BERNARR TREAT: New Mexico on His Mind

Growing up on a fifth-generation ranch south of Picacho, in Lincoln County, gave Bernarr Treat deep, strong New Mexico roots. Following graduation from New Mexico Military Institute in Roswell, he attended New Mexico State University where he studied agricultural economics and animal science. He completed his formal education by studying Ranch Management at Texas Christian University.

New Mexico on His Mind

Bernarr has served NM agriculture and tourism throughout his career. He started out as Events Coordinator for the NM State Fair, then moved to manager of the Fair’s Rodeo and Entertainment, staging PRCA rodeo,  the Hispanic Heritage show, and the bull riding competitions there.

He then returned to the family ranch, but when he received a call from Denny Gentry, he signed on board with US Team Roping. He subsequently worked with NM Farm and Livestock Bureau in government affairs.

He moved back to Roswell with his wife, Dyanna, to direct the Roswell Chamber of Commerce.  Bernarr and Dyanna have two sons in school,  Spencer, age 12, and Collin, 7. As Protocol Officer for New Mexico Military Institute, Dyanna instructs cadets on the fine points of etiquette and protocol.

Now Farm and Ranch Manager for Armstrong Energy Corp., a multi-generational agricultural and energy company based in Roswell, Bernarr currently serves as Secretary of the New Mexico Beef Council.

“I think right now, with a declining cow herd due to drought, our biggest challenge on the NMBC is to be ever more thoughtful about how we allocate resources to promote beef,” he says. “We must be diligent about maintaining producer confidence, especially during these tough times. We have to know where our promotion dollar is being spent to generate the most positive result with the consumer.”

The Ranch Has Kept Our Family Together: Alicia Sanchez of Red Doc Farm

Growing up in farming and ranching with four brothers and a sister who are all involved in the family business, there was no question Alicia Sanchez wanted to be part of the life she knows and loves. The daughter of Dr. Roland and Elia Sanchez of Red Doc Farm in Belen, Alicia is now Red Doc’s business manager.

“My parents started as farmers, and the whole family is involved in the business. I’m in charge of our Buy Back program, which purchases calves out of our bulls,” she says. Red Doc is well-known for its herd of registered Santa Gertrudis cattle, and especially for its annual April Red Hot Bull Sale.

“The commercial producer is our focus,” Alicia says, “and that has worked well for us. Commercial producers buy our bulls to improve their herd genetics and weight, and our calves perform very well.”

Alicia Sanchez of Red Doc Farm - Belen, NM

“I love agriculture,” she says. “I studied agricultural economics at NMSU. I still bale hay and work animals. I love being able to go to my office, then later, go outside and get on a tractor and bale hay. That’s what we do.  We grow hay and we raise cattle. The farm is sustainable, and everything is done on a family decision basis.

“What I’d like to do is to find innovative ways to continue what we do. Our ranch has kept our family together, and we all get together for weaning, branding, holidays. . . it’s a great way of life.

“If we can make it through the drought and we can continue to move forward with all the challenges we’re facing and continue to become more streamlined and efficient, that’s what we’re about.

“Our cattle have got to make it in New Mexico. We need an animal that can withstand drought. Santa Gertrudis is America’s original breed, developed on the King Ranch in Texas as a cross between the Shorthorn and the Brahman, known for hardiness in tough conditions.

“We all must deal with the economics of drought and the effects of the increased price of commodities. It’s tough right now, but I think we’re going to pull through.”

As a newly-appointed member of the New Mexico Beef Council, Alicia says she is really excited to be part of the NMBC. “I’m looking forward to learning how we can connect more directly with the consumer,” she says. “Beef is a great product. I want to see beef become the uncontested first choice.’

“Pumping Water and Praying for Rain”

Jim Bob Burnett with daughter Shelby and son Wesley at Eastern New Mexico State Fair where they were showing their steers.

As manager of the Runyan Ranch between Artesia and Cloudcroft in a little place called Hope, Jim Bob Burnett spends more time than he used to watching the sky.

“The country we love is along where the seven rivers that flow into the Pecos are. It’s mostly rolling limestone hills, with lots of brush an big draws. Now we’re pumping water and praying for rain,” says Jim Bob, who has just begun his term as chairman of the New Mexico Beef Council.

