Director Profile - Martin Unrau

by Karen Emilson

The sun is just coming up as I turn off Hwy. #1 at MacGregor. I have driven to the Unrau farm before, but came east from Carberry with my good friend, Claire De’Athe, along the back roads, so nothing looks familiar.

That was four years ago, oddly also on September 26th. I’d asked Claire, an MCPA Director at the time, to introduce me to a few progressive cattle producers in her area. I needed the grassroots’ perspective on our industry’s future for a book I was writing. She immediately suggested we go see the Unrau family. Her plan was to also try to convince Martin Unrau to run as the District 5 Director that October, since her six year term was coming to an end. She predicted that if he agreed, he’d probably end up the Association’s President—but asked me not to mention that part, for fear of scaring him off.

I push on the overhead light to double check the directions scratched down in my notebook to be sure I have it right. As I wind my way nine miles south, the realization strikes that it is going to be another beautiful, clear, sunny and warm fall day. Exactly the same as it was the first time I met Martin and his wife, Roxie. History was repeating itself, as it tends to do.

Martin meets me at the door of the recent addition to their house - a large entrance way that keeps the clutter of boots, coats, hats, mitts and cattle-related paraphernalia out of the kitchen. Roxie and I share a knowing look, and I tell her that our homes are laid out much the same—we’d added on an entrance as well—and she and I agree that both of us like having the mess out of sight.

“We didn’t want to get a loan so we are finishing it as we can afford it,” Martin said, adding that along with help from his large family, he is doing much of the work himself.

The tidy kitchen smells of pancakes and coffee; youngest daughter Miranda, 17, is finishing off breakfast and getting ready for school. Son Graeme, 18, is working for a home renovations company in Fort St. John, B.C. until Christmas time. Their oldest daughter, Melissa, is also living in Fort St. John with her husband Neil and they are expecting their first child in February.

Garett, 21, comes into the kitchen shortly after Miranda leaves and sits down to breakfast. Of their four children, he is the one most likely to continue raising cattle and is a tremendous help when Martin is away on MCPA business.
“Garett loves the farm,” Roxie smiles. “He always has. We thought about getting into the feedlot business with Martin’s brothers but we like the cows better. For us, this works best for our family.”

Family and hard work it seems, is what the Unrau family is all about.

Martin tells me that his ancestors were Dutch Mennonites who farmed the Odessa region in Russia. The ruler at the time, Catherine the Great, invited the Mennonites to settle the swampy area because of their reputation for hard work and success as farmers. Years later after successfully transforming the land, riots ensued and the Mennonites fled the region. Many came to Canada, including Martin’s great-great-grandfather, who migrated West.

The oldest of five children, Martin was born and raised just a few miles down the road where his parents John and Marge put down roots shortly after they were married. John had worked as a carpenter in Winnipeg but saw a future in farming. Land in these sandy hills was considered poor, but he bought a Section. Because of the good management practises he taught his sons, they now grow 19 ton corn.

“Dad knew how to milk cows so he got the dairy going and he was one of the first guys to ship milk to St. Claude when they opened the dairy plant,” Martin said. “He prospered here, which just goes to show the value farming and the livestock industry has had on this province and the rural landscape.”

He explained that when the dairy industry switched to supply management in the 1970s, everyone who milked cows was allotted a quota according to how much milk they had sold the previous year. His dad was milking approx. 75 cows, but as time went on, would have to buy quota if he wanted to expand the business to include his adult children and their families. In the end, he decided to sell out.

“None of us wanted to stick our necks out and buy the quota,” Martin said. “Saddled with all that debt because of a little piece of paper just didn’t make sense.”
About 10 years ago, John and Marge retired to MacGregor where he continues on as Pastor at their church.

Martin was only 20 years-old and Roxie, 19, when they married in 1983. They bought a trailer and farmed with his dad and brothers, continuing to milk cows for the next 10 years. In 1988 they bought the farm they now own.

Roxie grew up north of Gladstone, moving to the Mayfelt area when she was 13. Her dad owned five acres of land and worked out.
“I’d never been exposed to a farm until I married this guy,” she says. “It was a bit of an adjustment, especially those first few years.”
Martin smiles. “Her dad is very conservative and my family is just the opposite. We are risk takers who charge ahead and try anything.”

