Tag: agriculture

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Carcasses in the Creek, Noem in a Box

By Cory Allen Heidelberger

I don’t spend snowy spring nights shoulder-deep in cows’ hindquarters trying to save balky calves. I’m not spending this October trying to get a tractor through a muddy, washed-out pasture to drag fifty rotting carcasses that used to be my mortgage payment out of a poisoned creek.

But I am being asked by Congresswoman Kristi Noem, as are you, to pay for a “safety net” to make sure blizzards and other bad fortune don’t put West River ranchers out of business. That makes their business our business.

It’s hard to read the numerous accounts of ranch hardship following the pummeling, freakish West River blizzard of the October 4 weekend and not want to leap to the aid of our neighbors who saw their livelihood turn to horrible scenes of animal suffering and death. The urge to help is all the greater because the people suffering fit the South Dakota self-image in which we all look like Ronald Reagan in Cattle Queen of Montana.

But why should we want to increase federal spending on (call it what it is) welfare when our Congresswoman has urged us to spend less on other needy Americans? She voted against federal assistance for people who lost homes and businesses in Hurricane Sandy last October. Silly New Jerseyans — they shouldn’t have built so close to the ocean, right? Rep. Noem has stalled the Farm Bill because she wants to cut food stamps, a program she claims (erroneously) is rife with waste and fraud.

If we’re really worried about waste and fraud, let’s consider the case for the livestock indemnity program that Rep. Noem advocates. Suppose a thousand ranchers lost livestock in this month’s blizzard and would apply for federal assistance. Would we not find among that thousand at least a few who find themselves in dire straits in part because of their own choices, say, a decision to leave their cattle out on fall grass a week longer or to switch to fall calving? Would we not find, say, 12 out of 1,000 ranchers (that’s the SNAP overpayment rate due to recipient “error”) who would take advantage of Rep. Noem’s generosity and round their losses up from 95 head to 100, or 150 to 300?

Dare we expand the welfare state and risk rewarding a few bad actors and bad choices?

When we look at the carcasses in the creek, and the honest tears welling in a rancher’s eyes, the answer is simple: heck yes! Help our neighbors; write the checks.

But if we try to take Congresswoman Kristi Noem’s words and votes seriously, we end up in a Republican box, where we can’t spend money we don’t have on lazy takers who should have known better than to try to raise cattle in South Dakota.

Editor’s Note: Cory Heidelberger is our political columnist from the left. For a right-wing perspective on politics, please look for columns by Dr. Ken Blanchard every other Monday on this site.

Cory Allen Heidelberger writes the Madville Times political blog. He grew up on the shores of Lake Herman. He studied math and history at SDSU and information systems at DSU, and has taught math, English, speech, and French at high schools East and West River.

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Finding Support After the Storm

By Laura Andrews

Last week’s blizzard was devastating to South Dakota’s cattlemen and women, with livestock losses estimated in the tens of thousands. It’s hard for outsiders to understand the impact — both financial and emotional — that this will have on West River ranchers. Joan Wink of Howes, South Dakota said,”There are no words to describe the devastation and loss. Everywhere we look there are dead cattle. I’ve never seen so many.”

Here are a few sites that offer insight into the impact as well as concrete ways to help those affected:

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McMaster’s Gas War

South Dakota’s tenth governor, William Henry McMaster, took on Standard Oil in the 1920s.

By Paul Higbee


South Dakota’s tenth governor, William McMaster, generated headlines in the 1920s when he fired the first shot in a Midwestern gas pricing war.

McMaster never related exactly what was going through his mind as he watched President Warren G. Harding’s casket carried up the steps of the U.S. Capitol in August 1923. Certainly the governor could be forgiven if his thoughts drifted once or twice from the eulogies of the day to the strategies of coming days. For as soon as Harding’s casket was placed aboard a train bound for Ohio and burial, McMaster would board another bound for Chicago and a fight.