“We’ve had a dry summer. Not really any rain, and no green. We just weaned the calves last week, and those calves are on feed now. The cost of feed is $100 more a ton than last year. There’s a shortage of corn, and we’re seeing a lot of crop damage, to cotton and corn. And we’ve been supplementing the cows since last December.

“It’s been a year of extreme weather. One week in February was 10-20 below zero. With no moisture, it seems the trees are dying now. It’s that combination of cold and dray that’s killing the pinion and juniper.”

Raised in Lovington NM, Jim Bob grew up in a family that knows how to survive on the land. His mother’s side homesteaded in Lea County, while his Dad hails from a line of farmers. Following graduation from NMSU in 1982, Jim Bob started out working for Matador Cattle in Texas, then went to Harvey Hereford in Cloudcroft. He’s been on the Runyan Ranch for fifteen years. There he is responsible for a commercial ranch of Black Baldies, 600 head of Angus-Hereford cross. In addition, with partners he runs B&H Herefords.

He lives on the ranch with his family, including Melissa, his wife of 29 years, who teaches the sciences in Artesia, and their four children, Denny Kyle, Tory, Shelby and Wesley. Tory attends pharmacy school at UNM while Shelby is a sophomore at NMSU. Denny Kyle ranches in Pinon and Wesley attends school in Artesia.

“What I love about this life is that every day is different. When you get up you feel freedom like you feel the fresh air. What I dislike is having to cut deep into your cow herd you’ve developed, having to sell most of them, or even all of them, off.

“We’re at a crossroads. The industry today is going to face real challenges. The Droughts are having long term effects like we’ve never seen before. So many ranchers have had to sell out.

“But beef is the tastiest and best protein around. I believe we’ve turned the corner on the perception of beef being bad for you. Let’s continue to put a face with the product. Real people live on the land and raise this product. It doesn’t come from a factory, but from the hands of people that care about the product and are attached to the land.

“Sustainable agriculture is only a catch phrase. Truth is, any kind of agriculture has to be sustainable. Through your stewardship it becomes a renewable resource. And let’s face it – the only way to remain independent and hold onto our cherished freedom is to have our own agriculture.”
(Please visit the NMBC blog, http://newmexicoranchlife.wordpress.com/ to read more stories about NMBC members.)

Meet Your New Mexico Beef Council Director: Art Schaap “Nutrition from the Ground Up: A Dairy Farmer’s View”

Dairyman Art Schaap and his family.

Third-generation dairy farmer Art Schaap has always called Clovis home. After college, he decided to follow in his dad’s footsteps and become a dairyman himself. He loves what he does, and what inspires him most is the ability to be an active participant in the cycle of life.

“I love that I’m making a product from the ground, taking the products of the ground to create one of the most nutritious products, one that is versatile and full of energy and protein, from cheese to milk to sports drinks, ice cream, butter, to an everyday essential ingredient of cooking,” he says.

Art raises Holstein and Holstein-Jersey cross dairy cows from birth. These cows require two years of growth before they can give milk; then, they have a three to five year production lifetime. “We take care of our cows like our family,” he says.

At mid-summer, he is in the peak season of milk production and in the middle of summer crop season. “The summer heat is taking a toll on our animals,” he says, as he faces the challenges of drought. “We are happy with some rain relief we’ve received,” he says, “and we are praying for more.” One of the challenges of the cattle industry, he explains, is that because it has been so dry, forage costs have doubled since last year.

While milk prices are as good as they have been, feed costs are as high as they have ever been. Margins are still tight, he says, and he is looking forward to fall to be able to finish the year strong.

His concerns for the future are triggered by volatile price shifts coming out of the futures markets in Chicago. “A commercial or a report on TV can radically shift prices up and down,” he says. “Our country has some decisions to make so that we can go forward,” he says. His first wish would be to stop the mandated use of ethanol in fuel, with its consequences on dairy farmers.

