Some Nebraska ranchers feel forgotten as brand bill lowers feedlot fees, raises brand fees

Spike Jordan does not feel represented by the Nebraska Legislature.

“We’re kind of used to being disenfranchised,” Jordan said. “Just naturally by the fact that the legislative session occurs every spring, when we are busy calving."

The sixth-generation Sioux County rancher said this is a common feeling among the ranchers he knows. Many of them don’t have time to leave the ranch, drive across the state and testify on bills that impact them, like LB1187, which passed in this year’s legislative session.

Pitched as a necessary update to Nebraska’s brand law, it increased fee caps for brand inspection and lowered the fees for feedlots. Brand renewal fee caps increased from $200 to $400 and brand inspection fees from $1.10 per head of cattle to $1.50. Feedlots used to pay annual fees based on the total size of their herds. Now their fee is assessed from 25% of the cattle in the lot.

The agency that oversees brand inspections is the Nebraska Brand Committee, which also serves as law enforcement for beef producers across the state. But feedlots in the eastern portion of the state don't have to have brand inspections.

“It's always been meant to be a system that is not favoring any one producer over the other,” Jordan said. “What they have kind of done is they've created a two-tiered system to where certain producers, because their business model happens to be confined to confined feeding of these animals, now they get a break on this service fee.”

Sen. Barry DeKay, who sponsored the bill, said it was years in the making and he has heard feedback from ranchers across the state.

“There’s a lot of pressure being put on us in the last few years to save the integrity of the brand,” DeKay said. “The brand (committee) was probably going to be bankrupt by 2027 if we didn’t make any changes.”

DeKay added that ranchers who wanted to weigh in on the bill could have called his office or submitted an online comment.

Duane Gangwish, chair of the brand committee, said that’s exactly what ranchers did.

“We provided significant input,” he said.

Gangwish said the Brand Committee provided a comprehensive list of recommendations for funding the brand program to the Legislature’s Agriculture Committee and testified in hearings as far back as October.

“As far as I can tell, those were not taken into consideration,” Gangwish said.

DeKay said ranchers do pay more for the brand program now, but he said feedlots’ new fees reflect the cost of their portion of the program. Previously, feedlot fees brought in more revenue than was needed.

Eric Calkins, a rancher in the Sandhills, said he understands that the brand program needs more funding. But the bill was discussed and voted on while many ranchers were in the middle of calving season and while the region grappled with a historic wildfire and severe drought.

“When we were already in a catastrophic area and catastrophic time, why did they need to shove that through and kind of shove it down our throats when nobody's looking?” Calkins said.