I said only been with this organization three months roughly I will say this as a buyer as I was a buyer for a hundred years and as Gerald's have been our cattle buyer Ron Shaw made a distinction that I don't know if it meant much to you folks but it's been a heck of a transition for me and I'm sure Gerald to make it's that transition between marketing and bargaining half the time when I'm talking to people I'll be talking about buying cattle and so will Gerald for a while I'm sure well we don't mean that we mean selling and we mean bargaining but we're talking about buying cattle all the time and it's quite a transition to come out of the industry and come into a bargaining association or organization as this is so you're gonna have to be patient with people like Gerald and I for a while until we get our feet on the ground so Gerald you want to say some word thank you all I'll tell you it's kind of hard to get up after Walt and Ron and say anything that means anything that that we could put any more force in it I've been a Packer buyer for seven years and all I can say is we need production in order to not sell your cattle market your cattle for you and if we can get the back end from the points we can do this if we don't get the cattle it's hard to go to a buyer a Packer buyer and try to sell them something that you don't have it's hard to sell them something that you think you might give someday and what we need is we need to get together we need to block this production we can sell it if we can get it well now I've been on the end of I don't know I guess they call them scalpers around here where you go out and you're one against one and and trying to buy these cattle out in the country and make the Packer all the money you can and get paid pretty well for that but we're on the other end now we're here to do your job and and there's not only me there's the staff there's a lot of people in the field that can do it now that has the I don't know if it's experience or Knox or what you would call it but I believe we can sell your cattle if you give them to us to sell and I think we can bargain with the Packer the same ones that we were buying for that the same ones that we were in competition with before I think we can do a job now all I would like to stress is please give us the production we will sell it for you and all I am is a representative of cattle I don't know much about selling these cattle but we do have the people here with with Ron and with Steve and and Walt backing them and just please give us the production if there's any way we can help you will do it but we need production to do anything thank you Gerald when I'm sure for the first time in his life about six weeks ago probably now he went over to P hablo Colorado and the new Packer opened up down there we needed the outlet we needed that Packer he went into PLO and bargained the contract for this organization and it's a darn good one he did it without any help he had never seen a contract bargained for or an angry but with practically no prior coaching at all Gerald knew because of his experience as a buyer he knew what fair market was compared to under selling and so forth and with that kind of knowledge he simply went into that packer and bargained an agreement for the organization now I don't I know I probably couldn't have done that myself as he did it I'm not particularly sure yet except that he may or may not have had an excellent rapport I think he had to have had an excellent prior rapport with that backer even though he didn't work for him as a cattle buyer because he obviously had their respect and he went in there and peploe and got a contract a week or so ago he went to his prior employers in Albuquerque and got another one with Carla for the Southwestern area out there now of course those primarily are kokal agreements you understand but they also include slaughter cattle finish cattle fed cattle force down there too and they're excellent agreements in fact the one in Albuquerque and maybe this will roll over your head it shouldn't but you know there's different bases of pricing across the United States you have the National provisioner in the Midwest so to speak you have the Mr Amarillo meet wire and Southwest you have the West Coast wire invariably those will become progressively higher as you work your way west I don't know a accurate example but for instance 84 cents tears here today could be eighty five five and a half in Amarillo could be 86 or 87 or seven and a half in California when he went into the Albuquerque vacker carver i assumed that he'd probably come out of there with an Amarillo meet wire well he come out of there with the westcoast meet wire was the basis for price and can't let that mitt that southwestern Packer things like that little simple movements maneuvers like that are vital the selling cattle an average guy that has had no prior experience in marketing would have overlooked those things but they're not being overlooked for you now in your organization there's areas that's soft and we recognize it we have soft agreements in areas and we recognize it and I'm almost tired of preaching that in order to firm those soft agreement areas of it requires volume the ladies and gentlemen II it is that simple you've got to have something in order to attract attention for a better and agreement so in the areas we consider as soft areas will you recognize them we got areas we got contracts or agreements I call them that I don't think are worth the powder to blow them to hell but we got them because it happens to be as good as we can get in that area because of the volume we have in that area so