This story was reported in collaboration with the Northwest News Network.
At a cattle auction in Vale, Oregon, a batch of thirty-one cattle race between pens and chutes as they’re let out of gates controlled by pulleys.
“Thirty-one!” bellows the yard hand as he wrenches the pulley. He counts heads fast, calling the number to the pen riders on horseback so they know how many cattle to chase down the alley.
Ranchers come to this auction from far reaches across the Northwest. This year, they say, hasn’t been easy for them.
In August, The Trump administration announced a deal to import reduced tariff beef from Argentina and other countries. The hope was to lower the costs of beef for consumers, but it also dropped the value of U.S. beef by nearly a dollar.
Cory Shelman — a Burns-based buyer with Superior Livestock which is a major video cattle sales operation — said at the end of June, ranchers were getting about $2,900 for a 500 pound calf. By mid-October, he said ranchers were getting about $2,500 for a similar weight animal. That makes a big difference to ranchers. It’s about $400 a head less, or about $40,000 for a truckload of cattle, Shelman said.
Record-high diesel prices have also cut into margins.
But despite frustrations with the Trump administration, some ranchers say it won’t be enough to stop them from voting with the Republican party in the midterms.
Up in the auction stands in Vale, John Kienitz of Emmett, Idaho said Trump’s Argentinian imports haven’t helped his cattle business.
He said buying cattle is tough nowadays. Everyone is looking for a deal in this frayed economy, and competition for young cattle is stiff.
Kienitz considers himself a moderate Republican, but he said his vote is for each candidate, not the party.
He’s grim about Trump’s imports. He said it didn’t really bring down the cost of beef for consumers. He called it “just blowing smoke like they always do.”
“If I had a chance, I would kick out everyone in Congress – Democrats and Republicans – and start over,” he said.
Kienitz said he’s looking to buy lightweight heifers so he can feed them up, spay them and sell them when they reach about 900 pounds. Cattle gestate for nine months, Kienitz said this means beef is a long-range business.
“The prices are so volatile that you can’t plan ahead,” he said. “The politicians seem to turn things upside down every now and then, and when you have to invest so much money, and you don’t know what’s gonna happen next week, it makes you pretty uncomfortable to invest that money.”
Frustrations with Salem
At a truck stop diner at the edge of Hines, Ore., a young cook cracks some cracklin’ eggs on the griddle for travellers and locals.
Colby Marshall peers from behind his thick spectacles from underneath his fall-colored straw hat. Marshall is a rancher and a ranch realtor. He regularly travels across a large swath of what he calls “Frontier Oregon.” He said that ranchers across the region – and he knows a lot of them – have been frustrated with federal policies.
“There was a considerable amount of outrage, I would say, right off the bat with the Administration,” he said. “It was viewed as like, why are they doing that? We’re finally reaching the point where we’re receiving some prices that we need in order to be able to survive economically in this market.”
He said cattle prices took about a dollar-a-pound hit right during their late summer — fall marketing season for calves after President Trump announced the deal to import more beef.
“The initial outcry of that was softened a bit with the understanding of what the Administration was trying to do – which is they were trying to lower the beef price for the consumer in the United States so that they don’t switch proteins,” Marshall said. “If we make beef too high for the family right now, they’re going to go to chicken, they’re going to go to pork, because of the price per pound on that.”
Marshall used to work for an eastern Oregon Congressman. He also managed one of the largest working ranches in the West, called Silvies Valley.
Marshall said he doesn’t agree with how the state of Oregon manages natural resources. For example, limiting how much water ranchers can use for watering stock and crops. He also thinks Oregon is not friendly to family businesses.
One policy from the Trump administration, he said, isn’t enough to overcome decades of feeling ignored by the liberal politicians in Salem.
“The governor is the one at the very top of the leadership pyramid that should understand the issues of the coast range, the issues of the Willamette Valley, the issues of central Oregon, the issues of frontier and eastern Oregon, and help guide the conversation and guide policy that works for the entire state,” he said. “I unfortunately believe that over the last 40 years, the office of the governor of the state of Oregon has become more and more narrowly focused on a smaller and smaller group of individuals or communities.”
Side-by-side politics
Katie Baltzor hitches up into a side-by-side to check her cattle out in her 160-acre homeplace field outside of Hines, Oregon.
She recently moved more than 100 head, with her husband Keith, down Highway 205.
The black angus cattle are quiet, they have their heads down grazing.
Drought, wildfire and high diesel prices have been challenging for their operation this year. She lost a $5,000 Angus bull in a fire this summer. That hurt.
But, even with beef imports and high diesel, Baltzor said she’ll still vote Republican come November.
“I don’t like how liberal some of the candidates are becoming in the Democrat party,” Baltzor said. “I think the Democrat party has really shifted from the way it used to be, I don’t think it’s like Bill Clinton or Obama.”
She said she thinks democrats are becoming more extreme.
“I think there are a lot of potentially good Republicans that could run for president next time. I don’t agree 100% with president Trump. But I think he’s done a lot of good. I think he’s a businessman, and he doesn’t care about the politics.”
Baltzor said people in eastern Oregon don’t feel like their voice is heard in politics in the state either.
“I think a lot of people have given up,” she said.
Baltzor said a lot of people died to make sure she can vote, so she will.
Cow camp values
It’s more than 25 miles of gravel road out of Crane, Oregon to reach the remote cow camp called Visher.
Women wrangle scads of ranch kids who are runnin’ and Nerf gunnin’, while the men pull strings of hundreds of cows and calves out of the backcountry.
This cow camp is here to help them get the cattle down from remote areas into pens where they can be preg-checked to see if they are carrying fresh calves, vaccinated and dewormed. Also, all the calves are weaned from their mothers.
To get the cattle down to the camp, they use everything they can: Horses, ATVs, side-by-sides, trucks, drones and even a helicopter.
Anna Pozzi and her husband Danny Pozzi are running this cow camp. They have a crew with them, they all sleep in teepees and cook all three-daily-squares in a big wall tent.
The Pozzis also sell their cut and ground beef at farmers markets in Bend and Boise.
“We interact with a lot of different people from all walks of life,” Danny Pozzi said.
Danny Pozzi said most of his values are drawn not from political views, but from his religion.
“Our values of what we stand on is being honest, being pro-life and just doing what is best for people in general, and not undermining people or lying,” he said.
They both say Trump’s economy is disheartening. But they’re also skeptical of what they hear in the media. With around 3,000 mother cows and another 3,000 calves to work and wean – they just don’t have the time to worry about it much.
They’d rather see Democrats and Republicans work together.
“They're not doing anything for the American people because they're so mad at each other and they're so anti each other, they're just they're not thinking of the whole, they’re thinking of themselves,” Anna Pozzi said.
The Pozzis say Trump’s imported beef and diesel prices aren’t enough to change their votes so far.
“If we spent all our time worried about the what the heck this country is doin’, what the President’s doin’, what every politician’s doin’ – we wouldn’t get anything done,” Anna Pozzi said. “‘Cause we’d be sitting there fixated on the TV, going – ‘Oh my gosh! What are they donin’ now?’ Is fixating on what Trump did yesterday gonna get my cows moved today? No!’”
With that, Danny Pozzi calls to his eldest girl – Mary Alice Pozzi, just 6-years-old.
Her long braids, with purple extensions woven in, fly behind her as he boosts her up into the back seat. The stock rack truck is loaded with horses, saddled and ready. Danny Pozzi, Mary Alice and a hired hand all head out to gather cattle 20 miles by horseback up into the hills.
