LMD Dec 2012

Livestock “The greatest homage we can pay to truth is to use it.”

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Digest D Volume 54 • No. 13

Following Sheep

by Lee Pitts

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Never Another Poor Day

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For years I’ve been comparing the concentration of the cattle industry to what happened with pork and poultry, as they lost 90 percent of their producers and the remainder signed up with Tyson and Smithfield to become contract producers. I hate to admit this but I may have been wrong. No, I wasn’t wrong about the eventual outcome, just about the species. Now it looks like we’ll more likely follow the sheep to slaughter.

Mind you, the results will still be the same, it’s just that now we may look more like the sheep business in how we go about going out of business. Former head of the Packers & Stock-

by LEE PITTS

Skunked

DECEMBER 15, 2012 • www. aaalivestock . com

his Thanksgiving at a cattleman’s house we feasted on lamb, instead of the traditional turkey. Our hosts got up at four in the morning to place the lamb in a mud oven, made from adobe, straw and manure. (At least the latter came from cattle, even if the main entre didn’t.) Everyone raved about the meat and a common question was heard around the dinner table: “Why don’t we ever eat lamb?”

I just hope 20 years from now they aren’t saying the same thing about beef.

Riding Herd

“The worse a person rides the more likely he is to blame it on the horse.” yards Division, Dudley Butler, says, “The same vertical integration that has allowed corporations to dominate the poultry and pork industries will happen in the cattle industry if it isn’t stopped.”

The most common reason given as to why the beef industry will not go the way of pork and poultry is that the beef industry requires huge amounts of land,

whereas a hog or broiler only requires the amount of land it needs to turn around in. In this regard it’s obvious that we are more like sheep who also require vast acreages. But as Dudley Butler says, “They don’t have to own the land; they own the farmer.”

There are the other similarities we have with the sheep folks.

Predators had a lot to do with

the sheep business being reduced to almost an afterthought, but this problem was manageable, in most cases, with cattle. Until, that is, the government started sponsoring marauding wolf packs. If you don’t think the wolves present a clear danger of thinning out rancher’s ranks go back and read our feature story from two months ago when Washington rancher Len McIrvin reported that wolves killed 20 percent of his calves in one allotment.

The national sheep herd also shriveled because sheep ranchers were kicked off their grazing allotments with both the BLM and the Forest Service. The same thing is happening to cattlemen and if they can’t kick you off, the government, with its’ “Lock it up and let it burn” style of management, will burn you out of business. Add to all this the fact that more land that was previously continued on page two

Is Big Green’s carbon tax a snake in the ‘fiscal cliff’s’ grass?

by RON ARNOLD, The Washington Examiner

resident Obama — or should I say, @BarackObama — tweeted recently for Americans to pressure Congress into keeping the $2,000 middle-class tax cuts in the face of the approaching “fiscal cliff”: “Call your members of Congress. Write them an email. Tweet it using the hashtag #My2K.” House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio (@SpeakerBoehner) tweeted back: “FYI @WhiteHouse: House GOP voted to stop #my2k tax rate hikes & defend #smallbiz jobs. What spending will Dems cut to stop #fiscalcliff?”

Beyond this hashtagged and refined Twitter trash talk, as the 112th Congress mud-wrestles over the Budget Control Act of 2011 and the fiscal cliff, influential blogs are posting headlines such as “Return of the carbon tax?” and “Carbon tax could be part of eventual tax reform package.”

How is the carbon tax, a nonstarter among congressional Republicans and Democrats alike, slithering out of the budget weeds again? And why, even after the White House downplayed the idea earlier this month, are perfectly sane

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commentators predicting that “some form of a carbon tax may be the budget and climate policy tool most ready for implementation as Congress begins fiscal cliff negotiations”?

I asked Marlo Lewis, public policy expert at the Competitive Enterprise Institute. He replied bluntly, “The Dumb Party has been known to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, and carbon tax advocates are nothing if not tenacious.” When he said “the Dumb Party,” he wasn’t talking about dumb Democrats.

“Carbon tax proponents hope they can sugarcoat the tax for conservatives, or at least enough conservatives,” said Lewis. Then, paraphrasing the Heritage Foundation’s David Kreutzer: “This proposed confection has two ingredients.

First, the carbon tax is to be a revenue-neutral swap for some even more harmful tax. Second, a carbon tax would obviate the need for regulation of carbon dioxide and for subsidies to lowcarbon energy.”

“Wait a minute,” I objected. “ ‘Revenue-neutral’ is supposed to mean that each dollar raised

ue to their fondness for asphalt, deer cause more human deaths annually than any other creature and over the course of a 40-year career on the road I was proud to say that I never filled my deer tag by hitting one on the highway. I may have accidentally flattened my share of snakes and squirrels (who hasn’t?), but I’d never run over anything bigger than a rabbit. I’ve driven the wild country from the badlands to the Big Bend country, from the Everglades to the Okanogan without ever hitting an armadillo, reindeer, cat, yak, Hereford, PETA member, wild hog or domestic dog. Although I must admit I was tempted by the cat and the PETA member.

I’m proud to say I’d never dented my bumper on anything. Notice I used the past tense. In the last six months I’ve done $8,000 of damage to my car by hitting a pudgy and pungent polecat, and a deer with Boone and Crockett numbers.

Both accidents were at night and both happened not far from my house, proving once again that most accidents really do happen within 25 miles of home. Even if I could have recovered the bodies for a proper burial they would have had to have been closed casket funerals because their bodies were so disfigured. May they rest in pieces.

The deer and skunk paid the ultimate price for their jaywalking and my one-man killing-machine escapades are not something I feel good about. In the case of the poor deer, which I got a real good look at because his face hit my windshield 18 inches from my own, he truly did have that “deer in the headlights look.” His face still haunts my dreams and I have flashbacks when I drive by the accident scene. I may need therapy.

My Buick Lucerne, which I love dearly, almost had to be totaled and was only saved at the last minute because some key continued on page six

continued on page five

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Livestock Market Digest

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December 15, 2012

Following Sheep used for grazing cloven hoof animals is now being converted to crops, and other rangeland is mistakenly being taken out of production in the name of conservation and environmentalism.

Let’s just hope we have a little more time to enjoy this good market before the roof caves in, but that’s what the sheepherders were thinking a year ago when lambs were bringing over two dollars per pound! My friends in the sheep business were buying new pickups and thought “they’d never see another poor day.”

Fast forward to the present when lambs have lost nearly 60 percent of their value in just one year thanks to the loss of competition in the lamb market and the evergaping negative spread between what sheep producers get for their lambs, and what the consumer pays.

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We aren’t the only ones who see a direct comparison between sheep and cattle. R-CALF USA has long believed that the sheep industry, like the cattle industry, is being decimated by: “1) unrestrained imports; 2) the packers unrestrained exercise of abusive market power including captive supply-facilitated price manipulation; and, 3) the amplified affect of the packers combined use of unrestrained imports, that function as their captive supplies, to further leverage their abusive buying practices to effectively force domestic sheep prices well below levels that a competitive market would predict. It appears,” says R-CALF, “that packer ownership of an excessive number of feeder lambs resulted in a market manipulation because privately owned feeder lambs were unable to be marketed and delivered to packing plants because the packers were killing only the lambs they owned and had contracted to be fed out.”

Sound familiar? Anyone who has ever fed cattle and then couldn’t get them killed in a timely manner is familiar with captive supplies. But what is RCALF, a cattleman’s organization, worried about the competition for? After all, they aren’t called R SHEEP. After their captive supply arguments fell on deaf ears for years in Washington, D.C., RCALF decided to dumb-it-down to make it easier for the bumbling bureaucrats to understand. Since the folks at the USDA and Justice Department don’t seem to be able to recognize antitrust activities in the cattle industry such as sweetheart deals, manipulating fed cattle prices, and refusing to buy from independent feedlots or buying with discounts, R-CALF hopes it might be easier for the dense bureaucrats in DC to understand it if they studied a much smaller sample, such as the sheep industry, where the same activities have just about put sheepherders out of business.

“Given the similarities between the U.S. sheep industry and U.S.

continued from page one

cattle industry,” says R-CALF, “we believe a thorough, probing investigation into the U.S. sheep market will more readily reveal the extent to which the meatpackers have engaged in antitrust activities and other unlawful anticompetitive practices to exploit both producers and consumers.

An investigation into the sheep market should provide valuable insights into the antitrust and unlawful anticompetitive practices also occurring in the U.S. cattle market.”

