Keeping Cattlemen Independent: Goggins, Perrier on Securing the Future

We have to keep independent farmers and ranchers in business. We need ag youth to come back our rural communities. How high do cattle prices have to go to accomplish this? Joe Goggins, Vermilon Ranch, and Matt Perrier, Dalebanks Angus, discuss what it was like to scrape by through the 1980s, share the changes they have seen in more recent decades and predict the fate of the cattle industry in the future. This episode is straight from Angus Convention and continues a popular conversation that was first started on the main stage. GUESTS:Joe Goggins, with his wife, Linda, and three children, are long-time ranchers from Billings, Mont. Joe and the Goggins family are owners of the Vermilion Ranch, where they have raised registered Angus Cattle since 1964. Annually, the Goggins family breeds 2,200 Angus cows and heifers and markets approximately 1,000 bulls each year. The Vermilion Ranch, along with Joe’s own operation, J&L Livestock, develops and breeds 10,000 of the top-performing Angus heifers in the industry. Each year, they offer a large selection of commercial and registered Angus females in their spring and fall sales.  Following in the footsteps of his father, Pat Goggins, Joe has auctioneered many top purebred sales around America and remains directly involved in the family’s livestock auction markets: Northern Livestock Video Auction, Public Auction Yards, Billings Livestock Commission in Billings, and Western Livestock Auction in Great Falls, Montana.  Matt Perrier is part-owner and manager of Dalebanks Angus. He and his wife, Amy, have five children and reside near Eureka, Kan. Matt graduated from Kansas State University in 1996 and worked for eight years in various marketing and public relations positions within the beef community, including the American Angus Association from 1997 till 2004. They returned to Eureka in 2004. Dalebanks was settled by Matt’s ancestors in 1867, and they have raised registered Angus since 1904. They market roughly 200 bulls annually, plus raise corn, wheat, soybeans and cover-crops for livestock feed and grazing. Matt also produces a weekly podcast, Practically Ranching. Matt is a past president of the Beef Improvement Federation and Kansas Livestock Association.  Related Reading:  Competing with Quality: http://www.angusjournal.com/ArticlePDF/CAB%20Goggins%2010_13.pdf They Run Deep: https://www.angusjournal.com/ArticlePDF/1020-CAB-SCE-Dalebanks.pdf The Unbreakable Chain: http://www.angusjournal.com/articlepdf/0822-blockchain.pdf Don't miss news in the Angus breed. Visit www.AngusJournal.net and subscribe to the AJ Daily e-newsletter and our monthly magazine, the Angus Journal.