these are things that you've got to impress on the membership when you're visiting here in the convention between now and the clothes and when you get home and you're expected to make some sort of a report on what came out of these type delegate commodity meetings you've got to retain these things like Ron said it is physically impossible for us to cover this country we can't do it you've got to help us we've got to have your assistance out there it's an appeal for me Ron put it on a matter of being effective it's an appeal you've got right now and I'm not gonna spend five minutes bragging about what y'all have except I want you to know that this morning you got and last week and this morning for one thing you've got the highest price ever paid in the history of the packing industry on coke cows in this organization for openers now I don't need to hear what gals are selling for I don't care because I know that we got more because we got the highest price ever paid you got talented people that are running this program for you I'm not including myself I'm including people that you're gonna hear from this Thursday and I said it's gonna knock your eyes out it is going to I made a comment to these men when we made this decision on the direction our commodity reports we're going to take at this convention I made a I made a comment that we are in no longer a position to impress anybody we don't have to I don't have to these men don't have to impress one soul anymore they got the best there is as a marketing program for you as membership and this organization it's just that simple Steve Bohr will expound on that Thursday it's it's as a packer and as a not a hundred a head job or down the road but as a packer that killed forty forty five thousand head of cattle a week and I was responsible for buying them all it's phenomenal to me what these men have been able to do for you and for your membership that you're representing here it's phenomenal do you know that them cows at ninety cents a pound this morning do you know that twenty twenty five percent of them cows are probably seventeen dollars or of incorrect mate over the market 100 wait I'm probably exaggerating but I'm close Irving how far how far off Emma what our breakers worth today well then I was considerate to you were $19.50 over the market a breaker cow by herself is worth seven in half and she sold at ninety how much more do you want I'm gonna tell you what you're not going to get and I've said this before you're not gonna get my blood and you're not going to get these men's blood but you can get everything else you've got 19 and 9 half over the market I don't know I don't know where the end of it is it's it's it's right at this time it's we all know is a high altitude it's thin air breathing's getting tough if this thing continues something's going to happen I suppose Carter's gonna come out and drop an eggshell in your hip pocket but until he does we're gonna take advantage of this situation and we're going to do it because of the efforts of people like you've seen introduced here today specifically and only because these men have got the power to motivate without motivation and without member participation then naturally yeah I've got a thing yeah I haven't got one cotton-picking thing to talk about but you have all of that now and it is your specifically your responsibility to be sure that these thoughts and these expressions that are that are talked about here today are accurately and totally expressed to that membership when you go home you've got no reason to back up to the pay window anymore you got no reason to spend there with your hat in your hand your head down kicking a counter trying to apologize for a cattle program you don't have to you're in position to roll and you're going to hear we're rolling you're going to hear why we rolled in the directions we have and you're going to hear specifically what you do have in that general meeting this Thursday I want you to hear from Joe song from Wisconsin as I said before Joe was involved in the national farmers organization I'm sure knowing Joe as I know him now as a interested member as a good member or all those good adjectives that you want to put on an nfo participant but he came down to corning Iowa last winter and I'll never forget him he came in there too cocky as a rooster and he was asking a lot of stupid questions and making a lot of dumb mistakes and I tried to be as sympathetic as I could with him ended up hiring him and he's proving out to be probably more effective than I thought was possible when he went back to Wisconsin he had the excellent cooperation of Berlin stri and Vic Ballmer down in Rock County Wisconsin and they've helped bring Joel along they recognized his youth and vitality and interest and experience he's gained now he makes a lot of mistakes but he makes a lot of good moves up there that override him and he'll make fewer mistakes as we go now once you hear from Joe he probably won't have much to say and what he says probably screwed up but I want you to hear from him because he's a good man and he's representing out there and it's people like that that's going to make this thing work you know Walt has used all these good adjectives on me he just got one problem he don't understand people from Wisconsin that's his problem he don't understand that the old Okies ain't as smart as us people up north we won war but there's only two things I think that I would like you guys are you people to take back to your home states and your home counties one is total communication you've got to go out in the country and talk to your non-member and your member neighbors