Killing The Golden Cow Declining consumption is another area where beef and lamb share similarities. In 2010 we ate 59.7 pounds of beef per person, which broke the old low of 59.8 pounds set in 1958, and was 1.4 pounds lower than the level of 2009. Since then we’ve had two more years of drastic cutbacks in beef consumption

The national sheep herd also shriveled because sheep ranchers were kicked off their grazing allotments with both the BLM and the Forest Service. and in 2013 it’s estimated we’ll be getting dangerously close to 50 pounds of beef consumed per person. As bad as that looks, it stacks up very well indeed when you compare it to the four-fifths of ONE POUND of lamb that is being consumed per person every year in this country. Still, it doesn’t mean we have a lot to feel good about long term. Obviously the beef business is NOT a growth industry, to say the least, when you consider that the 2013 U.S. calf crop will be the smallest since 1942 and cattle numbers in the U.S. will likely fall below 90 million head next year for the first time in 60 years.

Just as in the sheep industry, it’s the small guys who’ve fallen first. According to R-CALF, 35,000 independent cattle feeders have exited the industry since 1996 and the only segment of the feedlot industry that is growing is the largest segment with capacities over 50,000 head, and they are all getting dangerously close to being completely vertically integrated by the largest packer/feeders. “Large vertically integrated packer/feeders,” says R-CALF, “are supplanting independent feeders and are bidding up the price of feeder calves for independent feeders and then manipulating the price of fed cattle with captive supplies, with the effect of squeezing the independent feeder’s margin to the breaking point.”

It is obvious to even the most obtuse that we are currently witnessing a BIG change in the structure of the cattle industry and according to R-CALF’s Bill Bullard, “If Congress does not take immediate action, and if

December 15, 2012

Following Sheep USDA and DOJ do not initiate immediate enforcement action, we will wake up one morning and all the independents will be gone. It happened nearly that fast in the hog industry.”

A Similar Fate?

The sheep business has fallen on hard times because one packer basically calls all the shots.

The beef business isn’t much better when you consider that only four firms control approximately 82 percent, and one of them, JBS is also our nation’s largest feeder. The Brazilianowned JBS recently became Canada’s biggest packer when they took over XL Foods in Canada after that firm had to recall millions of pounds of beef.

In the deal they also acquired control of two more U.S. packing plants. We wouldn’t be surprised to see them shutter some of their U.S. plants in the future as they have done in Australia where they bought a vacant abattoir on King Island and is refusing to lease it, effectively causing a loss of a market to the ranchers on the island.

At the same time they are shutting down acquired plants around the world, the world’s biggest meat company will open six additional slaughterhouses in Brazil over the coming months that will increase its beef production capacity in Brazil by 15 percent. Says JBS President Wesley Batista, “The cost of raising an animal in the United States is twice the cost of raising an animal in Brazil.” Batista said the outlook for Brazilian beef production is extremely positive with the world’s biggest commercial herd of more than 200 million head. “Business in Brazil is more attractive than abroad,” says Batista. “We are increasing production in the place that offers the best returns.” At the same time this is happening higher prices for beef in the U.S. caused by high grain prices, and low supply, is reducing the amount of beef we export. In September exports of U.S. fresh/frozen beef were down 16 percent compared to a year ago. This was the ninth month in a row that U.S. beef exports posted a year-over-year decline. Imports are up, however, with lean grinding beef shipments from Australia up 71 percent in October compared with a year earlier.

Beef producers shouldn’t expect any sympathy from American sheep producers because in 2011 the U.S. imported more lamb and mutton into this country than was produced here. Does beef await a similar fate?

Critical Mass In business school the term “critical mass” refers to a minimum size or amount of something required to maintain the business. After many years of herd liquidation, we may have reached our critical mass. The resulting cow liquidation from two terrible droughts in 2011

“America’s Favorite Livestock Newspaper”

continued from page two

and 2012 hasn’t helped, and as we get smaller more auction markets and feedlots go out of business and producers are left with fewer marketing outlets and less competitive bidding.

According to Oklahoma economist Darrel Peel, cow slaughter has averaged 17.6 percent of total slaughter since the mid1980s but for the past four years cow slaughter has made up 19 percent of total slaughter. In 2011 cows represented 20 percent of total slaughter and it could hit that number again in 2012 when the final tally is in.

Simply put, we’re killing off our cow herd and not replacing it.

At the same time this is happening, beef and veal prices went up five percent in the grocery store this year after a 10 percent increase last year. Consumers can expect to pay an additional four percent more in 2013 and it’s not just because of the price of corn. In fact, it probably has more to do with our dwindling supply. And even lower beef supplies are expected in the future.

Sure, it’s good for ranchers in the short term who enjoy higher prices, but those prices are also

driving more consumers away from beef. In this tight economy many consumers will take beef off the dinner table as retail beef prices hang around $5.00 per pound. And it’s the same story in restaurants. “The national trends are pointing to more chicken on the menu because it’s cheaper than the beef,” says Erica Papillion, with the Louisiana Restaurant Association.

Where’s The Beef?

While we do not agree with the professors at the Stockholm International Water Institute who say that by 2050 the human population will have to switch to an almost vegetarian diet to avoid catastrophic global food and water shortages, we do know that it’s an added pressure point.

They say, “There will not be enough water available to produce food for the expected nine billion population in 2050 if we follow current trends.” And Janet Larsen, director of research at Earth Policy Institute, says, “Meat eating is already on the decline in the United States and beef eating has dropped off the most. And the trend will continue. We might go back to when Sunday night dinner was the

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only time when you had a chicken on the table.”

Who knows, we might sit down to a special Thanksgiving feast sometime in the future and someone will ask, “Steak, what a treat!

I’d forgotten how good it tastes.

Why don’t we eat beef any more?”

Editor’s Note: At press time GIPSA (the Grain Inspection. Packers and Stockyards Administration) announced they were opening an investigation into price manipulation in the sheep market, but the few sheepherders left shouldn’t get their hopes up. The Obama administration has been real good at launching investigations and then failing to act, as they did when they held multiple listening sessions across the country and spent millions of taxpayer dollars gathering evidence, only to do nothing when the multinational corporations voiced their displeasure at their conclusions. Cattleman left the ranch, drove long distances and sat for hours to get a chance to testify and voice their complaints about captive supplies. They presented enough evidence for a good hanging but the Obama Justice Department, in the end, did nothing. They wasted countless hours and millions of dollars and got folk’s hopes up but we’d all have been a better off if they did nothing while they were busy doing nothing.

Graham To Be Remembered With Research Center Scholarships o honor the lifetime of service of David Graham, the New Mexico State University (NMSU) Clayton Research Center Advisory Board is initiating a scholarship in his memory. Dubbed the “David Grahman Research Center Scholarships,” the annual award will be provided to a graduate student doing research at the Clayton Research Center.

David Graham was a longtime Union County Extension Agent who devoted many years of research to plants in relation to livestock usage, among numerous other things. David’s work was nationally known for the improvment of the land and the environment.

Contributions toward the scholarship fund may be made in David’s name to the NMSU Foundation, Box 3590, Las Cruces NM 88003-3590 or to Dr. Michael Hubbers, Superintendent of the Research Center.

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Livestock Market Digest

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December 15, 2012

Feds File Motion to Weaken Ranchers’ Claim

by JEFF TUCKER, Rio Grande Sun Staff Writer

ttorneys for the federal government argued this month to dismiss a key portion of a lawsuit concerning grazing rights on historic land grant areas in northern New Mexico.

Plaintiffs say if approved by the federal judge, the motion would limit damages that could be recovered.

The lawsuit, filed in January against the U.S. Forest Service by the Jarita Mesa and Alamosa livestock grazing associations, two dozen Hispanic ranchers with permits to graze in the Carson National Forest, and the Rio Arriba County commissioners, focuses on a 2010 decision by Carson National Forest El Rito District Ranger Diana Trujillo to cut cattle grazing by 18 percent on the Jarita Mesa and Alamosa grazing allotments.

“Plaintiffs and their ancestors are Hispanic stockmen whose families have been grazing livestock in this area for many generations,” the plaintiffs’ lawsuit states. “In fact, most of their families were grazing livestock in this area before the United States Forest Service existed.

Grazing livestock is an integral part of their existence and is a central part of life in the villages they reside in and in all of northern New Mexico.”

At a Nov. 9 federal court hearing in Albuquerque, U.S. District Judge James O. Browning heard the federal government’s motion to dismiss the

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first count of the lawsuit, which charges Trujillo with unconstitutional conduct.

Richard Rosenstock of Santa Fe, co-counsel for the plaintiffs, said if the federal court dismisses the First Amendment count of the lawsuit, it would limit the plaintiffs’ ability to seek relief under the Administrative Procedure Act, which is a body of administrative law governing the review of federal agency decisions.

