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Keeping the family farm By
Jessica Kelly While this makes a huge mess, Wes Woodward knows it is necessary. Dehorning is important for safety measures but it is also used for aesthetics. Many steers will beat up on things or fight with each other, so their horns need to be removed. By dehorning their own calves farmers can fetch a higher price when they sell their animals. The Woodward family owns about 250 acres of land. Their farm is located in Weston, Idaho, and is surrounded by mountains. They are not a large company so competition is stiff. Wes considers his family's farm a small operation, so anything that can be done to increase the value of their animals must be done. Wes seems like a typical college student, but most weekends instead of working on homework he makes the 30-minute drive home on Friday night so he can be up early and out to work with his dad on Saturday morning. He works hard all day and is rewarded with a home-cooked meal from his mom when the sun goes down. He gives his youngest sister, Whitney, his signature smile with a deep dimple in his right cheek and heads to bed. Sunday he heads back to his Logan apartment so he can attend his church services. The farm where he works consists of fields of alfalfa and a feedlot where the animals are kept. A feedlot is a confined area and does not allow the animals to graze. The cows are in pens that are like large dog houses. They raise steers, which are castrated bulls. Most of the large operations that are seen are the ranches where the cows are allowed to roam free and graze. This is where the legends of cowboys on the open range come from. Farms, however, are small operations that grow only enough crops to keep their animals fed. Wes is the 23-year old son of Van Woodward and a student at Utah State University. His father, his brother Nate and himself have been the main operators of their farm. Farming is a generational thing in their family. Wes does not know of a time when their family was not farming. His father farms, his grandfather farmed, and so on down the line. He expects it to continue. "I think it's just got to be in your blood. You just have to be crazy or stupid. You need to want to spend all of your money and lose it. Some people gamble and some people farm," Wes said. Gambling and luck is a big part of the operation. It is not an easy task to keep a steer alive. While they are young, they have the tendency to get sick. The Woodwards need to give them shots or use other measures to keep them alive and well. One cow costs about $525 to raise. A good selling price is about $800. The loss of just one cow can hurt a small operation quite a bit. "The elements, like a big rainstorm with two or three inches of rain can be hard. You have to have them all on pretty high ground, or they get flooded out and the cows get sick and could possibly die," Woodward said. Fighting the elements is a huge part of farming. The weather dictates when animals can be sold and when crops need harvesting, and one storm can cause the destruction of a small farm. Last winter was especially tough on cattle farmers with the freezing temperatures. Wes said they were lucky compared to other families he knows, and only lost a few cows. While most people would call a vet for their sick puppy, it is too expensive for a small operation to do that every time a cow gets sick. As a result they are their own veterinarians. In addition to doctoring animals, these industrious folks get to the farm by 5 a.m. to feed the them. Then comes the rest of the day. While farming is hard work, Wes admits he likes it. "I like to watch them eat. I love having them all lined up along the manger. It is enjoyable to see about 100 of them lined up and chewing," he said. Self satisfaction, being his own boss and seeing what he has accomplished at the end of the day are some of the things Wes likes best about farming. They also need to be creative and inventive. Everything and anything is done to keep the costs down. Like any good businessmen, they try to keep the overhead low so that when it comes time to sell, the profit will be larger. For example, instead of using a milk replacer for the calves, which is expensive, they get milk from Gossners in Logan. The milk they use cannot be sold to consumers because of packaging reasons or other defects but is still OK to feed the calves. In addition to this, the Woodwards also use goats to feed their calves. A single goat will produce about a half to one gallon of milk a day. Goats eat small amounts of food, so are an efficient way to provide milk to the calves. Besides using unique ways to feed the cattle, the Woodwards are also inventive in their repairs. Wes said, "Things wear out. Especially with cows because they beat up on things. If you let it go, things get out of repair pretty fast. You can't spend a lot of money or you can be overrun by the big companies. We have to be inventive a little bit and jerry rig things sometimes." Even after everything is done to help keep costs low, sometimes it is just not enough. Farmers depend on the agricultural economic market for their profits. The norms for agricultural prices are set in Chicago by a commodity. The Woodward family is watching the market constantly to try and guess when the best time to sell is. Woodward says it is important to pay attention because some cattle buyers will try to take you. It is not a high-tech mathematical equation. Bartering goes back to the old days when the "good old boys" got together and discussed the prices they were willing to pay. A more recent problem sprung up after the North Atlantic Free Trade Act was passed by the U.S. Congress and expanded international trade with Canada and Mexico. This flooded the market and caused prices to fluctuate extremely. Before NAFTA, prices were fairly steady and a typical rate for a cow was either $1 per pound or $800 a head. Woodward says the current market is about 50 cents a pound. "The prices were a lot better but then they flooded the market when Canada and Mexico became involved with trade. Ever since then, the prices have just been up and down, and really low, but they have not hit really high," said Wes. While the prices fluctuate at the selling block, Wes says he does not see price changes in the grocery stores. "It is kind of a crooked little business because the prices change on our end, but in the store, they always stay the same," he says. "I do' t know what happens in the middle, but it is not right." With problems in the market it is almost impossible for farmers to farm full time. Wes's father in addition to farming is on the Weston City Council and is the water master for the area. Wes and his brother want to farm but realize they need to finish their educations and will only be able to farm part time. "We will both just kind of do it together. We both want to be teachers and farmers," said Wes. Wes has a connection to the land because he works it and invests his time and blood into it. With large companies at the forefront, many small farms are becoming history lessons.Wes hopes to stay in the valley and work the farm for long time. He supposes one day he and his brother will take it over. He hopes when his children are grown he will have something to hand down to them.
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