Back home in South Dakota, with harvest approaching, gas was retailing as high as 26.6 cents a gallon. To put that into some perspective, South Dakota’s annual per capita income stood at about $400, and a new Ford Model T touring car cost $295. South Dakotans owned 121,149 cars and 10,554 trucks; while tourism by automobile was just in its infancy, everyone knew that gas prices farmers paid to haul goods to market profoundly affected farm profits and the state’s overall economy.

McMaster, a Republican who was a Yankton banker and financier by profession, knew all about profits. He was for farmers making profits, as well as oil companies, he said. But he had deep concerns about the extent of oil companies’ profits.

The governor checked into Chicago’s Hotel Morrison and told reporters he would meet with Standard Oil officials and say, by his calculations, they could reduce prices by ten cents a gallon and still make a healthy profit.

At the meeting he lowered the boom. If Standard Oil didn’t sell at 16 cents a gallon, the State of South Dakota would begin selling 60,000 gallons at that rate, filling private cars and 50-gallon tanks on farms.

No, he said, the state wasn’t supplying gas at cost, which would be unfair competition. Sixteen cents represented two cents more per gallon than South Dakota was paying for its bulk supply.

“They (Standard Oil) said they will lose money,” McMaster told reporters. “My answer to the Standard Oil is 16 cent gas for South Dakota. 1 am calling upon surrounding states to join in the fight which will be waged to the bitter end.”

What would happen when South Dakota’s initial 160,000 gallons were exhausted? “A new order for half a million gallons will be on the way,” McMaster promised, “provided we don’t get some assurance by that time that a permanent price cut will be made.”

North Dakota was the first state to take McMaster’s challenge and join the fight. Governor R.A. Nestos announced his state, too, would sell gas “until dealers cease their exorbitant charges.”

A day after the McMaster meeting, Standard Oil agreed to drop prices to 16 cents. But it grumbled to the press, issuing a statement: “This company asserts such price is below the cost of manufacture and distribution. However, Standard Oil has always stood upon the principle that the customers who purchased its goods should never be compelled to pay a higher price than that maintained by any competitor… “

The fact that this particular competitor was a state had some legal experts scratching their heads. Nebraska Governor Charles Bryan said he needed time to study legalities before endorsing state sales there. That prompted residents in Omaha to push for an amendment to their city charter, allowing Omaha to sell gas just as it sold coal. In Iowa, Governor N. E. Kendall said he was conferring with his attorney general and added, “1 have requested Governor McMaster to furnish me the basis for his action.”

Regardless of what their governors did or didn’t do, all heartland states saw gas prices plummet. After all, a company like Standard Oil couldn’t expect the public to accept a wide price disparity between, say, Sioux City and Sioux Falls. That fall it was possible to buy 3 cent gas in Des Moines. Oklahoma briefly saw five cent gas.

Nobody watched the situation in South Dakota more closely than leaders of the nation’s 300 automobile clubs. Those clubs claimed enough members to wield real political clout. But members were divided; some said clubs should lobby for more federal regulation of gas pricing, while others argued that action would hurt small independent dealers and ultimately allow big companies to charge still more.

Now it wasn’t the federal government, but South Dakota’s that was doing something about pricing. Was the strategy putting a squeeze on independents?

No, said L. V. Nicholas, speaking for independents as National Petroleum Marketers president. He believed Standard Oil wished to “crush independent dealers” but that McMaster’s plan leveled the playing field by sparking a price war on South Dakota’s terms and timetable, not Standard’s.

“Governor McMaster’s plan is bound to accomplish good, constructive results,” Nicholas said. F. G. Allen, president of South Dakota independent dealers, agreed.

The state stopped selling after major oil companies agreed that 16 cents would be the South Dakota base price. Gas mostly retailed at 15 or 16 cents through harvest, but in early November the price unexpectedly jumped two cents. If prices didn’t fall back to 16 cents by November 19, McMaster said, the state would sell gas again, this time at 14 cents. The prices dropped, but not until state gas had been pumped.