Rosenstock said it is doubtful the Act would allow sufficient discovery to prove discrimination.

Rio Arriba County officials and ranchers say Trujillo retaliated against them, violating their First Amendment rights, by cutting grazing by 18 percent after the ranchers complained to their legislators and the forest service about Trujillo’s management of grazing issues. They contend the forest service is trying to push them from land that has been ranched by their families for centuries, and that Trujillo veered from normal practices by not implementing the stocking levels recommended by forest service scientists, which would have kept the number of livestock head unchanged from 1980, with modified rangeland improvement.

“Livestock grazing has played a central role in the cultural, social and economic fabric of the Hispanic people in northern New Mexico since 1598, becoming fully developed in the area by the late 1690s,” the plaintiffs’

lawsuit states. “Prior to the United States exercising sovereignty over what is now northern New Mexico in 1848, most, if not all, of the land which now constitutes the El Rito Ranger District of the Carson National Forest, including the land where the Jarita Mesa and Alamosa allotments are located, was community land grant land that supported the local communities.”

Grazing right reduction in effect The 18 percent reduction of grazing opportunities went into effect the 2011 season, and is effective for about 10 years, until the forest service’s next environmental assessment of the Jarita Mesa and Alamosa allotments.

The plaintiffs sued Trujillo in both her individual and official capacities. The ranchers contend Trujillo violated their First Amendment right to petition their government for the redress of grievances.

The forest service says management practices by the ranchers have contributed to the overuse of meadows, that fences were either poorly maintained or in disrepair on the two allotments, and that current grazing levels are unsustainable.

The ranchers say in the lawsuit the property rights of Hispanics have been ignored and an institutional bias exists in the forest service. The ranchers noted a 1972 forest service policy, implecontinued on page five

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FROM THE PHOTO of his hand-tooled cover to the very last story, Lee’s newest book, A Handmade Life, is pure Pitts. In the tradition of Dirt Roads and God’s Country, Lee’s latest will entertain and inspire. Destined to be a classic.

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Why $16 trillion only hints at the true U.S. debt or years, the government has gotten by without having to produce the kind of financial statements that are required of most significant for-profit and nonprofit enterprises, say Chris Cox, a former chairman of the House Republican Policy Committee and the Securities and Exchange Commission, and Bill Archer, a former chairman of the House Ways & Means Committee.

As a result, fiscal policy discussions generally focus on currentyear budget deficits, the accumulated national debt, and the relationships between these two items and gross domestic product.

■ We most often hear about the alarming $15.96 trillion national debt (more than 100 percent of gross domestic product (GDP)), and the 2012 budget deficit of $1.1 trillion (6.97 percent of GDP).

■ As dangerous as those numbers are, they do not begin to tell the story of the federal government’s true liabilities.

■ The actual liabilities of the federal government — including Social Security, Medicare and federal employees’ future retirement benefits — already exceed $86.8 trillion, or 550 percent of GDP. ■ For the year ending December 31, 2011, the annual accrued expense of Medicare and Social Security was $7 trillion.

■ In reality, the reported budget deficit is less than onefifth of the more accurate figure.

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Why haven’t Americans heard about the titanic $86.8 trillion liability from these programs? One reason: The actual figures do not appear in black and white on any balance sheet. But it is possible to discover them. Included in the annual Medicare Trustees’ report are separate actuarial estimates of the unfunded liability for Medicare Part A (the hospital portion), Part B (medical insurance) and Part D (prescription drug coverage).

Were American policy makers to have the benefit of transparent financial statements prepared the way public companies must report their pension liabilities, they would see clearly the magnitude of the future borrowing that these liabilities imply. Borrowing on this scale could eclipse the capacity of global capital markets — and bankrupt not only the programs themselves but the entire federal government.

When the accrued expenses of the government’s entitlement programs are counted, it becomes clear that to collect enough tax revenue just to avoid going deeper into debt would require over $8 trillion in tax collections annually. That is the total of the average annual accrued liabilities of just the two largest entitlement programs, plus the annual cash deficit.

Source: Chris Cox and Bill Archer, “Why $16 Trillion Only Hints at the True U.S. Debt,” Wall Street Journal, November 26, 2012.

Agri Women Honor Lee Pitts he 2012 American Agri Women’s (AAW’s) Veritas Award was presented to journalist Lee Pitts of Los Osos, Calif., in early November.

Pitts is a seeker of truth, who looks at the whole picture, from all angles. He has the unique ability to make a complicated issue understandable, even when controversial. For the past 40 years he has been riding herd on the agricultural industry while serving as executive editor of a monthly livestock publication, Livestock Market Digest, headquartered in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Pitts’ articles have been reprinted in hundreds of newspapers and magazines and his essays were regularly recited on Paul Harvey News and Comment and National Public Radio.

A collection of Lee’s video essays were featured on the Voice of Agriculture television show and compiled into an hour-long video, From A Western Point of View. His essays also have appeared in the Chicken Soup for the Soul series of best-selling books.

Lee Pitts is the author of 11 books including People Who Live at the End of Dirt Roads, Back Door People, The I Hate Chicken Cookbook, Essays from God’s Country, A Collection of Characters and his latest, A Handmade Life. Harper Collins released Pitts’ only hardback book, These

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Things I Wish.

Pitts graduated with an Animal Science degree from Cal Poly University in San Luis Obispo and was a Rotary International Graduate Fellow to the University of New England in Armidale, New South Wales, Australia. He has seen the highs and lows of agriculture both as a rancher and as a sheepherder.

He began his writing and speaking career while serving as the state president of the California Association of the FFA and since then his work has been syndicated in publications in Italy, Australia, England and Canada as well as all parts of the U.S. For 20 years he also was a co-owner and the voice of Western Video Market, the second largest livestock auction company in the country.

Says Pitts, “In my life I have been blessed with one good wife, a marginal horse, 14 worthless dogs and a few dimwitted bosses. That’s much more than any man deserves.”

Previous honors Pitts has garnered include Westerner of the Year; Western Heritage Award; Livestock Marketing Association’s very first “Friend of the Industry” Award; California Auction Markets Association first “Friend of the Industry” Award; R-CALF’s first entrant into their Hall of Fame; and R-CALF’s “Wheel Horse Award” (for journalists).

“America’s Favorite Livestock Newspaper”

December 15, 2012

Feds File Motion mented following a 1967 raid of the Tierra Amarilla Courthouse over unresolved land grant issues, which said Hispanic residents of northern New Mexico had a relationship with the land.

The policy declared their culture a resource that must be recognized when setting forest service policies. “(T)his loss of grazing permits causes not only severe economic harm to plaintiffs, but also grave damage to viability of the unique cultural and social fabric of their families and communities, the preservation and enhancement of which has been recognized by defendant forest service as essential, not just to the residents of northern New Mexico, but to the entire nation,” the plaintiffs’ lawsuit states.

Rosenstock said if the First Amendment count is dismissed, it would prevent the plaintiffs from recovering compensatory and punitive economic damages.

He said, at best, an Act proceeding could result in a reversal of Trujillo’s decision and limited restitution, despite the economic hardship he says the ranchers have suffered and continue to suffer under the 18 percent grazing reduction.

Rosenstock also said if the First Amendment count is dismissed, it would prevent the plaintiffs from suing Trujillo for damages as both a federal employee and a private individual, which Rosenstock said is necessary to provide a significant deterrent against First Amendment infringements by government officials.

continued from page four

The lawsuit also charges Trujillo violated various environmental and administrative laws, including regional forest service policy requiring that management decisions support the survival of Native American and Hispanic traditions. If the court grants the government’s motion to dismiss the plaintiffs’ First Amendment count, the remaining counts charging violations of the National Environmental Policy Act, the National Forest Management Act, the Federal Sustained Yield Forest Management Act and forest service policy would all fall under the purview of the Administrative Procedures Act. “We asserted a claim for damages for the decision for the grazing permit reduction,” Rosenstock said. “The judge can reverse the 18 percent reduction based on finding Trujillo was motivated by retaliatory action.”

Fed’s argument Assistant U.S. Attorney Ruth Keegan argued to dismiss the First Amendment count, saying a successful lawsuit such as that filed by the ranchers could paralyze government officials with the fear of being sued for any decisions they make.

Browning noted law enforcement officers may be sued as private individuals, yet they manage to do their jobs.

Keegan argued the U.S. Supreme Court doesn’t allow federal employees outside of law enforcement to be personally sued for damages.

