Scratching out a living
Touring British farmers visit south Blaine County
"The last five years have been a killer. Small farmers are
struggling to eke out a living."
Lorna Laughton, third generation British farmer.
By KEVIN WISER
Express Staff Writer
A charter bus loaded with 20 farmers and ranchers
from England, Scotland and Northern Ireland pulled into the south county farming community
of Carey to talk shop with their American counterparts.
Ian Bell of Lancaster, England, the assistant tour manager, said the
17-day tour, which began in Denver, covered parts of Colorado, Wyoming, South Dakota,
Montana and Idaho. The Idaho part of the tour took place on Saturday, June 17.
Stops included the Badlands of South Dakota, Mount Rushmore, the Custer
Battlefield Monument of Bighorn County Montana, the Black Hills of Wyoming, Devils Tower
National Monument and Yellowstone National Park.
"The object of the tour," Bell said, "is to mix the holiday
side, pick up on the history of the west and the conflict of yesteryear and see how the
farmers and ranchers are getting along over here."
As for England, Bell said "the whole of the agriculture industry is
struggling."
The tour proceeded up Fish Creek Canyon north of Carey to Idaho Secretary
of State Pete Cennarrusa’s sheep spread.
The tour bus rattled along the dirt road, past Fish Creek Reservoir, with
sage covered hills rising up all around.
The tour-goers took out binoculars and surveyed the scene from the moving
bus. A nomadic shepherd’s wagon seemed to pique their interest. Tour manager Richard
Marsden of Lancaster explained that in England, sheep are managed in one area instead of
moving them from summer to winter pastures as is the custom in Idaho.
Lorna Laughton is a third generation farmer from the small town of Louth,
Lincolnshire on the northeast coast of England. Laughton runs a cattle operation and grows
wheat, barley and dry peas with the help of her son.
As in the United States, Laughton said beef and commodity prices have
dropped dramatically in England.
"The last five years have been a killer," Laughton said.
"Small farmers are struggling to eke out a living."
Laughton asked if farmers and ranchers in the west owned or leased the
land.
"We own our land so we don’t have to turn out a rent each
year," Laughton said. "It’s the farmers paying rent that are really feeling
the crunch."
Pedro Loyola, manager for Cennarrusa’s sheep operation, explained
that ranchers privately own some land and pay to graze livestock on federal grazing
allotments.
Laughton seemed amazed by the wide open spaces of the west and alluded to
England’s dwindling acreage of countryside and the pressure to develop farmland.
"Our island is only 1,000 miles long," Laughton said.
"Developers are grabbing up every piece of land they can get."
Jackie Graham and her husband, Leslie, are third generation farmers who
raise cattle and corn on a small spread in Oxford.
"There’s a common bond between farmers around the world,"
Graham said. "We share the same plight.
"It’s interesting to see how different governments treat
farmers. Our government doesn’t care about the farmers."
"Our problems are legislative," tour leader Marsden added.
"We seem to have a government that has lost track of the fact that farmers produce
food and the world needs food to eat."
Jackie Graham said there’s a conflict between farmers and
"wildlife lovers" in England similar to the controversy surrounding wolf
reintroduction in central Idaho. British farmers, she said, want the right to protect
livestock while conservationists protest lethal control of predators.
"We hunt fox. They (wildlife advocates) think we like animals killed.
But the fox kills our hens," Graham said. "Life isn’t always pretty,
everything lives and dies. We have to find balance."
In comparing the predominantly low lying countryside of England to the
diversity of the American West, Graham said, "we can’t comprehend the vastness
and the changing landscape, from the rising mountains to the soft green meadows and the
great big blue open skies. It’s just amazing."
Marsden said the tour concept came about at an international travel
convention in Florida last year where he met Karen Ballard of the Idaho Travel Council.
The council then contacted Sallie Hanson of the Hailey Chamber of Commerce
who worked with Marsden to bring the tour to Blaine County.
Hanson said the chamber saw the event as another way to bring people to
Blaine County and provide a forum for a cultural exchange between farmers and ranchers who
share the same lifestyle and struggles.
The chamber provided sack lunches for the European contingent at the
Blaine County Fairgrounds in Carey. The group then viewed a dairy farm, the Buena Vista
Ranch, in Richfield.
Linda Lezamiz and her brother, Robin, run the ranch, a 400 cow dairy
operation located about 25 miles south of Carey.
Linda Lezamiz said milk sells for $9.80 per 100 weight while the
break-even price is $11.
"Prices are about what they were 20 years ago," she said.
When asked how they manage considering the economics of dairy farming,
Linda credited the hard work of her father who began the operation and handed it down to
herself and her brother.
"We make it because we don’t have the expense of just starting
out and buying the land," Linda said, "and we’re self-sufficient because we
raise our own stock to replenish the herd."
Tony Scott, a member of the tour, runs a 100 cow dairy operation in the
small farming community of Cheshire, south of the large British urban area of Manchester.
Scott said dairy farmers in England share the same struggle as their
American counterparts, if not worse.
"We’re not making it now, we’re barely holding our
own," he said. "The economics of dairy farming in the UK is on its knees because
the strength of the pound is weighed against the euro (European currency)."
In other words, Scott said, dairy products are sold on markets in Europe
at a cheaper price than it costs English dairy farmers to produce them.
"But what of the future of agriculture?" Scott asked. "Half
the world’s hungry. Thousands are starving in Africa. Whose going to feed the
world?"
