Dear HCN,
Steven Stuebner’s recent
article “Global market squeezes sheep ranchers” (HCN, 11/19/01:
Global market squeezes sheep ranchers) has to rank as one of
HCN‘s worst articles of the year, or silliest.
What might have been an informative report on the situation of the
sheep industry, if only Stuebner would do a little research, turns
into a biased quickie interview piece with what this reader
surmises are a few of Steve’s ranching buddies. Nowhere in the
piece is the educated reader alerted to the size of the operations
in question. Two of the ranchers featured, Brad Little and John
Peavey, head up multimillion-dollar operations, exploiting
literally hundreds of thousands of acres of federally leased lands,
or used to. These guys are not some small family operators, as
Stuebner would have us believe, with his carrying on about how many
generations these corporations have existed. They are large
agribusiness, raising an anachronistic, unwanted product with
federal tax dollars at huge environmental
expense.
Rancher/CEO Peavey perhaps summed it up
best. “It’s crazy. But it’s in our blood.” Unfortunately, it’s also
in the public’s wallet, which really is crazy. Too bad Stuebner had
the wool pulled over his eyes. Instead of a poorly written pity
piece, how about some real information on these large corporations?
Then readers like me wouldn’t have to ask “Where’s the
beef?”
Charles
Pezeshki
Moscow, Idaho
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Sheep ranch sympathy misplaced.
Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license.