For two years, the state was tested now and then by big oil companies. Each time the state started selling. There were calls for a special legislative session to set a policy, and in 1925 state lawmakers in regular session gave the Highway Department authority to sell petroleum products when the governor or other officials deemed it necessary.

Then in October 1925 the state Supreme Court ruled state sales unconstitutional. By that time McMaster was a U.S. senator. During his single term in Washington McMaster often banded with other rural legislators to fight what they considered abuses by big business.

Unconstitutional or not, McMaster told colleagues he figured he saved midwesterners $150,000 in 1923.


Editor’s Note: This story is revised from the March/April 1995 issue of South Dakota Magazine. To order a copy or to subscribe, call 800-456-5117.

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Better Living Through Berries

By Laura Andrews

“Berries make better bodies,” according to Jeff & Jolene Stewart. Since 2008, they’ve been growing the aronia berry, a tart, dark purple superfruit loaded with antioxidants, on their ranch near Wagner.

Their healthy journey began in the bermed flower beds of their home in Idaho, where Jeff was employed with the Department of Agriculture.”Jeff noticed that on the top there were all these bushes that had these dark, deep purple berries,” Jolene said. A tag on one bush identified the fruits.”As we moved to South Dakota and Jeff worked more with specialty crops, we got interested in them. The more we learned about the health benefits, the more we decided that this was something we wanted to raise,” Jolene said.

Aronia berries are also called chokeberries — a name that can generate some confusion. Though they’re similar to chokecherries in taste, the two plants are only distantly related within the Rosaceae (rose) family. The scientific name for chokeberries is Aronia melanocarpa; the chokecherry is Prunus virginiana. Aronia leaves and seeds lack chokecherries’ cyanide content. For laypeople, it’s easy to tell the difference if you check the berries’ insides. Chokecherries have large pits in their centers, but aronia berries contain tiny seeds.

The Stewarts grow three varieties of pesticide and herbicide-free aronia berries at their ranch: Viking, McKenzie and Galicjanka, a new Polish cultivar, as well as Boer/Spanish cross goats. Harvest time usually falls over a three-week period in late August and early September. At first, they tried to harvest by hand, but with over 11 acres of berry bushes, that proved impractical. This year, a new berry harvester should make the task easier.

The Stewarts’ aronia berries are available at the farmers market in Wagner, Co-Op Natural Foods in Sioux Falls, and at the Stewarts’ home. It only takes 15 berries a day to see aronia’s health benefits. Though the astringent, mouth-puckering flavor can be off-putting at first, Jolene recommends giving them a try.”Experiment and you can find a way you like it. My favorite way is in smoothies. Jeff’s favorite is stir fry.” They also go well in salads, with yogurt or on cereal.”I put them in things that wouldn’t be considered quite as healthy,” Jolene says. She’s made aronia wine, brownies, apple crisp, jelly, cream puffs, French toast, cookies and more.”The one thing you have to get used to is a little purple color in things,” she says.

The health benefits of aronia berries make this experimentation worthwhile.”Aronia berries are packed with antioxidants, and studies indicated they promote colon health,” Jolene says. The Stewarts have noticed a drop in in their cholesterol levels since going on the berry. Others experience more dramatic results.”We have one friend who took an ounce of aronia juice every day for 2 or 3 months,” Jolene says.”When he went to see the doctor, his blood pressure was lower, PSA was down, cholesterol was down and he lost weight.” Those are powerful results from one little berry.

If you’d like to visit Stewart’s Aronia Acres, call 605-384-4443 or visit their Facebook page.

Jolene’s Aronia Smoothie

From Dakota Rural Action’s South Dakota Local Foods Directory, 2013-2014

Jolene encourages smoothie creativity. When her two sons were growing up, the daily family breakfast game was”What’s in the smoothie today?” She’s tried dates, pecans, walnut milk, zucchini and carrots with this basic recipe, with good results.

1 cup aronia berries
1 banana
1 apple, chopped
1/2 cup vanilla yogurt
1 cup peaches (canned or fresh)
1/2 cup juice (apple, peach, orange, etc.)
3/4 cup water with ice cubes

Place ingredients into a blender and blend until smooth. Adjust liquid/ice amounts to your personal preference and enjoy.

