Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
time as a member of the Montana Livestock Board, trying to negotiate an
agreement between environmentalists and ranchers that would fi nd common
ground and workable approaches to wolf control in light of its removal from the
Endangered Species list.
“It's a big challenge,” she said, “and the next year or two will tell whether
we can come up with strategies that are acceptable to most of the stakeholders.
Ultimately, I think we will end up doing more lethal control than the conserva-
tionists want to do and less lethal control than the ranchers want to do. But the
good — and usually unreported — news is that there are some people who are
making remarkable progress in fi guring out ways to prevent confl ict and reduce
the need for lethal control while keeping ranching going.”
Though Becky sold her sheep, they just moved six miles down the road to
some new shepherds, and she will still be handling and marketing their wool. In
2004, Becky and Dave started an on-farm wool-processing enterprise that takes
raw fi ber from a number of fl ocks in their area. As Becky said when we talked
this time, “This is an experiment of sorts to see if small-scale, decentralized
industry, when coupled with agriculture, can really be viable. Nobody is getting
rich, but it
is
working and I feel like in the world we are evolving into — with
changes in the environment and energy and the world economy — things like
this are going to become more and more common and less and less of a fringe
type of business.”
Becky also said that when she gets back into sheep, she will be pursuing yet
another area of new thinking: “I want to fi nd genetics for grassfed, high-quality
meat carcasses, and also wool. The quality of genetics for grassfed animals is not
the same as those for animals that the conventional industry raises to send to
feedlots,” she said.
“When I started, I didn't know anything about genetics. I still know almost
nothing,” she said with a hearty laugh. “But I feel like I have learned enough to
have some specifi c ideas about what those genetics need to be, and I think I can
help other people who want to get started raising sheep in a low-input way.”
If her past trendsetting and leadership in the sheep industry are any indica-
tor, Becky will successfully help create the ideal genetics for grassfed produc-
tion in North America.
