I have the opportunity to travel many miles throughout my territory, covering sales for the Western Livestock Journal. I hear a lot of opinions and theories about our industry as we all collectively scratch our heads trying to come up with ideas to drive more profits down the supply chain. This spring, I heard an idea from a cattleman and leader in the industry that really resonated with me and is one that I think the whole industry should get behind.
There has been a lot of talk about having the government more intimately involved in our affairs. The major cry in the countryside, as well as in hearings on Capitol Hill, is to have the government mandate price discovery and market transparency methods. I have read many articles and talked to many people on both sides of the fence about this issue.
It seems very difficult to find a consensus on this idea, and it seems to be using a lot of our collective energy trying to establish collusion and market manipulation by the packers. Now, I am not here to take a side on that issue, but I think we should consider refocusing our efforts.
The idea floated to me by one of the great cattlemen of our times was to have our federal government provide tax incentives to those producing food and fiber in our nation. Now, I am not talking about changing the tax incentives currently in place—some we have, like Section 179, are very useful. We need to provide special incentives to keep family farms and ranches generational.
We need to provide huge tax advantages to keep land in production to compete with activist groups who are collecting donor money and buying ranches throughout the West and removing production agriculture from the properties. We need to remove the “death tax” on farms and ranches that are passed to the next generation, period.
Now, I am not necessarily talking about government payments; a lot of the cowboys I know would not stick their hand out or sign up for those payments based on mere principal. But I do think we should allow the 1.3 percent of the population that feeds 100 percent of Americans to keep all their income from their commodity sales. They should be able to deduct every purchase—most of which will be supporting other small businesses in their respective communities—to run their operations.
And let’s stop punishing the risk-taking, entrepreneurial, rugged individuals who made this country great and built sustainable family businesses only to have the government come in and tax the estate upon their death—this just seems wrong.
Another issue I have seen locally in Montana is the amount of investment and hobby money being spent buying ranches for recreation, hunting or in the name of environmental protection, the latter of which I strongly believe is wrong. The free market dictates the prices on these ranches, and the new owners should be allowed to use the land as they choose.
However, I know of multiple ranches that had cattle removed and are now sitting vacant. Or, in an example I know of firsthand, it has caused the price of a ranch to skyrocket for a young couple planning to purchase the ranch they have leased the last 10 years, simply making it infeasible to buy and pay for the land by raising crops and cattle. We need to make Uncle Sam provide incentives to keep agriculture production on these ranches.
Now, there will be other industries that will say this is unfair and playing favorites for one industry over another. To that comment, I would say, yes, that’s absolutely the case. We need to play favorites for our agriculture community. We need to make the tax structure so good that it attracts the next generation to stay on the ranch and encourage new families to start farming. I know we live in a global market, and I am not naive to that. That being said, looking at the crises that are happening abroad, we need to have a strong and robust food supply to feed our nation. It is a matter of national security to keep our population fed. Honestly, having a general public that is well fed and not worried about their next meal allows for the advancements we have seen in the U.S. This allows for more time to focus on technological, industrial and other business evolutions.
We do not want to be a nation that finds ourselves without agriculture. Let’s get all the cattle groups and farm groups together to find a way to create tax incentives for farmers, feeders, stockers, cow-calf ranchers, seedstock producers, and all of us involved in getting food to the American consumer’s plate. Markets may be hard to predict, but let’s provide incentives to produce food where we can. This seems like a worthwhile effort to me. —
