April 2022 - 29

AG LABOR REVIEW
Courage during difficult times often contagious
MICHAEL MARSH
President & CEO
National Council of
Agricultural Employers
Michael@ncaeonline.org
I read something this morning that
seems particularly poignant given
the volatility and turmoil occurring
around the globe. Because the quote
says so much, in so few words, it
made me think about the shared
values of people who had the good
fortune to live, or to have been raised,
in farm and ranch country.
" Anyone can be - or do - good
when it's easy. Real character is carved
in terrible or tumultuous times. "
This quote obviously spoke to me
and reminded me of the unabashed
courage so often reflected in the
everyday goings on in rural America.
In 2006, I was working with dairy
farmers in California. That July, we
had planned for one of our regular
fly-ins to Washington, D.C., to meet
with our members of Congress.
It was hot over the weekend, and
the forecast was for more heat the
following week. We had heard from
some of our members that they were
getting anxious over how to keep
their cattle cool in the heat that
was withering.
Humans have a body temperature
of 98.6˚ F. Dairy cows have a body
temperature of around 101.5˚ F.
However, unlike you or me, cattle
do not perspire so their bodies can
cool down.
As we headed north to Sacramento
to catch our early Monday morning
flight back east, it was hot! It was
already 104˚ F at 6 a.m. That's when
my phone started ringing.
I received calls from our field staff.
First a call from one. Then a call from
another. Followed by a call from a
third member of our team. All were
raising concerns over what they were
hearing from our members regarding
the heat the Central Valley was
experiencing. All were alarmed.
Our team had been receiving reports
that our members were not having
much luck getting their cattle to cool
down. Temperatures from Friday and
through the weekend were over 110˚
F during the day and never falling
below 100˚ F at night. PG&E was
calling it a " heat storm " and were
cautioning about the possibility of
rolling blackouts. The possibility of
blackouts was not what was stressing
our members.
When cattle are unable to cool
themselves, their behavior changes.
They will drink some water. But the
reports we were getting was that the
cattle had stopped eating. The cattle
were doing what they could to cool
themselves down but the effort it took
for them to eat was only making their
predicament more dire.
Our plane took off and left the
toasty, hazy, Central Valley behind.
When we changed planes in Denver a
couple of hours later, I checked in with
our team. Staff informed me they were
now getting reports of cattle dying in
the free stalls. And, to top off that bad
news, the rendering company had a
fire and was forced to shut down.
In my mind's eye, I now had the
graphic vision of cattle perishing
and their quickly bloating carcasses
waiting in the heat, for the rendering
plant truck that now would not arrive.
When we got to the hotel in
Washington, D.C., I checked in again.
My team let me know that temperatures
were over 114˚ F in some places with
115˚ F forecast the next day and 113˚ F
the day after that. They also told me that
nighttime temperatures were not expected
to drop below 100˚ F until Thursday at
the earliest.
I started calling some of my
members to check in with them, and
that's when I heard their stories of
what they were doing to keep their
cattle alive. And their stories are what
made me think of that part of the quote
I shared earlier - " Real character is
carved in terrible and tumultuous
times. "
My dairy families were doing
everything they could to cool their
cattle down and save them. At night,
all night, Dad and Mom and all the
children were jumping in to spray cool
water on their livestock. Grandma
and Grandpa showed up, too. And,
when the families were bone-tired and
worn out, suffering heat exhaustion
themselves, the neighbors drove over
and pitched in because they had seen
the lights on.
Sadly, we lost about 20,000 cattle
that week. However, a lot of that real,
rural America character was carved
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FGN | APRIL 2022 | 29
that week as well. And, if you work
with farm and ranch families as I do,
you realize that kind of character is
commonplace.
There are solid life lessons we
can learn in the face of significant
challenges, and we see much of
that in the middle of the tumult we
are witnessing today. In adversity,
we dig deep into places we did not
know existed to find a better, more
courageous version of ourselves.
And interestingly, courage can be
contagious. FGN
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April 2022

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of April 2022