and you've got to get their production we ain't effective with one college in Wisconsin but you take a thousand cows and we get ninety cents the second thing I'd like to have you take back is teamwork just work together I think of our organization as a football team we have no longer got and I hate to use this term little anaphors but we've now got one big national farmers organization in Wisconsin in our cattle division urlan works with me all other collection points collection point people work with me this is what I call teamwork I ain't nothing without them thank you one day I want to explain what Joe commented about when he said turned around to me and and talked about in the FO you know I got a hang-up that I don't know you can kick it around in your own mind everyone is totally welcome to their opinion on how they talk but I'm gonna tell you as an ex back er industry so forth you know I don't know if it affects me like it does potential membership or like it might affect some people out there the people with their head down apologizing I've referred to you know I had a guy yesterday tell me this which kind of tends to verify am I thinking he said you know I don't think I like the nfo too well but he said you want to know something that national farmers organization is getting to be a hell of an outfit do you think about that for a minute you know I don't know particularly what his thoughts were but I know what nfo means to Walt Hackney it means a bobtail truck full of strikers with hammers and clubs and knockin my windows out of my company car when I was a cattle buyer for I will be factors but the National Farmers Organization to me means a vital and viable organization that has gotten themselves into the position of having a super handle on the marketing specifically of course of cattle across this country they're recognized and appreciated and respected by every Packer that I know of that we are willing to do business with and you know that right there's quite a switch because it hasn't been too long ago you would print near take hold of any Packer that it would let you and today we decide who we do business with because we have the opportunity through their request to do business with all of them if we wanna and we don't want to but I think that's something you want to think about when you go home what how does NFO hit you how does National Farmers Organization hit you all Joe was talking about is that I have made a concentrated effort that when I'm talking about this organization I'm talking about the National Farmers Organization not the nfo and so that's what he was referring to the other fella here is Don em sandy Don's from Billings Montana I don't know Don probably as well as a lot of people in this room I'll tell you why Don and I never worked very closely together up till the last oh five or six months when I kind of inherited the area Don's in in Montana and on out on the west coast but I can tell you this Don works equal between slaughter cattle and the feeder cattle division and Dave Miller who's the director of the feeder cattle division has got the same opinion of Don em sandy as I have Dave's comment to me is as they've just recently wound up an enormous amount of deliveries in the state of Montana that he absolutely in no way could have taken delivery nor have coordinated nor have gotten anything done actually on that delivery of feeder cattle in the state of Montana without the express help of Don em sandy and Joyce Ryles who works very closely up there with Don Don's got a good ability in the country I rode with him back last fall when I was there and I know Don has an excellent ability to accurately describe and evaluate cattle on a hoofed basis I know that Packers respect and appreciate and will take his description of those cattle when they're described into them packing houses and it's people like that that will slowly but methodically build this program as we pursue it on West I want you to hear from Don now I don't think Don I don't think Don expected to talk here today but I can tell you what he's got to say concerning his area will definitely be a betterment to this organization and what he says about Montana will fit Missouri or it'll fit any other state in this country so Don listen to Joe here a minute ago he said one cow don't do Wisconsin no good who the hell does one Kyle do anybody any good takes a few more than that to get started in cow business or slaughter business or wherever you go you need production and you need volume I think Bobby volume is the biggest thing you hear about today in any business you have to have volume small businesses or farms or ranches or whatever you have has got to be managed according to a larger volume to make it very productive or to make it financially stable so that you can operate at a profit and of course that's what everybody wants anyhow is a profit out of their business so I think Don and Marian there they cover lots of country we got a little bigger state and a lot of you people have and it takes quite a little traveling to get around and handle the operation and some some days you're driving 16 18 hours a day and don't get too far either but with people like that why we get part of the job done anyhow and with the rest of the help I I'm sure we'll get some more done in the future thank you I may have I may or may not have a failed to say I don't know Don is also plant representative force there in Glasgow Montana and also at the Stanko plant and then also over Billings at the Midland packing company up there interesting sidelight on Don that I didn't know yesterday I was visiting with him and I said