In their 25 years of marriage they’ve built up a good sized cow herd, bought and sold an 8,000 acre lease near Crane river, and recently sold the trucking business they ran for five years. Martin encouraged his younger brothers to start a feedlot and even considered joining the partnership, but at the last minute got cold feet.

“Cows are my thing,” he says. “I like calving season and working with cows.”

The feedlot, owned by Harold and Norm, has been running for 11 years now. Their close connection has given Martin a perspective on that other side of the industry that many cow-calf producers don’t have. Like a feedlot operator, he pays close daily attention to the futures market, the dollar, corn prices and cattle numbers in the U.S.

His personal philosophy is that between the age of 30 and 50, farmers have to get themselves established by way of hard work; and that is the time in a person’s life to try new things.

“When I was 22 I thought I was pretty smart and worked some years for free because of the stupid things I did,” he said. “But by the time a guy turns 30 he starts to focus and can work physically hard. When I was 30, I’d combine until 11:00 p.m., then do some baling, then get up in the morning and milk cows, but now I don’t have the energy to do all that. I’m still energetic and can get things done, but when it gets dark I want to go home. In the labour intensive cattle business, you’ve got to establish yourself when you’re young.”

Martin’s brother Harold knocks on the door and then comes into the kitchen. Roxie pours him a cup of coffee and the focus moves away from Martin to the feedlot down the road.

“The cow calf guys poke at the feedlot operator saying that they are stealing their calves, but it’s the cow calf guy who can’t figure this thing out,” Martin smiles, pointing at Harold. “These feedlot guys aren’t that smart. They work with a simple formula. They figure out what the fat animal will be worth, what it will cost to get them there and will turn around and give the rest of it to the cow-calf guy.”

Harold shrugs and starts explaining that is pretty much what he does. I can feel another story brewing and by the time Harold finishes his coffee and heads back to the feedlot, I have a better idea how the cow-calf man can become more of a price maker instead of a price taker.

“If we are going to survive and move our industry forward, we have to start understanding each other better,” Martin said. “Building business relationships and working in a mutually beneficial way will help everyone down the line.”
One relationship that needs improving is the one between the cow-calf man and the feedlot operator.

“We don’t take a chance with our vaccinating program anymore,” Martin says, finishing the conversation where Harold left off. “We are able to keep our abortions down to under 1% a year. When we first started out with 103 cows, we lost 32 calves to scours that first year and it was because we didn’t vaccinate. After a few more wrecks, we figured out we had BVD in the herd and it wasn’t getting cleaned up. Now we vaccinate regularly and while we still get a bit of scours, now it’s treatable.”

Martin and Roxie sit at one end of the large table, chairs casually close and their shoulders lean into one another. The morning sun is shining in the window behind and brightens Roxie’s face as she smiles and adds to Martin’s cheerful commentary. They have the comfortable ease of people who are glad to be married a long time and enjoy each other’s company.

Sunday is a day of rest for the Unraus and despite the demands of a large ranch, family and taking time to give thanks is their number one priority.
“Some years I’ve felt bad that I haven’t gone out to work, like I’m not contributing anything financially,” Roxie said. “But I realize that around here that’s futile. I add more by being here, especially with the kids at home. I’ve always been a mother first and that’s important to us.”

Martin pauses to think for a moment. “I know that my cow herd has suffered, especially these last two years, because I just haven’t had the time you know, being away so much.”

I assure him that most MCPA directors, and especially the President, say the same thing.

Garett, who has been quiet up until now interjects as he gets up from the table to go baling. “Hey, I feel like I’m being insulted over here!”

We all laugh. Martin says it’s the little details he doesn’t have time for right now, the “tricks of the trade” that a person who works with cows picks up over the years and does them after awhile without even thinking.

I have a pretty good idea how Martin became an MCPA director, but I ask him anyway.
“Claire and Doug De’Athe are friends of ours,” he said. “We almost never agree on anything but we’re still really good friends. I started going to the District meetings right around the time BSE hit. Claire asked if I’d consider being on the Board but I said no because I’m a lousy public speaker and I was shy. But when BSE didn’t go away, I naively thought I had the answers, so I let my name stand and was elected.”