The judge is expected to issue

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a ruling in the near future on the government’s motion to dismiss the First Amendment count.

Rosenstock said if the First Amendment count is dismissed, he and co-counsel Simeon Herskovits, of Taos, would continue the lawsuit through an Act proceeding.

The Rio Arriba County commissioners joined the lawsuit against the forest service to keep grazing permits for local ranchers on federal lands. In addition, Rio Arriba County, along with local school districts, receives payment in lieu of taxes from the forest service that are derived in part from grazing fees.

District III Commissioner Felipe D. Martinez, who attended the Nov. 9 hearing in Albu-

Carbon Tax cuts another tax by a dollar. But this is politics. With neutrality, hundreds of billions of revenue dollars won’t be there to fill the special interest troughs. Supportive Republicans would be committing suicide.”

“Exactly,” said Lewis, “and Lisa Jackson certainly won’t tell her Environmental Protection Agency regulators — who use climate fears to pressure the fossil fuel sector out of the national economy — to knock off the regulations. We have a carbon tax now.”

Lewis continued: “A carbon tax was never meant to be a revenue source, but to change behavior, to stop the use of coal, oil and natural gas.”

His point: Tax carbon, consumers can’t afford it, use goes

Page 5

querque on behalf of the commissioners, said the County reaps tens of thousands of dollars a year from the grazing fees and livestock taxes, in addition to increased economic activity throughout the county and region.

“The lawsuit is a long time in coming,” said Martinez, whose father once owned a grazing permit on the Alamosa allotment.

“For too many years, Native Americans and Hispanic Americans have not been able to benefit completely from the resources on federal lands. The thing is that we’ve been here the longest.

Our ancestors shed a lot of blood, sweat and tears to colonize this area.”

“We’re hoping he’ll be fair, we

want a fair shake,” Martinez said of the federal judge. “We want the judge to know we’ve been treated differently, unfairly, that we are being retaliated against for expressing our right to free speech and to petition for the redress of our grievances.”

At a Nov. 4 public meeting in Abiquiú, Rio Arriba county attorney Ted Trujillo said the public land restrictions would result in the extinction of Hispanic and Native American ranchers who have run livestock on forest lands for generations.

He also said the grazing restrictions would increase catastrophic forest fires due to over-growth and have a negative economic impact on local agricultural communities.

continued from page one

author Grover Norquist what he thought was behind this sudden resurgence of talk about a carbon tax.

“Obama is not truly interested in raising taxes on the rich,” Norquist told me. “His real goal is to impose an energy tax as the precursor of a value added tax on American taxpayers. An energy/ carbon tax and/or a VAT, in addition to the present income tax, is the only way to fund the permanently larger government Obama is creating before our eyes.”

With even ExxonMobil reported to be giving support to the fantasy tax-for-regulation swap, politicians need to realize the carbon tax is a trap for fools eating their own tails.

down. But revenue goes down, too — so the feds raise the tax to fill the gap. Use goes down again, revenue goes down again and the tax goes up again. It's like the mythical dragon swallowing its own tail, only instead of a dragon it's our only economically practical energy source.

“Nobody knows how to run a complex economy on biomass and wind and solar, no matter how vastly subsidized,” Lewis noted.

“But House Speaker John Boehner, Majority Leader Eric Cantor and Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy have signed a No Climate Tax Pledge. Bad for those pushing carbon taxes as part of a budget deal,” concluded Lewis.

I asked Americans for Tax Reform founder and pledge

Examiner Columnist Ron Arnold is executive vice president of the Center for the Defense of Free Enterprise.

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Livestock Market Digest

Page 6

December 15, 2012

Angus Offers Internship & Scholarship Opportunities he future of the cattle business is built on student leaders focused on keeping the industry strong. And to be successful, it takes practice. To provide that needed experience, the American Angus Association® and its entities offer five paid internships and two scholarship programs for college students.

Available internships offer students experience in the industry and the chance to gain real-world working knowledge — a must-have in today’s competitive market. Scholarship programs, established by the Angus Foundation and Certified Angus Beef LLC (CAB), reward undergraduate and graduate students who are passionate about beef and the Angus brand. Deadlines and details for each internship and scholarship are listed below.

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Angus Internships ■ The American Angus Association Activities and Events Department is offering, for the first time, an internship that focuses on event planning to a college sophomore, junior or senior who has agricultural interests. The internship will provide a highly organized, detail-oriented college student the opportunity to gain real-world experience planning and implementing educational and social events for the Association membership.

Applicants should work well with all types of people and be a selfstarter who can work individually, as well as on a team. The qualified candidate should be available to start the position on or before June 1, 2013. Some travel is likely.

To apply, send a cover letter, resume and references to Shelia Stannard, director of activities and events, American Angus Association, 3201 Frederick Ave., Saint Joseph, MO 64506, or email sstannard@angus.org.

Applications due Feb. 5, 2013.

■ The American Angus Association Junior Activities Department provides a college sophomore, junior or senior an outstanding opportunity to assist with preparations, communica-

tions and correspondence for junior shows and events. Applicants must be enrolled in an agriculture-related major, and consider themselves a selfstarter, detail-oriented and an outgoing individual who has the ability to work well with others.

Travel to the 2013 National Junior Angus Show (NJAS), Leaders Engaged in Angus Development (LEAD) Conference and other shows and events is expected.

The internship spans from approximately early-May to midAugust, with specific starting and ending dates depending on the applicant’s availability.

A cover letter, resume and references are due Feb. 5, 2013, to Robin Ruff, director of junior activities, American Angus Association, 3201 Frederick Ave., Saint Joseph, MO 64506. For more information, contact Ruff at 816383-5100 or rruff@angus.org.

■ The American Angus Association Communications and Public Relations Department is accepting applications from college juniors or seniors studying journalism, agricultural communications or related fields. Applicants should have strong writing and design skills, in addition to completed coursework in news and feature writing, editing and

design. Experience in photography, video and social media is an asset in this fast-paced internship. The internship spans from approximately early-May to midAugust, with specific starting and ending dates depending on the applicant’s availability.

Applications are due February 5, 2013. To apply, send a cover letter, resume, references and writing samples to Jena Thompson, assistant director of relations, American public Angus Association, 3201 Frederick Ave., Saint Joseph, MO 64506. For more information, contact Thompson at 816-3835100 or jthompson@angus.org.

■ Angus Productions Inc. offers a college student the opportunity to be part of the editorial team of various publications. This 10-week, writingintensive internship offers the selected intern an opportunity to participate in producing various publications, including the Angus Journal, the Angus Journaldigital replica, the Angus Beef Bulletin (ABB), the ABB EXTRA, the Angus e-List, editorial websites, and social media efforts. The internship will be flexible enough to tailor to the strengths and needs of the intern, but many duties can be expected. Experience in news and feature writing, editing and photography are strongly suggested. The internship spans from late-May to mid-August, specific starting and ending dates will be negotiated with the selected candidate.

Applications are due February 5, 2013. To apply, send a cover letter, resume and writing samples to Shauna Hermel, editor, Angus Productions Inc., 3201 Frederick Ave., Saint

Working to Protect the Rich Tapestry of the West What They are Saying About Us… • The $206,098,920 Endangered Species Act Settlement Agreements — Is all that paperwork worth it?

• Leveling the Playing Field: Support for the Grazing Improvement Act of 2011 • Support for the Governmental Litigation Savings Act of 2011 — Reform of Excessive Litigation Pay-outs • Foreign & Domestic Train Wreck in the Making — More of the ESA • The Secret World of the Animal Rights Agenda TO SUPPORT THESE CAUSES AND MORE, JOIN US!

I am/our organization is committed to protecting the open spaces, private property, private businesses & ensuring the responsible use of public lands. Please list me/my organization as a member of the Western Legacy Alliance.

I have included my membership dues and my $____________ additional contribution.

Name: _____________________________________________________________________________________ Organization: _______________________________________________________________________________ Address: ________________________________________ City: __________________________ State: _____ Zip: __________ Phone: __________________ Fax: __________________ Email: ______________________

Individual Membership: $25 Association Membership: $500 Corporate Membership: $1,000 Help You Can

936 West 350 North • Blackfoot, ID 83221 westernlegacyalliance@gmail.com • 208-681-6004 www.westernlegacyalliance.org

JOIN TODAY!

Joseph, MO 64506. For more information, contact Hermel at (816) 383-5270 or shermel@ angusjournal.com.

