Chickens Made Cattle Farming in N.W. Ark. Possible

Harold Sargent, co-owner of the Farmers Livestock Auction in Springdale, said the quest for residential and commercial development in Northwest Arkansas is threatening the area’s strong beef cattle industry.

Sargent, a cattleman himself, said the amount off fertile farmland is shrinking and that some of the remaining land is being threatened because many people don’t like how it gets to be so fertile in the first place.

The foothills of the Ozark Mountains were hardly ideal for cattle farming until the chicken industry established itself as a strong industry here in the late 1940s. The layers of flint in the region made it tough to have much quality grazing land. But the chicken litter, a natural fertilizer, had to be put somewhere, and the fescue grew like never before.

Chickens are “the only reason cattle are here at all,” said Sargent, who has been in the cattle business all his life. “With chicken litter, you can grow grass out on the pavement. You should have seen this country before we had chicken litter. It was pretty barren.”

But some Northwest Arkansas residents, particularly those relatively new to the area, are not as excited about the litter being spread within a sniff of their homes. And now agencies such as the Environmental Protection Agency are preposing regulations where chicken litter can be placed. The EPA’s Confined Animal Feeding Operation (CAFO) ordinance is limiting some farmers.

Although the poultry and cattle businesses are in direct competition, Sargent said, there would be little cattle business in the area if the chicken farms weren’t around.

And the cost of real estate in the area has made it virtually impossible for farmers to rely solely on cattle.

“I’m not sure you could make a living around here if someone gave you the land and the cattle because of the taxes on the land and the price of the equipment,” Sargent said. “Let’s say you have 150 cows, and they average bringing you $450 each. Well, that’s [$67,000], but you’ve got to have $50,000 for a tractor, about $5,000 for a rake, $15,000 for a bailer, and about $25,000 for a truck. It doesn’t add up, does it?”

Sargent said many cattle farmers were moving to cheaper land in Oklahoma.