Irion County Livestock Show: Ranchers Seek FFA Financial Advice
Irion County FFA Chapter Minutes Record 31 Ranchers Requesting Financial Advice From Freshmen Whose Show Lambs Turned a Profit
MERTZON, Texas — The Irion County FFA chapter has released the official minutes of its fall meetings, which were approved as read, seconded, and then, at the request of a Barnhart sheepman sitting in the back row, read a second time slowly so he could write down the numbers.
It began when a sophomore working on a record-keeping assignment discovered that, according to the 2022 USDA census profile of Irion County, the county’s 160 farms and ranches reported a combined net cash farm income of minus $268,000, or minus $1,677 per operation. The same sophomore’s market lamb, by her own record book, had finished the previous year in the black.
She mentioned this at a regular meeting. The secretary wrote it down. Within a week the chapter began receiving visitors. Farm.FM presents the minutes below, lightly condensed.
Irion County FFA Minutes, Regular Meeting, October
Call to order: 7:00 p.m., agriculture classroom, by the president with the gavel. Officers at their stations. Attendance: 22 members, one ag teacher, and four ranchers who said they were “just picking something up” and then sat down.
Old business: Show feed order confirmed for the Irion County Livestock Show in December. Wash rack hose still leaking. Tabled.
New business: The sophomore reported her findings. Irion County has 4,192 sheep, 3,532 goats, and 10,143 cattle on 662,936 acres of pasture. It is one of the top sheep and goat counties in Texas, ranking 32nd in the state for sheep, goat, wool and mohair sales. Its ranchers spent $13.49 million to produce $9.9 million worth of agriculture. Her lamb cost less than it brought.
A rancher in the back row raised his hand. The president explained that only members may speak during new business. The rancher asked how a person becomes a member, was told he would need to enroll in high school agricultural science, and said he would think about it.
Motion: To form an advisory committee to answer outside financial questions, so that the chapter could get back to discussing the wash rack. Seconded. Carried 21-1. The one vote against was the treasurer, who said she already knew how this was going to go.
Treasurer’s Report: Minus $268,000, Plus One Lamb
November meeting, call to order: 7:00 p.m. Attendance: 22 members, one ag teacher, and 31 ranchers, who had brought their own folding chairs and in several cases their own coffee.
Treasurer’s report: Chapter account balance unchanged. The treasurer then read a separate report prepared by the advisory committee, which had spent three weeks reviewing the ranchers’ requests. Highlights included:
- One operation reported crops of any kind. On examination, the crop was a hay meadow. Irion County’s entire crop sector accounts for 2 percent of agricultural sales, or $172,000, most of it from 515 acres of hay and 80 acres of pecans. The committee recommended the hay meadow “keep up the good work, as it is carrying a lot.”
- One rancher requested a formal valuation of his pickup, which he drives an estimated 41 miles a day to check one water trough. The committee asked whether the trough had ever been empty. He said no. The committee asked why he checks it. He said, “So it stays that way.” Noted.
- One sheepman asked whether his operation could be designated a Supervised Agricultural Experience project so the chapter would be required to help him keep records. The ag teacher explained that SAE projects belong to students. The sheepman offered to give the operation to a student. The student, a freshman, asked to see the books first. After reviewing them she declined, politely, and wrote him a two-page plan instead.
The freshman’s plan has since been photocopied 31 times and is reportedly taped to the sun visors of at least nine ranch pickups. It recommends fewer trips to town, a written feed budget, and “not buying a second trailer to haul the first trailer to get fixed.”
New Business: The Barnhart Question
A delegation from Barnhart attended the November meeting with a historical argument. According to the Barnhart historical marker, the town was founded in 1910 on the Kansas City, Mexico and Orient Railroad and was, in the 1920s and 1930s, one of the largest inland livestock shipping points around. The delegation wished to know where all that money went.
The chapter historian reported that it most likely left on the train. Asked whether it could be brought back, she said the train had also left. Noted for future generations.
The sentinel noted that the county’s first sheep arrived from California in 1876. A motion to ask California for the original receipts failed for lack of a second.
The Irion County Livestock Show Audit Committee Reports
December meeting, held after the Irion County Livestock Show: 7:00 p.m. Attendance: 22 members, one ag teacher, 31 ranchers, and two volunteers from the show barn who said they wanted to hear the ending.
The advisory committee had used show day at the county show barn to finish its audit. The show is listed on the AgriLife District 7 county show calendar, and it is, by tradition, the one day of the year when nearly every rancher in the county is standing in the same building with a sale bidder card in his shirt pocket. The committee simply followed the money from pen to pen.
The chair, a junior, presented the findings with a single sheet of paper and the confidence of a person who has fed a market goat through a West Texas summer. The committee had traced the profit on every member’s lamb and goat project directly to the premium sale. It had then traced the premium sale bids directly to the ranchers in the back row. “The county’s agricultural losses and this chapter’s agricultural profits,” she reported, “are largely the same money, moving about forty feet across one show barn.”
The room was quiet for some time. Then the Barnhart sheepman raised his hand and asked the only question that mattered. “So what do you advise?”
The committee had prepared for this. Its formal recommendation, read into the minutes and approved unanimously by every member present, was two words long: “Bid higher.”
The chair explained that the premium sale was the only line item in the audit with a measurable return, that the return was a young person who now understands feed conversion, record keeping and public speaking, and that the committee could find no better investment on 662,936 acres of pasture. The ranchers conferred among themselves for about a minute, then nodded. Several said it was the first financial advice they intended to follow.
Adjournment: 8:14 p.m. Next meeting: January. Agenda item one: the ranchers have requested a second opinion. The chapter has agreed to provide one. It will be the same opinion.
Five Humorous Observations About Texas 4-H Livestock Shows
- Irion County has 4,192 sheep, 3,532 goats and minus $268,000. The only animal in the county with a positive balance is a sophomore’s market lamb, and she will not stop bringing it up.
- The entire crop economy is 515 acres of hay and 80 acres of pecans. Those pecan trees are under more pressure than any quarterback in Texas.
- A rancher drives 41 miles a day so a water trough stays full. The trough has never been empty. That’s not ranching, that’s a security detail.
- A freshman looked at a grown man’s ranch books and said, “No, thank you.” That is the most fiscally responsible sentence spoken in Irion County since the train left Barnhart.
- The committee followed the money forty feet across a show barn and back into the ranchers’ pockets, minus a lamb. Wall Street spends billions explaining that. Mertzon did it on one sheet of paper.