Angus Scholarships ■ The Angus Foundation offers general scholarships to students pursuing undergraduate and graduate degrees in higher education. Eligible Angus youth meeting the qualifications for the Angus Foundation’s 2013 Undergraduate and Graduate Scholarship Programs will be considered by the Angus Foundation’s Scholarship Selection Committee. As in past years, other specific and special criteria scholarships administered by the Angus Foundation will also be available. Scholarship recipients will be recognized at the 2013 NJAS in Kansas City, Mo. Applications will be available online beginning Dec. 1, 2012.

For more information, contact Milford Jenkins, Angus Foundation president, at mjenkins@ angusfoundation.org or call 816383-5100.

■ CAB’s Colvin Scholarship Fund will award six scholarships in 2013 totaling $20,000. The funds will be split among five undergraduate scholarships — in the amounts of $5,000, $4,000, $3,000, $2,000 and $1,000 — and one $5,000 graduate-level scholarship.

College juniors and seniors who have shown commitment to the beef industry, either through coursework or activities, are encouraged to apply by the December 7, 2012, deadline.

Applications are evaluated on involvement, scholastic achievement, communication skills and reference letters. The graduatelevel scholarship will be awarded to a full-time master’s or doctorate student conducting research related to high-quality beef production. Applications for that award are due January 11, 2013.

For more details, interested students should go online or contactTrudi Hoyle, CAB, at 800225-2333 or thoyle@certifiedangusbeef.com.

Deadlines Summary • January 11, 2013: CAB Colvin Graduate Scholarship • February 5, 2013: American Angus Association Activities and Events, Junior Activities, Communication and Public Relations, and Angus Productions Inc. Internships • May 1, 2013: Angus Foundation Scholarships

Riding Herd

CONTINUED FROM PAGE ONE

parts were able to be located in a distant junkyard. As it was, I needed an all new front end, all because of one $8,000 deer.

As bad as the deer episode was, the skunk collision was worse. Both the skunk and I froze just milliseconds before impact and I remember thinking,” Nice kitty, please don’t do it.” But the stinky cat did!

I had to pull off to the side of the road because my car was making strange noises after the impact. With my dress clothes on I tried not to breathe as I got on my back and looked under the car. Mother nature did not cooperate by turning on her night light but I could barely make out parts of the dead polecat hanging from the fan blade, putting to rest the theory that a skunk can’t spray while hanging from its tail. The only solace was I remembered that my favorite author, J. Frank Dobie, wrote that a hydrophobic skunk couldn’t spray. At least I wasn’t going to get rabies!

I think you can imagine my discomfort as I worked in the aromatically-challenged environment to fasten the plastic underbelly of my car back together again. It was some of the fastest mechanic work ever done and if you think NASCAR pit crews are fast your should have seen this Pitts stop! After driving 20 miles per hour to an all night convenience store, where there was more light, I was asked to vacate the premises by the owner. My wife did the same thing when I finally limped into home.

I have a “Theory of Threes” in that I believe bad events always happen in clusters of three. This means that I am due to hit a cow or a horse next. The way I see it I only have two options: I can either walk everywhere I go or I can sell my wildlife-killing, roadkill-creating car. Therefore, I would like to take advantage of the fact that this column appears in papers across the country and offer up this free classified ad: “Unlucky Car For Sale: It may not have that new car smell but I guarantee it will still turn heads. Frequent recent maintenance with many all new body parts. Bumper sticker reads, “I don’t brake for wildlife.” Car is cheap and attractive. (Suicidal wildlife find it really attractive.) A really good deal for someone with a poor sense of smell.”

“America’s Favorite Livestock Newspaper”

Old West flavors cowboys’ new energy drink

www.baxterblack.com

Baxter BLACK

THEIR NAME AND MISSION: COWBOY UP

by KIM VALLEZ, KRQE TV

wo cowboys from southeastern New Mexico have created a new energy drink they believe embodies the “cowboy way.”

Bert and Montie Carol Madera of the Pitchfork Cattle Company near Jal joined forces with Carlsbad’s Ryan Leon and came up with Cowboy Up, an all natural energy drink with an apple/beer taste.

The Maderas, who started the ranch in Jal in 1932, say they’re not only proud of the drink but of the mission behind it.

“Everything we’ve done is in the way of the cowboy; it’s integrity,” Montie Carol says.

“That is what we are trying to promote.”

The Madera’s are proud of the drink’s all-natural ingredients. They say there is nothing inside that will hurt you, and it is low in sugar, which means it

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doesn’t bring the crash that other energy drinks do.

So how did two cowboys from southeastern New Mexico get into the energy-drink business?

They say they were looking for something new to do, and that is when Ryan Leon came along.

He’s a Carlsbad native who has worked for three of the major energy-drink companies and was looking to create his own product.

“We tasted it and tested it and liked what we saw and thought it was a good fit,” says Bert.

Along with growing their new business, the Maderas are also helping encourage local kids to join the agriculture industry. The more the business grows, the more they can help.

Cowboy Up is available in all Allsup’s stores and many smaller grocery stores.

The Maderas hope to have the drink in 200 more businesses by the end of 2013.

Environmental activist long wanted in U.S. arson attacks surrenders

by TERESA CARSON, REUTERS

Canadian environmentalist accused of taking part in a campaign ofarson attacks across the U.S. West surrendered on November 29, 2012 after a decade on the run to face charges in what authorities call the “largest ecoterrorism case” in U.S. history.

Rebecca Jeanette Rubin turned herself in to FBI agents at the Canadian border in Blaine, Washington, the U.S. Department of Justice said in a statement. She is charged with helping set a wave of arson fires between 1996 and 2001 that were carried out by self-proclaimed members of the Earth Liberation Front and Animal Liberation Front.

“Rubin’s arrest marks the end of her decade-long period as an international fugitive in the largest eco-terrorism case in United States history,” the Justice Department statement said of the arson spree.

Officials have given no reason for her surrender.

Prosecutors said at the time that the case stood out for the number of fires set and damage caused, which was estimated at more than $40 million.

Rubin, 39, faces arson, destructive device and conspiracy charges in Oregon, California and Colorado. She was expected to make an initial court appearance in Seattle before she is returned to Oregon for trial in U.S. District Court.

The government indicted Rubin in 2006 of taking part in a conspiracy with 12 others involv-

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ing 20 acts of arson.

She is charged with participating in a 1997 arson fire at a wild horse and burro facility belonging to the Bureau of Land Management in Burns, Oregon, that was set to retaliate for what the group believed was poor treatment of the horses.

Animals were set free and firebombs placed around the facility, according to a federal grand jury indictment.

She is also accused of participating in a 1998 attempted arson at the Medford, Oregon, offices of U.S. Forest Industries.

In Colorado, Rubin faces eight counts of arson for the 1998 firebombing of a Vail ski resort to stop an expansion that the group felt would encroach on a lynx habitat.

She is also charged with conspiracy, arson and using a destructive device in a 2001 fire at a Bureau of Land Management horse and burro facility near Susanville, California.

Ten of the other 12 defendants pleaded guilty to conspiracy and multiple counts of arson in 2007 in Eugene, Ore, while two, Joseph Dibee and Josephine Overaker, remain at large.

If convicted on all charges, Rubin could face a maximum penalty of hundreds of years in prison, although the other defendants were sentenced to between 37 to 156 months behind bars, Assistant U.S. Attorney Stephen Peifer said.

Rubin can consent to have the charges from the three states consolidated and be tried in Oregon, or she can be tried in each jurisdiction, Peifer said.

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The OsamaConomy randpa Tommy was reminiscing, “It’s a shame everybody couldn’t go through the Great Depression.”

I know what he meant. I think. He didn’t mean it like “It’s a shame everybody hadn’t been in a concentration camp or had polio.” He was remarking that most of us Baby Boomers and younger are unable to appreciate how technology has pampered us. There was no safety net back then. Grandpa Tommy spent the Dirty 30’s in the depths of the Dust Bowl in Syracuse, Kansas. Then the first half of the 40’s he was on a Navy vessel in the Pacific.

He passed away without seeing our OsamaConomy. The hard times that today’s generations are suffering under, began on 9/11/2001.

We sank to the bottom immediately. Unemployment in 2002 was 7.5 percent. We pulled ourselves out and by 2007 unemployment had fallen to 4.5 percent. Then we over-reached and crashed again in 2008, where we have wallowed for four years with 8-10 percent unemployment. But this whole series of events in the last 11 years began on 9/11/01.

During this OsamaConomy, a large percent of our population has had to tighten our belts, however a smaller 10 percent has suffered mightily. But, in Grandpa Tommy’s defense, just a very tiny percent of those of us caught in the vise of OsamaConomy have gone hungry or have no roof over their head. Present-day technology has allowed the majority of the unemployed access to computers, cell phones, vehicles, televisions, emergency health care and school for their kids.