how you getting on that new plant in Glasgow I had never been there we made a contractor an agreement up there and and I hadn't had a chance to get into the plant Don said well he said you don't go there and he said itical I think he was referring to week before last he had 200 and some cows in there and you know it gets boring sitting around that thing all day long one cow at a time waiting in there tagging her checking the back tags and so forth so he said I just I just I knock all of the national farmers organizations livestock myself personally just make sure to get him dead and he physically knocked the cattle in the plan so there's another thing you know you don't necessarily do in a packing house unless you got a pretty good rapport with whoever's running that gin mill so this is the kind of relationship I'm hunting for when I ask for help last fall when those young farmer meetings when I came to the different areas last winter I asked for help this is what I'm looking for the people that you met here as the two gentleman from Montana and Ervin and Dale Bowen and mr. mister DeVos these are the people we have got to have and that's the important thing I want to emphasize to you right now when you go home you know you heard how drastically we've got to have the proper kind of clientele out there we've got to have these men that have suitability to be Kettleman you know what I'm looking for you've heard some of them you've met some of them here you know what we've got to have age is 100% immaterial Harry DeVos a hundred and fifty years old and do more work and Ron's job and he can do it probably better when it's on a one-to-one basis with a rural farmer that's got cattle he's got that natural knack to glean confidence out of that member into Harry and let Harry market ease cattle as he sees fit but those are the kind of people I've got to have and when you go home it's the kind of people I would hope that you suggest back to us in the home office as potential employees of this organization because they're gonna be your people you're either gonna reap the harvest or stand there and watch it hailed out if the guy don't work so be careful who you recommend Steve Bohr was a plant rep when I came with this organization back a year ago he was over in Omaha in fact I think he was up somewhere north and we transferred him Omaha now right Steve I really forgotten there's been so much water under the bridge and a year that Steve went into Omaha's plant rep but all the time I'm sitting there named young farmer meeting searching for people that will do us the right kind of a job and I recognized in Steve as I have in these other fellows a talent that needed to be expanded upon he had a good thing going for him in a way was his age and and of course in another way it isn't good because a young man has got a definite challenge ahead of him dealing with the average cattle feeder in this country because of that age differential and it's a tough job for Steve knowing all he knows knowing everything he knows on how to trade for cattle it's tough for him to get the confidence of that older fella that he doing business for because the guy probably talking to Steve's got a boy at home older and that makes it tough but I'm gonna tell you what he can do he can do the same as any young men gone he can trade your socks off or he can trade off the socks of a packer for you if you just give him the chance he's getting better every day too as he trades I needed a guy over in Corning to help me bargain I needed someone that had a pretty good opinion on plant representation which I absolutely did not and probably still don't have I needed help in that area and I asked Steve if he would come over and of course start out slow teach me about some areas and I'd help him and others and it's worked out pretty well I'm proud of Steve and I'm proud of what his potential is if y'all give him the proper opportunity but he can't learn much in there trading on that one gal that Don and these fellas are talking about but he learned he learns a lot trading on thousand hit blocks and we've been trading on thousand head blocks and it works and he's learning all these men are learning but most importantly y'all are learning that it works for you and that's the important thing Steve if you wouldn't mind wold I'd like to sit down and listen to that again a couple people that I noticed it we miss Clarence Weber is here from Humboldt in South Dakota stand up there Clarence would you Clarence runs a collection point there at Humboldt and just outside the door a gal that's a plant representative for us in California sandy maybe she's not there anymore there she is sandy Wilson she's a plant rep in Tulare California Duane wind was right there but I think he left he was hiding back in the corner I think maybe the crotch was ripped out of his pants or something he wouldn't step out in the open this meeting today the people sitting up here are probably going to get more out of it than what you will about three weeks ago I was in Jerome Idaho that area has completely fallen apart and not necessarily the fault of the membership well I went out there to that meeting I had a lot of difficulty in trying to figure out what I was going to tell those people they had about 30 people show up at that meeting and I introduced myself and backed up against the wall and told them to go ahead and start wherever they wanted to it turned out they kept me there to one o'clock in the morning I think it was probably one of the best meetings I've ever attended those people went through the problems that they did have and also come up with answers just Sullivan