April 17 & 18, 2004

The beautiful Cheyenne Ridge Lodge was the setting for Seminar #11 as Class II members prepared themselves for graduation.  The always inspirational Cheri Rath served as General Seminar Manager for our weekend of activities.

After a delicious lunch on Saturday, Ron Hanson, from the University of Nebraska - Lincoln, presented “Fence Posts Talking to Each Other.”  The gist of his presentation was the need for members of farm and ranch families to foster better communication skills.  Ron shared some of his experiences from 26 years of counseling farm and ranch families in Nebraska.  When it comes to a family farm or ranch operation, he concluded that all parties need to remember that “we are all in this together.”

During the last half of the afternoon session, Hanson’s presentation topic was  “You Can Buy the Farm, But Just Remember That I Still Own It.”  Questions he focused on included:  How do you transfer ownership to the next generation?  Does your operation have a mission or goal statement?  Is it written down?  He stressed the importance that all operations should have a five-year goal along with a 20-year goal.  The goals should be discussed and written down with the participation of the entire family.   Goals should be updated when necessary and everyone is present and involved in the discussion.  If you want your family farm to succeed into the next generation, have a game plan written down.

After dinner, Ron continued with “The Unspoken Words of a Farm Family.”  Many times it is not what is said, but what is not said that has the bigger impact on the relationships of individual farm/ranch families.  Hanson suggests to the families that he counsels to remember the commitments of marriage and family.  Show your spouse and children that you love them and care about them; take your spouse on a date once a week. 

The evening concluded with a fund raising auction for the SDARL program.  Several Class I members were present to assist with the auction.  The auction picked up full speed and proceeded to set a new standard for the SDARL fund raising auction.   Everyone had a fine evening for the benefit of a great organization.

Sunday morning began with a slide presentation prepared by Cheri Rath which reflected on the experiences of the members of Class II over the past two years.  What a fun time.  Thank you, Cheri!

A forum on Animal ID was held with very interesting debate and discussion regarding the pros and cons of individual animal id systems.   Starting on forum 1 we discussed the present European system. Some of the pros and cons of this system is that it works well for small producers and provides consumer confidence in their beef production system. Some of the cons we discussed are that it is an expensive system and it is cumbersome for large producers. In Approach 2 we discussed the current Canadian system. This system has a smaller amount of paper work than the European system and it identifies the original owner of the animal and the packing plant where it is processed but It does not identify any owners in between the original owner and the packing plant. Approach 3 brought in the question of ‘should the U.S. have a mandatory animal I.D. System?’  If this system was put in place it would need to have a 48 hour time frame to trace the product back to the producer.  Also the startup cost of this system may be to expensive for small producers and there was a lot of concern over the liability of the system. For example a cow calf producer should not be sued for a product that became contaminated with e-coli at a packing plant.  In approach 4, features were discussed that should be included in the U. S. system.  For example; we should start with a voluntary system that limits producer liability, the system needs to be fool proof with 100% trace back, it needs to have multiple species continuity with low labor requirements and limited government involvement.  

Class members met for an alumni committee meeting as we prepared to graduate from Class II and become active alumni of the SDARL program.  We listened to reports from the committees on the various goals of each committee.  The four comities were recruitment, finance, curriculum, and continuing Ed.  An alumni meeting was held and the future needs of the SDARL program were discussed.

After lunch, Dusty Johnson who is a Liaison to Governor Rounds for Tourism and State Development spoke to us about the importance of agriculture and the role it plays in the state of South Dakota. He explained that because of the demographics of this state that agriculture will always be economically important to South Dakotans. Some examples of this would be the growth of the ethanol industry, the 1,000 new jobs now available in Huron, and the future development of the Dairy industry along the I -29 corridor. Johnson also noted that agriculture in South Dakota is advancing towards value added products, which gives South Dakotans that are involved in agribusiness greater opportunities for the future.

Throughout the weekend, several of the SDARL board members were able to attend.  Denny Everson, chairman of the SDARL board, joined us for lunch.  I would like to take this opportunity on behalf of Class II to give a great big “Thank You” to Denny and the rest of the board of directors for putting together a tremendous program.  A special thank you to Executive Director Dan Gee and his wife, Rae Jean, for running a program so smoothly and effectively.  What a wonderful two-year experience Class II has been.

                                                                                    Reporter Ed Briggs