The safety net that is helping these “victims” includes family, friends, churches, private giving and government programs financed by those still working and paying taxes. This safety

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net has prevented any mass migration of the unemployed seeking work. If there had been a mass migration, North Dakota and Wyoming would have doubled in population! The ten percent unemployed have been able to stay in familiar surroundings and are able to get temporary assistance to ride it out.

The Great Depression had 25 percent unemployment at its peak and lasted 9 – 10 years. Only the outbreak of World War II brought an end to it.

It is the prayer of all of us, that our foundering leaders will get their collective heads out of the mud, step out of the way and let America go back to work. It took us 5 years to recover after 9/11. In 2007 the federal government collected a record-high annual tax revenue from the private sector. That money came from people working and paying taxes, from Bill Gates to the legal immigrant mowing his lawn.

We all breathed a sigh of relief when our soldiers finally sent Osama Bin Laden to hell.

There seems to be a lot of blame thrown around about who should bear the burden of our toxic economy. I don’t have any doubt. It was him. Osama was this generation’s Hitler, Ho Chi Minh, Yamamoto and Small Pox. In 2005 I went to New Orleans after Katrina to muck out houses. There were two kinds of people that showed up; those who came to help and those who came to blame. In this OsamaConomy we’ve been barraged with ads and debates by those who come to blame. My head is ringing. But I know we will get out of this mess. Not because I have faith in the government, but because I have faith in those who get up every day and come to work, like Grandpa Tommy did, just doin’ his part.

Happy New Year and God bless you.

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Livestock Market Digest

Page 8

Slaughterhouse owners settle fraud suit LOS ANGELES TIMES

he owners of a California slaughterhouse that was the subject of the largest beef recall in U.S. history four years ago as a result of an undercover video agreed to pay $300,000 to settle a lawsuit that alleged fraud against the U.S. government, an animal rights group announced.

Donald Hallmark Sr. and Donald Hallmark Jr. were two of nine defendants in a federal False Claims Act suit brought by the Humane Society of the United States. The organization in 2008 released a video surreptitiously shot by an activist that seemed to show workers at the Hallmarks’ Chino (San Bernardino County) slaughterhouse using forklifts, electric prods and highpressure water hoses to force cattle to their feet.

The video sparked outrage at the animals’ treatment and also led to food safety concerns because the Hallmark plant was the second-largest supplier of ground beef to the National School Lunch Program. The U.S. Department of Agriculture at the time recalled 143 million pounds of beef processed at the plant in the previous two years, about one-third of which had

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gone to schools.

The recall effort cost the government an estimated $150 million, according to a Humane Society release.

The Humane Society sued the plant and its owners under a federal law that allows private citizens with knowledge of fraud against the U.S. government to file a lawsuit to recover penalties.

The group alleged the Hallmarks defrauded the government through misrepresentation on their federal school lunch program contracts.

The Hallmarks, according to the release, will pay $316,802 to the U.S. Department of Justice over five years, and cooperate in the suit against the remaining defendants. A largely symbolic $497 million judgment is expected to be entered against the bankrupt Hallmark Meat Packing Co., according to the Humane Society.

“It’s a deterrence judgment,” Humane Society attorney Jonathan Lovvorn told the Associated Press. “It informs other federal government contractors that when your contract says you provide humane handling, if you don’t do that you’re likely to end up bankrupt as well.”

News With A View & A Whole Lot More . . .

THE most effective advertising medium in ranching today!

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f you have livestock, a product or service that stockmen and their families need, they will find out about it quickly if you advertise in the Digest. Digest readers know value when they see it and they respond rapidly to a good offer.

Before you plan your advertising budget, think hard about how to stretch your dollars and where they are spent the most efficiently. Are you paying more to reach fewer qualified potential customers than you would receive in the Digest? The Digest’s circulation is concentrated in the most important livestock producing states: Nebraska, Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, Utah, Idaho, California, Oregon, Washington and Texas.

The Digest caters to the most active readers in the livestock world — who ARE the buyers and sellers of livestock, the ones who show up and speak up. It is the ONLY place to get Lee Pitts’ perspective on the world and how we are going to thrive into the future.

Deliver your message NOW in the Livestock Market Digest!

To plan your advertising, contact Caren Cowan at: caren@aaalivestock.com or 505/243-9515, ext. 21

On the web at www.nmagriculture.org

December 15, 2012

Copeland Elected American Hereford Association President liff Copeland, Nara Visa, N.M., was announced as the new president of the American Hereford Association (AHA) during the Annual Membership Meeting in Kansas City, Mo., recently.

A Hereford enthusiast since birth, Cliff currently co-manages Copeland and Sons LLC with his wife, Pat; parents, Clifford and Barbara; and Cliff and Pat’s son and daughter-in-law, Matt and Kyla.

Copeland and Sons was established in 1943, and cattle are its only business. The family’s 500-head herd includes 90 registered Hereford females, 80 cows used to produce club calves and 330 commercial Hereford cows.

“I am extremely humbled by being named the new president and I will try my best to be deserving of the honor,” Cliff says. “Demand for our breed is as high as it has been in over 30 years. We have been rediscovered as a great choice to get a hybrid vigor boost out of the nation’s predominately black cow herd, and not lose carcass merit in doing so.”

During his youth, Cliff was a member of the American Junior Hereford Association board and served as president. Committed to helping the breed, Cliff has helped with Certified Hereford Beef (CHB®) promos in his area.

Cliff served as the AHA vice president in 2012 as well as chairman of the show and sale committee and was a member of the executive, breed improvement and member service committees.

Selected to serve as the 2013 AHA vice president was Steve Lambert of Oroville, California Steve is a second-generation Hereford breeder who was active showing cattle as a youth on the state and national levels. His family owned and operated Creekside Ranch, which was one of the largest Hereford cattle operations in California. Today Lambert Ranch is a diversified enterprise, growing high-quality grain, hay and Hereford and Angus cattle. A Gold TPR (Total

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2013 AHA Board: Pictured is the 2013 American Hereford Association (AHA) Board of Directors. Seated (l to r) are: Cliff Copeland, Nara Visa, N.M., president; Steve Lambert, Oroville, Calif., vice president; Dale Micheli, Ft. Bridger, Wyo.; Marty Lueck, Mountain Grove, Mo.; and Craig Huffhines, Kansas City, Mo., executive vice president. Directors standing (l to r) are: Keith Fawcett, Ree Heights, S.D.; Sam Shaw, Caldwell, Idaho; Jonny Harris, Screven, Ga.; Curtis Curry, McAlester, Okla.; Eric Walker, Morrison, Tenn.; Fred Larson, Spring Valley, Wis.; Dale Venhuizen, Manhattan, Mont.; and David Trowbridge, Tabor, Iowa

Performance Records) breeder, Lambert Ranch has bred several Dams of Distinction.

Steve has served as a director of the California/Nevada Polled Hereford Association since 2002. In addition, he has been very active in local government and other community organizations, including serving as mayor of Paradise and being Butte County Supervisor. Steve has three children.

Delegates elected three new Directors during the membership meeting. Curtis Curry, McAlester, Oklahoma; Jonny Harris, Screven, Georgia.; and Sam Shaw, Caldwell, Idaho, will serve four-year terms on the 12member Board.

Curtis Curry: Oklahoma breeder Curtis Curry has been in the registered Hereford business since 1989.

Curtis and his family reside in McAlester. They run approximately 75-100 females in Okfuskee and Pittsburg counties. They sell mostly private treaty, marketing approximately 40 to 50 bulls per year. Curry Herefords also hosted a BuyHereford.com sale last fall — making the Curry family the first to host its own BuyHereford.com sale. The family has also consigned to most National Hereford sales through the years.

Curtis’ marketing goal is to

obtain enough land to increase his herd and be able to have the numbers to host a production sale each year. He’d also like to be able to sell all bulls to one operation annually.

Curtis and his family participate in national shows including the Junior National Hereford Expo, American Royal, Ft. Worth Stock Show and the National Western Stock Show.

He is currently president of the Oklahoma Hereford Association (OHA) and has served on the OHA board for 10 years. He has also served as the Junior Hereford Association of Oklahoma advisor for six years.

Curtis is a member of the Pittsburg County Cattlemen’s Association and the Oklahoma Cattlemen’s Association.

He and his wife, Donna, have two children.

Jonny Harris: Fifth-generation cattleman and farmer, Jonny Harris, Screven, Ga., owns and manages Greenview Farms Inc., a 3,500-acre diversified farm.