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No Bucks in Aberdeen Beef?

By Cory Allen Heidelberger

This week’s bankruptcy declaration by Northern Beef Packers in Aberdeen is good news for nobody. Around 300 workers (those who survived the April layoffs) can’t get their paychecks. 277 creditors — including local contractors and beef suppliers — are left holding the bag, wondering if the Chapter 11 proceedings will shake loose any of the money NBP owes them. Livestock producers who still believe in NBP’s business model are left with one less local buyer competing for their product. A city that has bent over backwards to help NBP through its long, arduous planning and building phase with a TIF district and other help now stands with zero return on its investment.

The only good side of NBP’s bankruptcy is the opportunity for a serious conversation about at least two important questions about economic development in South Dakota:

1. Why hasn’t Northern Beef Packers succeeded? On paper, NBP proposes a business model all South Dakotans should love. NBP wants to crack the big meatpackers’ oligopoly. It wants to create an opportunity for northeast South Dakota livestock producers to sell their product locally, lowering producers’ transportation costs and boosting their profit margins. It supports the South Dakota Certified Beef program, a struggling project started by Governor Mike Rounds in 2005 to differentiate our beef in the marketplace and further boost our cattle business.

Does NBP’s failure show that there’s no beating the big packers? Does it show nobody is really that interested in beef stamped “South Dakota”? Or does it show that the folks running NBP just don’t know what they’re doing, and that an untapped opportunity awaits some savvy entrepreneur?

2. Why has the State of South Dakota given Northern Beef Packers so much help? NBP could not raise enough capital from local investors to get off the ground. The state of South Dakota had to jump start it by lining up foreign investors to pay $500,000 each in return not for profits but for green cards. (This exchange is the EB-5 Immigrant Investor program, facilitated in South Dakota by the South Dakota Regional Center, a technically private company created during the Rounds administration to manage the Governor’s Office of Economic Development’s EB-5 efforts.) For NBP alone, South Dakota has recruited 160 foreign investors who have invested $80 million dollars, without which NBP would not exist.

Is any one business in South Dakota worth that much hustle from Pierre? Is it in the state’s best interest to solicit investments in risky business ventures from outside investors who do not have to live with the local consequences of those ventures’ failures?

The immediate priority in Aberdeen should be to pay workers and creditors and minimize the economic damage. But Aberdeen and South Dakota need a longer-term conversation about prospects for the local beef market and the wisdom of state involvement in the EB-5 program and economic development.

(Say, that Rounds fellow–isn’t he running for some public office or another? Isn’t he in a position to answer questions and lead a public conversation about topics like this?)

Editor’s Note: Cory Heidelberger is our political columnist from the left. For a right-wing perspective on politics, please look for columns by Dr. Ken Blanchard every other Monday on this site.

Cory Allen Heidelberger writes the Madville Times political blog. He grew up on the shores of Lake Herman. He studied math and history at SDSU and information systems at DSU, and has taught math, English, speech, and French at high schools East and West River.

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Name That Farm

By Bernie Hunhoff

Only a few farms had names when I was growing up in Yankton County. But I understand that it was a common practice in some parts of rural America, even here in South Dakota.

The current issue of the Moody County Pioneer, a publication of that county’s historical society, features a county map from 1913 that lists several dozen farm names. Sometimes the names reflected a geographic place — Squaw Creek Stock Farm, for example, and Big Sioux Farm. Other names advertised a specialty — Evergreen Percheron Stock Farm, and Lower Spring Creek Stock and Dairy Farm.

None of the farm names listed on the county maps reflected a family name. Most reflected the pride of living and working in South Dakota’s outdoors: Pleasant Valley, Fairview, Sunny Slope, Pleasant View, Sunny Valley, and so on.

The Henrys of Lone Rock Township called their farm Tahan Wabdaka. Can anybody translate that?

