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California
Red Bluff Bull Sale prices down
amid slow recovery from drought
By TIM HEARDEN
Capital Press
RED BLUFF, Calif. —
The bull auction here on Jan.
28 fell significantly below last
year’s receipts but still man-
aged to crack the $1 million
mark in total sales for the sev-
enth straight year.
In all, the 288 bulls that
went through the Don Smith
Pavilion at the 76th annual
Red Bluff Bull and Gelding
Sale brought in $1.1 million
— an average of $3,822.40
per bull.
That fell short of the near-
ly $1.49 million that bidders
shelled out for 305 bulls last
year, when winning bids aver-
aged $4,816.
Consigners interviewed
before the sale began had
hoped that the winter’s rains
would boost prices as ranches
began to consider rebuilding
their herds after a four-year
drought, but they knew the re-
covery — if there is to be one
— is still early.
“It’s down a little,” Randy
Beeman of Cardy Ranches
Tim Hearden/Capital Press
Jamie Mickelson cleans up a bull consigned by Santa Rosa, Calif.-based Sonoma Mountain Herefords
at the Red Bluff Bull and Gelding Sale. The bull auction Jan. 28 capped five days of activities at the
Red Bluff, Calif., fairgrounds.
in Turlock, Calif., said of the
cattle market. “Hopefully it’ll
be a decent average.”
Wayde Henderson of
Sonoma Mountain Herefords
in Santa Rosa, Calif., went in
with higher hopes. The ranch
had six bulls in the sale.
“It’s coming back,” he said
of the market. “We’re doing
better since the drought is not
February 3, 2017
as bad as it was a couple of
years ago.”
The top-priced bull was
a Hereford presented by Y
Cross Herefords in Bonanza,
Ore., which sold for $10,500
to BK Ranches in Montague,
Calif. Cardey Ranches had
the runner-up bull in terms of
price, selling a Charolais to
Gary Silva of Herald, Calif.,
for $8,500.
This was the bull auction’s
second straight decline in to-
tal receipts after the 2015 sale
netted a record $1.56 million
for 238 bulls.
The bull sale was the last
of four livestock auctions held
last week in Red Bluff. The
bidding began with the ninth
annual online feeder and re-
placement heifer sale on Jan.
26, where about 75 lots were
sold.
Lot prices in the Western
Video Market-hosted sale
topped out at $143 per hun-
dredweight for weaned heifers
and $173 per hundredweight
for weaned steers, down dra-
matically from last year’s
$234 and $252, respectively.
The 2015 sale topped out at
$287 and $299, respectively.
The 69 geldings auctioned
off on Jan. 27 generated
$682,750, down only slightly
from the $755,250 brought
in last year for 104 horses.
This year’s average sale price
of $9,895 fell just below last
year’s $10,070 per horse.
The high-selling horse
in 2017 was bought for
$39,000 by Peter Baldwin
of Makawao, Hawaii, and
four other geldings sold for
$20,000 or above.
The Jan. 27 sale of 14
cattle dogs fetched a total of
$85,750, an average of $6,125
per dog. The top dog sold for
$20,000 to El Rancho de Ca-
sey in Jarrell, Texas.
5-7/#4N
Citrus
industry
encouraged
by stay in
Argentine
lemon rule
By TIM HEARDEN
Capital Press
Citrus industry leaders in
California plan to use a routine
60-day stay on pending fed-
eral regulations to persuade
President Donald Trump’s
administration
to think twice
about allow-
ing Argentine
lemons back
into the United
States.
California Joel Nelsen
Citrus
Mu-
tual officials were to meet
in Washington, D.C., with
USDA Animal and Plant
Health Inspection Service
administrator Kevin Shea
and members of Congress to
voice concerns about the lem-
ons’ potential impacts on the
Golden State’s citrus industry.
The meetings Jan. 30-
Feb. 3 follow a letter that
Citrus Mutual president Joel
Nelsen sent to Vice President
Mike Pence and members of
Trump’s transition team ask-
ing for a delay in the lemon
rule, which President Barack
Obama’s administration final-
ized in December.
California and Arizona cit-
rus growers had chafed over
the decision to allow lemons
from Argentina that meet cer-
tain conditions after a 15-year
ban because of disease and
pest concerns.
“We’re not going to stop
Argentine lemons from com-
ing in,” Nelsen said.
However, industry leaders
hope the talks lead to stricter
controls or even a new public
comment period, he said.
“We’re obligated now ... to
express to the new administra-
tion why this has to go back to
the drawing board,” he said.
The USDA won’t speculate
on what the next steps will be,
an agency spokesman told the
Capital Press on Jan. 25.
Allowing Argentine lemons
to return would be a lengthy
process that would involve
several layers of verification,
according to USDA.
APHIS and Argentina’s
National Plant Protection Or-
ganization, known by the ini-
tials SENASA for its name
in Spanish, were to finalize a
work plan that details the con-
ditions Argentina must meet
for every U.S.-bound ship-
ment, she said.
The two agencies also
agreed to verify six months
of fruit fly data, and APHIS
was to also verify that packing
houses met safeguarding re-
quirements, she said.
However, the USDA an-
nounced Jan. 22 that the lem-
on rule would be included
in Trump’s 60-day stay on
pending regulations, a move
that new presidents frequently
make to review the last-minute
rules imposed by the previous
administration.
“I think there’s an oppor-
tunity for us to explain to the
new administration how and
why the proposal as it’s writ-
ten creates vulnerabilities for
the California citrus industry,”
Nelsen said.
Citrus Mutual and the U.S.
Citrus Science Council argue
the risk is unacceptable con-
sidering that the California cit-
rus industry is already fighting
the Asian citrus psyllid and the
deadly tree disease huanglong-
bing.
Further, Nelsen said a new
public comment period should
have been allowed because
language in the final rule ac-
knowledged for the first time
there could be economic con-
sequences for California pack-
ing houses.
The volume of lemons
grown in California and Arizo-
na is 497,350 metric tons an-
nually valued at $647 million,
according to USDA. Lem-
ons from Mexico and Chile
currently dominate the U.S.
import market, shipping an
average of 46,376 metric tons
annually, the agency reports.