Greenview Farms is the oldest, continuously active Hereford operation in the state of Georgia, producing seedstock since 1942.

In addition to Herefords, the Harris family has been producing F1 Brafords, crossing half of their 400 mama cows with Brahcontinued on page nine

Investigation at Tourist Spot Reveals Mistreatment Overcrowding, neglect, and unsanitary conditions put rare species at risk in Cayman Islands he World Society for the Protection of Animals (WSPA) uncovered a year-long investigation on the Cayman Turtle Farm, a popular tourist destination in the Cayman Islands and the world’s last remaining sea-turtle farm, revealing disturbing cruelty and neglect of this endangered species. All seven species of sea turtles are listed on the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Endangered Species as either endangered or critically endangered.

“Life on the Cayman Turtle Farm is a far contrast from how sea turtles live in the wild,” said Elizabeth Hogan, oceans and wildlife campaigns manager at WSPA. “It’s horrific to see this neglect and cruelty of an endangered species at a tourist attraction. Not to mention the fact that these foul conditions aren’t only affecting the resident turtles — humans could be at risk, as well.”

Video footage and photographs from the farm

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show thousands of endangered sea turtles being kept in dirty, packed touch tanks. Swimming in water filled with their own waste, the turtles fight for food, bite each other and even resort to cannibalism. Many suffer from disease and birth defects, such as injured fins or missing eyes.

Over the summer, WSPA met with the Cayman Turtle Farm owners to discuss its investigation findings and propose a plan for the farm to transition its business to a sea turtles rehabilitation and research center. To date, the farm is not willing to change.

“The bottom line is that the farm is currently posing great threats to sea turtle welfare and human health,” added Hogan. “We want to help the farm change for the better, but its unwillingness to meet us halfway is posing a great challenge.”

Editor’s Note: We cannot make this stuff up.

“America’s Favorite Livestock Newspaper”

December 15, 2012

Copeland continued from page eight man bulls, since 1981. Along with the cattle operation, they also manage timber, annual forages, hay, haylage and row crops including cotton, corn, peanuts and soybeans.

One of the family’s goals is to continue producing seedstock with quality to meet the purebred breeder’s needs and quantity to serve the commercial breeder and supplying both with the information they need to make their selections.

Jonny is currently a Georgia Hereford Association director.

Other leadership roles include United Braford Breeders director and former treasurer, former Georgia Cattlemen’s Association (GCA) regional vice president and executive committee member, Florida Cattlemen’s Association member, former Wayne County Livestock Association president, former Southeast Georgia Cattlemen’s Association president, Wayne County Farm

Bureau director and Wayne County Supervisor.

He represents GCA on the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association property rights and environmental committee, has testified at a USDA, Environmental Protection Agency and Department of Interior listening session and has participated in two Washington, D.C. fly-ins promoting sustainable agriculture and conservation.

Jonny and his wife, Toni, have three children and six grandchildren.

Sam Shaw: Sam Shaw, Caldwell, Idaho, has been involved in the Hereford business since birth. His family owns and operates Shaw Cattle Co. The Shaw family has been in the Hereford business for 68 years, and Sam’s children represent the fourth generation involved with Hereford cattle.

The Shaws currently run more than 1,250 cows including registered Herefords, Angus and Red Angus. Two-thirds of the Shaw herd calves in the spring with the

remainder calve in the fall. The Shaws host an annual production sale in the spring and market 500 bulls and females. They also sell private treaty throughout the year.

The Shaws’ breeding philosophy is based on their customers’ needs including production, soundness and performance.

They have an extensive artificial insemination (AI) program. All females are synchronized once and then heat detected for a second cycle. They also collect feed intake data using the GrowSafe program. The entire crop of bulls from their fall calving herd is placed in the program.

Growing up, Sam was active in the American Junior Hereford Association, serving as president of the junior board. He represented AHA at the Young Cattlemen’s Conference (YCC) in 2003 and served as chairman of YCC in 2004. He served as the Idaho Cattlemen’s Association purebred council chairman from 2006-2008.

Sam and his wife, Janel, have three children.

6,125 Proposed Regulations and Notifications Posted

by PENNY STARR, CNSNEWS.COM

t’s Friday morning, and so far today, the Obama administration has posted 165 new regulations and notifications on its reguations.gov website.

In the past 90 days, it has posted 6,125 regulations and notices — an average of 68 a day.

The website allows visitors to find and comment on proposed regulations and related documents published by the U.S. federal government. “Help improve Federal regulations by submitting your comments,” the website says.

The thousands of entries run the gamut from meeting notifications to fee schedules to actual rules and proposed rule changes.

In recent days, for example, the EPA posted a proposed rule involving volatile organic compound emissions from architectural coatings: “We are approving a local rule that regulates these emission sources under the Clean Air Act (CAA or the Act),” the proposed rule states. “We are taking comments on this proposal and plan to follow with a final action.”

Another proposed rule will provide guidance for FDA staff on “enforcement criteria for canned ack-

I

ee, frozen ackee, and other ackee products that contain hypoglycin A.” (Ackee is the national fruit of Jamaica; unripened or inedible portions can be toxic.)

Some of the proposed regulations revise regulations already on the books.

The website also links to a video of a speech President Barack Obama gave at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in Washington, D.C. on Feb. 7, 2011, in which the president promised to remove “outdated and unnecessary regulations.”

“I’ve ordered a government-wide review, and if there are rules on the books that are needlessly stifling job creation and economic growth, we will fix them,” the president said.

A number of groups, including the Competitive Enterprise Institute, expect a rush of new regulations now that Pres. Obama has won a second term: CEI expects the EPA to move ahead on delayed rules on everything from greenhouse gas emissions to ozone standards. “Rules from the health care bill and the Dodd-Frank financial regulation bill will also likely make themselves known in the weeks to come,” the group said on its website.

American Akaushi Association Holds 1st Convention he first annual Akaushi Association Convention was held in Bastrop, Texas in early November, 2012.

Over 200 members attend the event traveling from California to Florida and Canada to Brazil.

Phil Davis, Davis Cattle Company an Akaushi producer from Idaho, said he appreciated the entire convention because it was a representation of leaders in the Akaushi industry that are seeing the benefits of the breed for what they are — quality, flavor and health benefits — without any apparent loss of production.

Dave Myklegard and his wife Diane Davis Myklegard also from Idaho said it was enlightening to learn more about the history of the breed itself and its potential here in the United States. “The beef is one of a kind in its quality, flavor, taste and texture. The health factors were also impressive with lower amounts of the LDL cholesterol.

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This is a new breed for our family and we appreciate learning about all the facets of it’s industry.”

Friday was a casual day of golf and resort activities ending with a Tradeshow Reception and a “Taste of Akaushi Dinner”.

Saturday started early with a welcome from Bubba Bain, Executive Director of the American Akaushi Association and an opening prayer from Austin Brown II. Colin Woodall from the NCBA, talked about the “Post Election analysis and its Impact on Cattlemen”, Matt Cherni, DVM followed with his assessment of “Managing Risk in Beef Production without CME”, Cassie Webb, with her unique perspective, described how her belief systems underwent a transformation from the media-misinformed views currently shared by many consumers to those which are scientifically ascertained. Dr. Stephen Smith — Texas A&M — reviewed his Akaushi research in

his presentation, “The Importance of Akaushi Beef in the American Diet” and Dr. Keith Bertrand — Univ. of GA — help members understand the importance of EPD’s, “National Genetic Evaluation Programs for Beef Cattle”. Bill Fielding — CEO of HeartBrand Beef — talked about “the Greater Good Of Akaushi” and then lead a panel discussion that included Austin Brown III — producer, Lanny Binger- feeder, Trevor Caviness — packer and Jordan Beeman — distributor. These gentlemen fielded an array of questions from production to consumer expectations.

The Akaushi Beef was served in a variety of ways — Fajitas, Philly Cheese Steak Sandwiches, Barbeque Beef and Sausage, and a beautiful New York Strip Steak.

There were numerous comments on the consistency, delicious flavor and tenderness of the different cuts of Akaushi Beef.

Page 9

WTAMU Marks Historic Scientific Accomplishment with Cloned Calves public-private unique partnership between West Texas A&M University and industry professionals marks a historic milestone utilizing Somatic Cell Nuclear Transfer (SCNT) reproductive technology to create cloned calves. A bull calf produced from a steer was born approximately 90 days ago, and a heifer was born November 3, 2012.

The animals from which these calves were cloned were graded Prime, Yield Grade 1, the highest quality and most sought after animals in the beef industry. The clones will be used to develop a line of cattle that will potentially produce higher value carcasses that reach USDA’s highest grade for carcass quality and yield grade in a shorter amount of time using less feed resources.

