Posted: Mon, 17 Oct 2011 02:44 PM - 9,162 Readers

By: Patrick Beach

The land that Don Casey raises cattle on in Blanco County has been in his family since Sam Houston gave a land grant to a Texas soldier after the Battle of San Jacinto, a piece of paper that eventually found its way to Casey's great-great-great-grandfather and set the family toward the port of Galveston from Germany.

A few of his cattle have bloodlines that can be traced back to the longhorns that originally grazed there.

Drought has put that legacy in jeopardy.

Casey recorded a couple of inches of desperately needed rain two weekends ago. In the previous 12 months, he'd measured a total of 1.6 inches.

"And it came slow," said Casey, the president of the county Farm Bureau. "It was perfect. Lots and lots soaked in."



Nonetheless, Casey doesn't yet know how much of his pasture grass is dead. His live oaks and other trees are in peril. Even the prickly pear, he says, have leaves that are paper-thin. He's sold off a portion of his herd and now figures each head of cattle will require 60 acres of pasture, as much as triple the usual 20 or 25 in his part of the world.

But the land will support virtually no cattle without supplemental feed. The price of feeder corn has tripled to about $400 a ton. Round bales of hay used to be $30; now they're $170. Casey said he's supplementing the diet of his cows with cotton by-products, feeding them so-called gin trash — the bits of leaf, burr and seed left after the plants have been through the cotton gin. He says he got a good deal on it.

"I've never done it before," Casey said, "but these are desperate times."

Agricultural losses attributed to the drought have reached a record $5.2 billion, according to a report prepared by Texas A&M System's AgriLife Extension Service. Livestock losses alone are $2.06 billion. After factoring in losses for elevators, processing plants and other businesses that serve farmers and ranchers, the total economic impact hits $8.7 billion.

A U.S. Department of Agriculture report this month rates 96 percent of Texas pastureland in poor or very poor condition.

It's not likely to get better any time soon, observers say. It's going to take years. If ever. And there's no telling how many of the state's 149,000 beef producers will decide they've had enough.

"It's just fighting depression," said Casey. "For the first time in my life, it wasn't fun to go out and feed the cows. And then every week I took a load of cattle to Fredericksburg, just a few at a time."

Even native grass species are no match for the current drought. Little bluestem can grow to knee-high if it's not overgrazed, with roots snaking into the dry, rocky soil as deep as 8 feet. But Casey fears his pastures are dead.

"You want to emulate the buffalo herds — move (cattle) in, move them on to another pasture," Casey said. "It takes years to restore those native grasses."

From a ridge on his land where both Dripping Springs and Johnson City are faintly visible, Casey picked at weeds that sprouted after the rains and viewed dead cedars in the distance.

"There's a thousand other guys just like me," Casey said.

Gene Hall, public relations director for the Texas Farm Bureau, said Casey is sadly right.

Earlier this month, storms brought 2 to 3 inches of rain to much of the state, Hall said. "In terms of replenishing pastures, it may help some, but it's past the prime growing season for grass, so I don't think the pastures will come back now."

The moisture in the soil may help farmers banking on winter wheat, which can be planted into January. But Hall said the rain is "too little, too late as far as the rest of this year's crops."

"This rain gives everybody a little hope," said Jeff Ammons, a Farm Bureau field representative who oversees seven Central Texas counties, including Travis. "It's good, but whatever happens from here going forward, a lot of our state is going to look different."

Even small farms that cater primarily to city eateries are braced for a long recovery. For the first time in 21 years, Boggy Creek Farm in Austin did not sell any of its produce to Whole Foods, choosing to take care of its direct customers first. Co-owner Carol Ann Sayle estimates that the farm's crop is down one-third from a typical year's yield. It lost okra, cherry tomatoes and even heat-tolerant Asian long beans.

"It's hot there, but at least they have rain," Sayle said of the plant's native clime. "And they basically fried here."

The heat has even changed the soil at the farm from medium-texture clay to sandy loam, according to tests Sayle regularly conducts.

"We're pulling out of our savings to pay our expenses and our people," Sayle said. "This is the worst year we've had in 21 years of farming. But we can't close. Ever. There's not a choice of giving up."

Casey shares that mingling of weariness and resolve. Pushing 70, there's a chance that his land might not come back in his lifetime. And he's sure the drought will have long and widespread impact.

The auction barn in Fredericksburg had a sale recently that lasted for more than 21 hours, from noon until 9:30 the next morning, Casey said, and cleared out 4,200 head of cattle. Some of them were heading north, where their fur will grow longer in time for winter.

But, he said, the boom for processors and the 100 auction houses in the nation's top cattle-producing state will be followed by an inevitable bust for an inescapable reason:

"There's basically no food whatsoever," he said. "Ranching is basically managing grass. How much long-term damage has been done to the land itself?"

Texas had 5.14 million beef cows on Jan. 1. AgriLife Extension estimates the inventory on Jan. 1, 2012, will be 4.4 million, the smallest since 1961. Casey says he doesn't know any rancher who hasn't cut herd by at least half.

The heat has had effects throughout the ecosystem. Deer — another cash crop of sorts in the Hill Country — will feast on weeds that sprouted after the recent rains, but even they have been affected.

"A lot of does abandoned their fawns so they could survive," Casey said. "We've found a lot of dead fawns. The ones that raised the fawns, their ribs are showing. They might not make it through the winter."

*  Story Contributed by: Patrick Beach