Art lives in Clovis with his family: wife Renee and three children, son Ryan, 22, who is studying at West Texas A&M; daughter Jennifer, 20, known for her volleyball playing at Eastern New Mexico University; and daughter Amanda, 16, who attends Clovis High. His Schaap Dairies supply Tucumcari Mountain Cheese Company with milk for their all-natural Artisan Cheeses including White Cheddar, Green Chili Jack, Feta, Asadero and Meunster. For more information, please visit  http://www.tucumcaricheese.com/

Dry and Dusty Days on the Ranch

While New Mexicans complain about the spring winds and the dust they stir up, a tumbleweed-rocking windstorm can have a do-or-die impact on New Mexican ranchers.  Take Tom Spindle at King Ranch in Stanley, a particularly windy part of the country.

Tom Spindle and wife Becky King-Spindle on the 2010 New Mexico Beef Council Gate-to-Plate Tour

“It’s been dry and windy-bad since mid-January,” he says. “We haven’t had rain since Jan. 11.  We lost 30 calves.  That’s the toughest part of this job.  Then we had that terrible cold spell in February.  One night I was out at 1 AM delivering calves and it was 36 below on my truck thermometer.  By the time I got the newborn into the truck, it was already frozen.  When they do survive, born into those rough conditions, we keep losing them, because they’re weak and susceptible to everything.”

Tom’s wife, Becky King-Spindle, has her hands full with a family of four children, but she and the rest of the family pitch in however they can, putting hair dryers on the baby calves, warming towels for them in the dryer, and bottle-feeding them.

The King Brothers Ranch, now in its fifth generation, was homesteaded in 1917 by the late Governor Bruce King’s father, so the place has survived drought, the Dust Bowl, more drought, and every imaginable up and downing the cattle markets.

“We’re breeding cows right now, and some days I can’t even see the cows that are only ten feet in front of me,” says Tom. “I don’t know.  When the wind is blowing 70 mph, I think I need to get another job.  But this is the only way of life I know – putting food on the table for our consumers.  Sure we could hire somebody, but I couldn’t pay enough.  I’m just waiting until June 1.  That’s when we work with show cattle, and I can take my kids fishing.”

Tom is the former president of the New Mexico Beef Council.

You Can Set Your Calendar by the Curlews

Spring is in full swing on the three-generation Copeland and Sons Hereford Ranch 18 miles north of Nara Visa in Union County, New Mexico. “The curlews always nest here. You can set your calendar by their arrival on April 1,” says Cliff Copeland, President of the New Mexico Beef Council. The gramma and buffalo grasses are still mostly brown, but a little rain will bring the green shoots close to the ground right up, Cliff says.  “We can hear the migratory birds now, the Canada geese and sandhill cranes flying north, following the playa lakes, and the mallard ducks that nest here are arriving.”

But the best signs of spring are the healthy baby calves now arriving. Calving season from Feb.-April is one of Cliff’s favorite times of year, along with the branding season that follows. That’s  when the Copelands  and nearby ranchers “neighbor up”  the old-fashioned way to help each other get the chore done while they visit and catch up.

Part of the Copelands’ daily ritual is a morning family visit, often by phone, between Cliff and his wife Pat;  son Matt and his wife Kyra; and Cliff’s parents, Cliff Sr. and Barbara, to prioritize and divide up the responsibilities that need tending that day. “Day off is not even in our vocabulary,” Cliff observes. “This is a hard and healthy lifestyle. My Dad is 79 and he still puts in a full day’s work. He is still active in every part of the ranch.”

Cliff grew up on the ranch and never thought about being anything other than a rancher. He left home to study Animal Science at New Mexico State University in Las Cruces and returned with a knowledge of genetics. He is able to see the genetic selection process, the results of their choices, every year with the arrival of the baby calves.

“The weather has been cooperative,” he says of this year’s calving season. “Though it’s too dry now. We could use some rain, and that may be coming soon”

Welcome to newmexicoranchlife!

Howdy folks! Today we’re introducing our new blog, direct from the New Mexico Beef Council, that will offer insights and behind-the-scenes glimpses of what it’s really like to live and work on a ranch in New Mexico. From daily chores to conservation activities to family gatherings, we’ll be delivering weekly first person posts from New Mexico’s ranching community. Did you know that 97 percent of New Mexico’s ranches are family owned? Many of these outfits are multi-generations of folks who work hard year in and year out to bring you the healthiest, safest, most delicious beef for your family’s table. So saddle up and come along!

Scott Bidegain of the T-4 Cattle Company shows the 2010 NMBC Gate to Plate Tour How It's Donel