Published: April 11, 2008 10:42 am            

Land Minds: Livestock backbone of rural Minnesota

Originally published in the April 4, 2008, print edition.

Sitting with nearly 100 people March 14 in the Renville County Commissioner’s Chamber at the county office building, I witnessed a most interesting demonstration of grass-roots activism.

The event was a public hearing regarding a variance request by Revier Cattle Co., currently permitted to operate a 4,500 head feedlot about six miles south of Olivia, wanting to build two total-confinement buildings, each housing 3,000 head, thus boosting their total capacity to 10,500 head.

Because of a most-contentious experience with a value-added swine cooperative known as the ValAdCo Cooperative back in the early 1990s, Renville County in 1998 imposed an animal unit density cap of 2,000 units. However, prior to this density cap Revier Cattle Co. had planned, designed and constructed a total feedlot infrastructure to support production in excess of 10,000 beef cattle.

“And that’s the dilemma facing us today,” said Tom Revier, business manager of the feedlot operation. “The density cap deprives us of fully utilizing the infrastructure which we already have.”

That infrastructure includes a commodity storage center, a feed storage facility, a repair and maintenance shop, a quarantine “hospital area” for treating animals, a semi-trailer sized platform scale and weighing facility, plus an administrative headquarters-office center.

However, since the ValAdCo experience livestock expansion in Renville County has been a bumpy, often impossible road. That’s somewhat ironic because this county is the No. 1 corn and the No. 1 soybean production county in Minnesota. It is rich in feedstocks yet it is one of only eight counties in Minnesota with animal unit caps of 2,000. Three adjoining counties don’t have animal density caps.

This particular public hearing started promptly at 8:30 a.m. I compliment the Renville County Board of Adjustments for their diligence and patience is listening through the entire 4 1/2 hours of commentary by both the proponents and the opponents.

Chairman Larry Gass opened the hearing saying the board would give anyone who “signed in” permission to share their thoughts. But he warned against repetition of the same message by subsequent testifiers.

Yes, there was repetition, much of it stemming from the same opponents who eventually put the ValAdCo swine operation out of business because of extreme odor and environmental challenges. However, Revier had done his homework. He had engineers and environmental specialists on hand with scientific data corroborating his PowerPoint presentation to the board. Additional supporting comments came from representatives of the Renville County Corn-Soybean Growers Association, ProAg of Renville County, the Renville County Farm Bureau, the Renville County Housing and Redevelopment Authority and Economic Development Authority, the Renville County Soil Conservation Service and the Olivia Area Chamber of Commerce.

Though this variance request was on behalf of a single family farm and beef operation, in reality this was a hearing on the future of the livestock industry in Renville County. In its truest sense, this event was about economic development for Renville County.

As we know, population in most rural counties continues to decline. That’s a simple function of jobs, or lack thereof. Bigger and bigger cash grain operations don’t create more jobs. But livestock farms do create jobs and bigger livestock operations create more and better jobs.

Renville County has manufacturing jobs at Loftness Manufacturing at Hector, Schweiss Bi-Folds in rural Fairfax, Warner’s at Sacred Heart, plus Minnesota Energy and Minnesota Beef at Buffalo Lake. But for the most part, growing its total agricultural industry is the most viable threshold for growing the economy of this county, at least currently.

The reality being that as goes Renville County agriculture, so goes Main Street, and so go the schools and churches of Renville County. The county’s current population is 16,500 people.

The usual outcome of public hearings is that there are winners and losers. However, looking more closely at what transpired in Renville County March 14, there really weren’t losers. I say this because science, technology and common sense about rules, regulations and being good neighbors have transferred modern beef production into a source of pride and achievement for everyone.

I suspect these two new beef confinement facilities could well be the prototype for future cattle feeding operations throughout Minnesota, and perhaps the Upper Midwest.

I know for certain that the Revier Cattle Co. will continue to have visitors. Their feedlot operation has hosted busloads of both state and foreign visitors in recent years.

Apparently most elected officials encourage the harmonious growth of Minnesota’s livestock industry. On May 21, 2005, Sen. Steve Dille introduced Senate File 1218 that read: A memorial resolution asking the residents of Minnesota for tolerance of different views on animal agriculture production practices; making 2005 the year the Minnesota feedlot war ended, and the mark of the beginning of a new era for Minnesota livestock farmers characterized by peace, love, harmony and acceptance of diversity.

Senate File 1218 passed 57 to 1.

Minnesota livestock farmers and related agricultural processors employ more than 200,000 people and generate over $28 billion in economic activity for the state.

        

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