Issues of concern to people who live in the west: property rights, water rights, endangered species, livestock grazing, energy production, wilderness and western agriculture. Plus a few items on western history, western literature and the sport of rodeo... Frank DuBois served as the NM Secretary of Agriculture from 1988 to 2003. DuBois is a former legislative assistant to a U.S. Senator, a Deputy Assistant Secretary of Interior, and is the founder of the DuBois Rodeo Scholarship.
Thursday, December 08, 2011
Drought, low production mean hard times for Eddy County farmers and ranchers
For some Eddy County farmers, 2011 has been an extension of the hard times in 2010. Prolonged drought, small water allotments, low alfalfa production and a drop in cotton prices this week have been tough things for local agriculture industry to deal with, said Woods Houghton, County Extension Service agriculture agent. Ranchers have not fared any better. They have had to cull their herds because of the lack of forage due to the drought, and the price of hay has gone sky-high because of its scarcity in the county. On top of that, he said ranchers have reported a loss of about $1 million in dead cattle, killed accidently as a result of the high activity in the oil and gas fields in the county. For Houghton, in his role as county agriculture agent, 2011 has been an extremely difficult year - one of the hardest he has endured in his 32 years in the profession, he said...more
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