Here in Yankton County, farmer/auctioneer Chet Stewart called his land Poverty Valley. Chet was a lovable fellow and he was hardly impoverished. He’s been gone a while, but the name sticks.

Farmers of today make a lot more money than their grandfathers did in the naming days. But one wonders if they have the same feeling of independence and accomplishment — of being masters of their little universe — as their ancestors with 10 cows, 30 hogs, 100 chickens and 160 acres.

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Cow Know-How Guides Inventor

Cow sense goes into the livestock equipment Kelly Melius builds on his Faulk County farm.

Melius began tinkering when he returned from a three-year stint as an electrician in Minneapolis. He and his father ran a feedlot when he noticed a problem.”I hated the round ringed bale feeders, because the calves were always climbing inside,” he says. He sought help from friend Bill Keldsen, who had welding experience, and in 1999 they designed a new bale feeder that elevates the hay so calves can get underneath.

Keldsen died the next year, but Melius continued their work and created Common Sense Manufacturing. He’s expanded to include feed bunks and a hydraulic wire winder. Melius does business within 500 miles of Faulkton, but he ships the wire winder across the country.

Another popular product is his redesigned calf shelter.”Calves don’t like to go to the back of a structure,” he says.”They feel like they might get trapped. And the mothers don’t like them to get too far away.” So he created a narrower shelter with a door on the side and a skylight. Calves don’t feel trapped and mothers can keep an eye on their babies.

Farm experience makes his products better.”I’m a cow guy,” he says.”I built this stuff that I know works for my own cows. I’ve got several products that I’ve never released because they don’t work.”

That makes sense.

Editor’s Note: This story is revised from the May/June 2011 issue of South Dakota Magazine. To order a copy or to subscribe, call 800-456-5117.


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South Dakotans Flock to Poultry Crawl

By Heidi Marsh

Did you know it takes approximately half the soybean harvest in Minnehaha County to feed our state’s poultry? Neither did I until last night when my husband Craig (the agronomist) and I attended a Poultry Crawl in Sioux Falls.

The Crawl, hosted by Ag United and the Poultry Association, was a progressive dinner that served poultry-based dishes prepared by three of Sioux Falls’ most popular chefs. We started the evening with a delicious turkey wrap and chicken skewer appetizer at K Restaurant. Chef Sanaa, owner of Sanaa’s Mediterranean restaurant, delighted us with a rice and turkey main dish. The night ended at Josiah’s Coffeehouse, where Steve Hildebrand gave credit for his delicious pie crusts to none other than good eggs!

The food was outstanding, but even more enlightening was the discussion with South Dakota poultry producers. Representatives from Dakota Provisions turkey in Huron, Dakota Layers eggs in Flandreau, Hy-Line North America genetics and others offered their expertise about the industry. Here’s just a few tidbits I learned:

  • If you enjoy the Roasted Turkey & Avocado BLT from Panera, you’re eating turkey that’s raised on a South Dakota Hutterite Colony and processed in Huron.
  • Flandreau is being overtaken by hens! The hen population at Dakota Layers is over 500 times larger than the city population … that’s 1.3 Million busy little layers.
  • South Dakota currently ranks first in goose production.
  • City chicks in Sioux Falls? You bet! You can legally raise chickens in your backyard as long as the flock is maintained and kept in a coop. Visit HomeGrown Sioux Falls for more information.

Ag United hosts a variety of similar events all with the goal to educate and promote South Dakota farm and ranch families. Visit their website for more information.

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Snowy Horses

In 2008, Texas native Jennifer Zeller accepted a position marketing Quarter Horses on now-husband Zach Ducheneaux’s ranch. Says Zeller,”When I got there, Zach handed me an older model Canon DSLR and said, ‘Go nuts. You’ve got to learn to take good photos of the horses anyway!'” Zeller draws from a mixed media background when composing photos on their ranch 55 miles east of Eagle Butte. To view more of her photos or to purchase prints, visit thesouthdakotacowgirl.com.