Martin says he was pretty quiet at the first few board meetings he attended, but then started speaking to issues as he began to understand them. By his second year (before he fully understood the ramifications), he was elected onto the executive committee as Vice President.

“Betty Green said that didn’t necessarily mean I’d have to become president, so it came down to either me or Art (Jonasson) but neither one of us really had the time. Art said he couldn’t do it because his wife Jackie would kill him - and I couldn’t come up with a better excuse than that,” he laughed.

That January, Ken Crockatt moved into the Past President’s chair and handed over the reins. Now Martin is rounding out his second year as MCPA chairman, and if re-elected at his district meeting on the 16th, Martin will serve two more years as a director and then he’ll be done.

“I went on thinking about BSE and it has evolved into all these other issues that I didn’t know even existed. It’s been eye-opening and far bigger than I thought it was going to be. And now Art and Joe (Bouchard) are starting to tease me because I never used to say two words and now when I get going, it turns into a passionate 20 minute speech.”

And like most cattle producers, Martin has the reputation of speaking his mind. He has learned to do it in a more politically correct way, but says some issues just stink regardless of how much flowery language used to make a point.

“It’s not the cattlemen who drive our industry, it’s the government,” he explains. “It’s all about policy, the people in place, lack of money for agriculture and the fact that most of the time the bureaucracy concentrates on the wrong areas. For instance, the livestock industries are not the problem with Lake Winnipeg and I’ve said this in meetings with Conservation and Water Stewardship. My fear is that 20 years from now all these regulations will be in place crippling the livestock sector and the lake will be in worse shape than it is now.

“They assume we don’t care about the lake, but I care, as much as they do, maybe more. What is the difference between now and 200 years ago? The cities. The pavement, products, pollution and people. For centuries there were 63 million buffalo in the northern plains in Canada and the U.S., and they all crapped in the lakes and rivers. The difference now is the amount of people creating human waste and—I’m not pointing a finger at just agriculture—but the overuse of chemical fertilizer on cropland, golf courses and lawns as well. When the weather doesn’t cooperate, that fertilizer ends up in the sewer systems, streams and rivers. Unfortunately, people are quick to blame the livestock sector because we are an easy target.

“And the problem becomes when people talk about it long enough, it becomes fact in their minds. I think livestock has become the popular target. Nobody wants to talk about the fact that raw human waste from Winnipeg is being dumped on fields north of the city all winter long. People won’t talk about it because, first, most people don’t realize it’s happening; and secondly, because it’s disgusting.
“And governments are more worried about cattle manure?”

With the changes he sees coming, Martin believes there may be a real opportunity for Manitoba to become a major backgrounding province. Considering our comparatively inexpensive land base and quantity of grazing land, this may well be the province to run cows in the future. Given where we are situated on the map, and the fact more and more feedlot operators don’t want wet-nosed calves, backgrounding them for a few months before shipping them for finishing either east, west or south, seems like a logical value-added solution. But that won’t happen if the government continues on the current negative trend toward the livestock industry. And if the livestock industry is not enhanced, or at the very least maintained, rural economies will suffer.

“The department of Agriculture seems to understand this,” he says. “It is the other branches of government that focus on the urban voter who don’t realize that a vibrant rural economy also makes for a strong city of Winnipeg.”

He says that dealing with government causes most of the Board’s frustration. “We can’t always get done what we want, as fast as it needs to be done.”

Martin says that he has attended enough meetings now that he can tell who in government is trying to do the right thing and he respects them for it. He also can see who is pushing forward an agenda, who is working for purely self interest and who the scapegoats are - the people who shoulder the blame when an unpopular decision is made.

“And this is where it gets tricky,” he explains. “As an association we have both a responsibility and a desire to report to our membership, but there are rules when dealing with government that we have to follow. Discussions are confidential. If we break that trust, they won’t deal with us anymore and no one will benefit from that.”
Martin wants everyone to know that the directors sitting around the board table are no different than the people they represent. They face the same production and marketing challenges and are highly invested in the cattle industry. The board is sometimes criticized for “not doing enough” but some results are hard to achieve.

“If it was just a matter of going in, drawing a line in the sand and getting what we want, we’d do it,” he said.

“When I first started on the Board, all I wanted was for things to go back to the way they used to be, but now I realize that is never going to happen. Everything has evolved so much these last five years, it’s impossible. Now I say, let’s work with what we have and try to improve upon that.”

