European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - May 20, 1985, Darmstadt, Hesse                                May 1985 the stars and stripes Page 17 modern living new York times photo Jim Berger son Jack and grandson Kyle with Black Angus Herd in herds of Hobby cowboys add to cattle ranchers woes by Iver Peterson new York times the calving season is almost Over on the Range and in the lower pastures Newborn calves totter stiffly behind their mothers on legs that will soon Start to carry them to the High Meadows of their summer grazing these Spring Days Are usually a time of renewed optimism for the wests cattle but that feeling has been hard to come by for Many Stock growers in recent in a parallel to the highly publicized pains of the country Grain cattle ranchers have been beset Over the last five years with similar problems of surplus declining demand the Bane of All agricultural High interest ranchers Are reducing Herd sizes to try to stay in business while their credit exhausted and with some cattle prices at five year Are giving up and getting were finding More and More people in trouble in this business than we Ever said Jim a rancher in who is president elect of the Wyoming Stock growers in addition to the problems of the cattle operators have other worries a 25 percent decline in consumption of red meat in the United states Over the last prompted in part by fears according to a new Industry Campaign that red meats Are heavy in fats and people with secure outside income have invaded the ranges in recent years for the Romance of calling themselves the Small herds of these Hobby usually operated without expectation of profit and often for a tax have increased Competition for markets with full time ranchers and have depressed who started in the cattle business As a hired hand in 1947 and now owns suffered his first loss last to stay in business for this Summers Busy season of irrigating Hay Fields and trailing his 500 head of Black Angus cattle to their summer pastures in the Medicine Bow he has gone deeper into cattle Are raised for Slaughter in every but most cattle operations Are in where water is too scant for Large scale Grain crops and land is cheap enough to allow the huge acreages needed to Graze the stories coming out of the Small towns of the Wyoming beef Region sound much like those from the Corn and wheat states forced failing but when Congress tackles the department of Agri cultures proposed changes in Federal farm programs in the debate Over the 1986 few voices from cattle country will join the chorus of Farmers seeking to main Tain High Federal Price that is Between the men and women who drive the cattle and those who drive the a Dis Tinct difference has Arisen Over Federal agricultural poli crop growers support Federal intervention in support of farm commodity prices ranchers argue with the important exception of the allocation of Public grazing the fewer Federal programs the Kendal spokesman for the National cattlemen association in said there was no question that the typical beef producer had suffered As much As the wheat but from a philosophical he that cattle producer has not gone to Washington and answer my it is a longstanding he cattle people just do not want the government involved in the cattle Industry and that philosophy has been in this business probably since the West was there is also the fact that the two often have opposite goals when it comes to commodity when the government in 1983 instituted a new pro Gram to Cut surplus Grain was Given to farm ers As payment for leaving land fallow and this helped drive up feed prices for cattle and when the government paid Dairy Farmers to reduce their milk surpluses by sending some of their cows to Slaugh the sudden flood of beef drove cattle prices so when president Reagan vowed to veto congresses farm Relief program earlier this the National cat Clemens association data on the economic conditions of the country cattle ranches Are hard to get because the agriculture departments economic surveys Lump the cattle and Grain industries figures comparing the incomes of cattlemen and other Farmers Are equally difficult to come Richard Simu a department of agriculture research pointed out that Only 41 percent of the cattle operations the department surveyed were exclusively devoted to raising livestock while tax loss farming and the High number of very Small cattle operations made income comparisons like comparing apples and the extensive Reliance on outside from Urban truck farming and Cash underlines the de Pendency of cattle growers on supplements to their cattle raising id say 75 percent of our ranchers Are in said Robert executive vice president of the Wyoming Stock growers were seeing some of them forced off the he some of them get foreclosed and then the land is rented Back to them others sell out beforehand because they can see it in Joe Glode is both mayor and the major dealer of farm he has not sold a new tractor since August the spread Between expenses and return is getting wider and wider for the cattle Glode while waiting for prices to recover and land values to cattle ranchers May also face a Sharp increase in the fees the Federal government charges for grazing cattle on Public the ranchers currently pay about a month to Graze each animal on Federal Western cattle ranchers paid the government million last year to run their herds on More than 300 million acres of Public one option being studied by the Reagan administration would drop the practice of linking grazing fees to the Price of a system cattle ranchers and Basing charges on the Market value of the land another option under study would make the ranchers pay the entire Cost of Federal maintenance and supervision of grazing cattle Indus try officials estimate that this would push the monthly Graz ing fee to More than an and so drive ranchers off the Public Berger drove across the rolling Hills of his ranch and spoke with wonder of the Joys of ranching that keep him you have to get your pleasure from your work in this he because there int much Cash in Erma Bombeck i was babysitting Chris my great Niece the other Day when i ran out of fairy dont you know any that Arent in a Book she i know but its pretty scary and your Mother might not appreciate i want to hear she i wont have bad i i once upon a time there was a whole country of women who stayed at Home and kept most of the time they were in the Kitchen is this the one where the Witch puts the kids in the oven and eats them she said every monday the women washed every tuesday they ironed every wednesday they shopped for on thursdays they washed win Dows and polished and on Friday they dusted and vacuumed the entire on weekends they played with the this is the Stephen King Story where the cat sucks the breath out of the Little int it in the women used to scrub toilets with a she said turning when the oven got she had to chisel off the crud with a and when the refrigerator needed defrosting she had to set pan of hot water in it and dig at it with her maybe youre i  hear i the Wax would build up on the floor and it had to be melted and scraped while she was on her hands and  she escape i know there was a crazy Man guarding the door with an there was just so much to she cooked from scratch and never went out to there was always dirty laundry and sheets to Wax and dust Day after youre scaring aunt she said moving every Spring she would take rugs and beat them along with the then one Day the War came along and she went to a dark factory and got a Job making shoelaces for army boots and lived happily Ever a few Days my Niece told me Chris had had bad you didst Tell her the Story of the Snake that ate a did you i told her the one about the housewife of the you gasped my its All she thinks 1 made it c c los Angeles times Syndicate