Sheep Industry News March 2025

President’s Notes BEN LEHFELDT ASI PRESIDENT

Opportunities and Challenges T he sheep industry has been blessed and cursed by challenges through my time as a producer and no doubt from my grandfather and great grandfather’s stories, even longer than that. There is no doubt other agricultural industries have their challenges, but it just seems from our pickup seats that the volatility of our peaks and valleys seems to be much more pronounced in the sheep industry. Those challenges are hitting us directly in the face right now in the sheep industry. The H-2A labor system is hard to navigate with increasing inflationary pressures and regulated federal wage increases. Not only are the federal mandates an issue, but several states have instituted their own incremental increases on top of these wage rates. As a result, the labor costs are becoming unbearable for many sheep operations. Ironically, some of these operations being hit the hardest are helping their states with fire prevention through grazing. I believe that there are potential opportunities to deal with some of our challenges. The ASI Annual Convention in Scottsdale, Ariz., was a great success. We had more than 450 registrants and a great amount of information provided by our councils and committees. There were more than 90 first-time attendees, and it was interesting to observe the new directions some of our sheep producers are taking in agrivoltaics. We have used targeted grazing on our operation in Montana for the past 30 years to help with profitability and it is exciting to see how many different ways that sheep are being used across the country. ASI’s release of the new Targeted Grazing 101 book will be a great resource for those producers wanting to take hold of these new opportunities. The ASI Annual Convention also offered attendees the opportunity to listen to different ways to deal with our imported lamb concerns. We had multiple speakers about both the benefits and potential pitfalls of tariffs and quotas in our lamb meat supply. Thank you Paul Rosenthal for providing an in-depth analysis of both the import situation and the political climate. Being able to share the facts and answer questions from our membership was invaluable. We are continuing to build on these opportunities by restarting the ASI H-2A Working Group to help ensure we have a consistent message regarding our labor concerns. I have just appointed this group to work on some solutions and a message that can be delivered to our legislators. It is important that this message be ready for any opportunity that arises to help ensure the guest-worker program is viable for our producers. The group will be meeting via zoom a couple of times before the middle of March in preparation for our ASI Spring Trip to Washington, D.C.

Please consider being a part of our ASI producer fly-in. We are planning to be on Capitol Hill on March 25-26. ASI is planning an agency meeting the morning of March 25. Producers are encouraged to meet with their senators and representatives Tuesday afternoon and Wednesday of that week. I believe that this year it will be even more important than ever to participate in our legislative activities. Even if you are not attending the Spring Trip, make sure and be in contact with your legislator as issues related to the sheep industry arise. Lastly, I want to say thank you to the staff for making the ASI Annual Convention a success. It is not easy pulling several affiliated sheep organizations together. Peter, Rita, Larry, Zahrah, Erica, Chris, Parand, Kyle, Christa, Heather, Amy and Brenda work extremely hard to make these conventions a reality.

2025 ASI Executive Board

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