The one thing he does hope to see is a return to financial independence. Prior to BSE, cattle producers didn’t receive government subsidies and now, still dealing with the fallout and other complicating factors, many can’t survive without them.
“Others say it’s like we’ve turned into a bunch of crack babies. Now we’re dependent.”
Yes, maybe that’s true. But it’s not the crack baby’s fault.

One cure that Martin thought was coming this fall was a return to higher prices. All summer long he was predicting calf prices would be around $1.30 for good quality 500 weight steer calves. Prices were hovering around the $1.20 mark in September and climbing.

“Everything was moving well until the last month, when volatility in the U.S., and the threatened collapse of Wall Street caused the value of commodities to drop,” he said, admitting that this is one issue that has him worried. “A lot of calves are bought up by investors and they have them custom fed. The whole north American economy has turned into investors. And now with the banks pulling back and not extending as much credit, it’s hard to say what is going to happen.”

He said that with the better cull cow prices, if producers can get the same price on calves as last year, they should stay in survival mode, and not lose too much ground.
And it is a matter of opinion whether the financial help given the beef industry these past five years was enough or not. Most producers will say that the government money they received was far below their accrued losses. This has created rumblings, especially this past year, that supply management might be the way to go.

“There is this illusion that those industries are more efficient and not subsidized, and while they don’t receive financial bailouts, consumers pay a lot more for some of those products every day at the grocery store.”

Martin is itching to get outside and show me the cows. We climb in the truck and they take me to the pasture where some of their early-calving, Simmental-Angus crossbred cows are grazing. The land is rolling and sandy, and it’s obvious by how good the cows look that the grass has been plentiful this year. They had rain at just the right time and the grasshoppers weren’t too bad.

Martin and Roxie are both smiling as we get out of the truck and walk through the cows that stand calmly watching us. “It’s a shame to see the heifers go to the feedlot,” he said, pointing out a few beautiful young animals that would make excellent replacements.

Before BSE they sold a healthy percentage of their open heifers at a premium. Now, like most cow-calf producers, they feel like they are giving them away.

I wonder out loud when the high price years will come and how long it will be before we’re back in a low price selling market again. Will we earn enough between now and then to gain back some of the losses we’ve seen? As usual, Martin’s reply is optimistic.

“We’ve had an artificial low which will put an artificial high in place so we’re not going to have three good years, we’re going to have seven,” he said. “If McCain gets in, the Ethanol subsidies are done. Grain prices will drop, inputs will drop, that’s automatic. There will be one or two years of enormous profits for investors in the cattle industry. Between now and the time the price of cattle should start to go down again, it is predicted there will be approximately 800 million more people in the world who need to eat - but less food to feed them. When this thing takes off, we’ll see a snowball affect.

“As soon as the price starts to rise, guys will hold back more heifers which will also prolong the cycle,” he said. “All the signals point toward a prolonged high. Don’t let anyone tell you the cattle cycle is dead because it isn’t. It will just be prolonged or shortened depending on the signals.”

As a writer with years of experience and thousands of interviews behind me, there are certain people and moments in time that stand out in my memory. And last September, as I sat across the table from Martin in the MCPA board room, wanting to take on the task of producing Cattle Country again, I didn’t know if he remembered me, but I certainly remembered him.

He’d told me near the end of that interview in 2004 an anecdote that stayed with me, and it is one that I’ve repeated to others, when trying to articulate the champion-like quality that many cattle producers possess. Here it is, copied from my notes taken the first time I met Martin:

“There are times that I’m bone tired near the end of calving season and it’s storming outside, and it would be so easy to just stay in bed. But I force myself to get up and go out to check the cows again. And there are times that I’ve gone out in the morning to feed and halfway through, I’ll fall asleep while driving the tractor. So I’ll stop, take a little nap and then wake up and keep feeding the cows.

In order for a person to be successful he needs to maintain a strong mental state and instead of giving up, keep going. I think learning to control our thoughts is the key to success. Negativity wears that ability down and finds a person reasons to quit.
I don’t give in to negativity.
I find reasons not to quit.”

- Karen Emilson writes from her home at Vogar, along the shores of Lake Manitoba.