The project has certainly leveraged the resources of several entities. The public/private collaboration involves WTAMU’s agricultural science faculty including Dr. Ty Lawrence, Dr. David Lust, Dr. John Richeson and Kelly Jones, a Ph.D. student at WTAMU partnered with scientists from Viagen Inc. as well as Jason Abraham, Todd Stroud and Dr. Gregg Veneklasen.

“This will be a long-term project that will require between three and five years

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to produce significant results,” Dr. Don Topliff, dean of the College of Agriculture, Science and Engineering, said.

“We think this project will also provide us with a model to study other genetic traits beyond quality grade and yield grade that are of high importance to the sustainability of the beef industry.”

Veneklasen added, “The opportunities for new discoveries that this project provides the University and the industry are limitless. This is one of the coolest projects I’ve ever worked on.”

Dr. Dean Hawkins, head of WTAMU’s Department of Agricultural Sciences, oversees the project and said that students at West Texas A&M benefit from the project as well.

“This project is the result of a team of experts working together for a common goal.

The ultimate beneficiary will be our students who are able to be involved in a unique project,” Hawkins said.

Graduate student Kelley Jones, who is the main caretaker of the calves, said there isn’t another school in the country that he could attend and have access to this kind of a project to gain invaluable experience on the cutting edge of science.

“It has been very long hours, but the payoff is going to be unbelievable,” Jones said

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Page 10

Small change$, big returns THE 5 PERCENT EFFECT COMPOUNDS IN YOUR BOTTOM LINE

by MIRANDA REIMAN

hange doesn’t have to be dramatic and sweeping to make an impact.

Bill Rishel, a registered Angus breeder from North Platte, Neb., says little gains in efficiency, functionality and carcass merit all add up.

For easy math, he uses a 100head example.

“As a cow-calf producer, the number one traits for profitability are fertility, reproduction and herd health,” he says.

If an average herd has 90 head survive to weaning, what would five more mean?

“Five additional head, because you had a little more fertility, you had a little better health or management — that’s about a $3,000 bump,” Rishel says.

Calving ease is one easy place to make that gain: “Years ago the only tool we had was phenotype,” he says.

“Today, when you add the genomics into the EPDs [expected progeny difference], we’re a lot further along than ever before in my life.”

Tools are available to pick the

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“right” sires and drive improvements in other areas, he says.

Those 95 calves move on to the industry average 205-day weaning, at 2.5 pounds (lb.) of weight per day of age (WDA).

At just over $1.48 per hundredweight (cwt.), that’s $757.

But what if they gained more?

“That 5 percent increase, along with the five more calves — now you’re talking about some really big money,” Rishel says.

Such a percentage gain in weaning weights means WDA moves from 2.5 to 2.63 lb. That may not seem like much, he says, but figuring in all multipliers moves total calf price to more than $797, and $7,585 to the herd’s bottom line.

A boost in gain and efficiency could show up in the feedyard, too.

Increasing average daily gain (ADG) by that 5 percent would turn 3.4 lb./day into 3.57. On a 600-lb. total gain, that changes the per-head value by just $4.53, but measured on that 95 head it adds up to more than $430.

Feed efficiency can have much more effect, as improving from 6.2 lb. to 5.89 lb. of feed to

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gain a pound of beef, just 5 percent, creates a $35/head value difference. That’s $3,357 on the entire herd.

Efficiency and quality can be achieved in tandem, Rishel says, noting one last place to make an improvement: the cooler.

“Using genetic tools to make changes with highly heritable traits, now we can do something that impacts the entire industry,” he says.

Citing an Oklahoma State University sire evaluation study, he says 16 bulls with superior carcass traits added an average of $3.27/cwt. to the carcass value.

“I took that number and applied it to an 850-lb. average

December 15, 2012

carcass weight,” Rishel says. “The added value per carcass was $27.80.”

That’s another $2,641.

“So let’s add this up,” he says.

The greater value from 5 percent improvements at every stop comes to $14,013.65.

“If you calculate that by the number of cows, that’s actually about $140 per cow gained on that operation,” he says. “As a percent of the total carrying cost, that’s a big deal. A very big deal.”

It’s not just an on-paper exercise, Rishel says, noting many top customers who have proven the better-at-every-turn philosophy works.

“They just nail this every time out, due to genetics and their good management. They do everything right.”

Their reward is obvious. With

loads that are more than 60 percent Certified Angus Beef® (CAB®) and Prime, they consistently reap premiums of more than $100 above average.

“For those of us in the seedstock industry, it’s a balancing act to put all of these traits together in one package,” he says, but history shows an ability to move the needle in all areas.

Some of today’s balanced sires are proof of that, he adds.

“We selected those cattle for function and soundness and reproduction, and then when we got in the sire evaluation work, we selected for carcass traits from that population,” Rishel says.

Careful selection of available genetics, tools and management by commercial cattlemen could put the 5 percent factor to work on their bottom lines.

Lou the ox is euthanized at Vermont college Injured animal put down, buried in early morning; second ox’s fate undertermined

by BILL PORTER, www.bostonglobe.com

he veterinarian came before dawn, and Lou the ox was quietly euthanized. The decision by the small liberal arts college in Vermont in early October to slaughter its beloved pair of oxen and serve their meat in the campus dining hall had sparked worldwide outrage.

The euthanasia of Lou, who was suffering from an injury, was performed on the campus farm by a large-animal veterinarian between midnight and daybreak Sunday, according to Philip AckermanLeist, director of the farm and food project at Green Mountain College, in Poultney, near the border with New York State.

“It was hard for him to get around,” AckermanLeist said, adding that with winter approaching things would only get worse. “We wouldn’t want to see him suffer anymore.”

The other ox, Bill, remains at Green Mountain’s Cerridwen Farm. Ackerman-Leist said he was not sure whether Bill would go back to work “as a single ox or not.”

He said Lou was buried at an undisclosed location off campus.

“We decided it was safest to do [the euthanasia] under the cover of darkness,” he said. “With all the publicity and all the threats, we had to protect all the parties involved, including the vet.”

The storm of protest, most of it from outside the college, was directed at students, faculty, and administrators, and some of it was threatening.

Online alerts and petitions had pleaded for the animals to be sent to a sanctuary.

Sunday’s announcement about the 11-year-old oxen, who had become a symbol of the college’s farm program, was sent to students, faculty and staff at Green Mountain, Kevin Coburn, director of communications, said in an emailed media advisory.

The college seeks to teach and model smallscale farm production that is ecologically, economically, and socially sustainable.

“It’s unfortunate that we couldn’t handle the situation the way we thought was best because of outside pressure,” said senior Alison Putnam, who supported the decision to slaughter the animals.

Putnam is a member of the farm crew, consisting of students and staff, which she said made the initial decision. The administration supported the farm crew’s decision, Putnam said.

Meiko Lunetta, a senior who also supported the decision to slaughter the oxen, maintained that even some of those students who had disagreed still defended the college.

“A lot of students are feeling frustrated,” she said Sunday. “How is this better? It’s just upsetting.

It didn’t have to happen this way.”

Ingrid E. Newkirk, president of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, or PETA, which had posted an online alert about Bill and Lou, said,

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“That’s excellent,” when informed of the college’s decision Sunday.

“I think that they will receive high marks from pretty much anyone who has a heart. If [Lou] was euthanized due to an injury, then that’s understandable.”

Veganism is the Next Evolution Sanctuary in Springfield, Vt., had offered to take the oxen.

“If you narrow the scope of options to two, both involving death, then euthanasia is definitely more merciful,” said sanctuary cofounder Miriam Jones, who said that at least one other sanctuary, Farm Sanctuary in Watkins Glen, N.Y., had also offered to take the oxen. “But we do not agree that only two options existed for Lou.” Earlier this year, Lou sustained a recurring injury to his right rear hock and could no longer work. Consultations with veterinarians in the summer and fall “have consistently indicated that Lou’s condition would not improve and that his quality of life would only continue to diminish,” Coburn said.

Green Mountain said its decision to slaughter the animals was postponed until after the start of the fall semester so the full college community could have an opportunity to contribute to the discussion.

“The college’s original timetable to process Lou and Bill for meat in October was disrupted by outside organizations seeking to appropriate the images of the oxen for extremist agendas, including the abolition of animal agriculture in Vermont,” Coburn said.

He added: “These groups also harassed and threatened local slaughterhouses, making it impossible for them to accept our animals and carry out our decision expeditiously. One of the few Animal Welfare Approved slaughterhouses in the area was forced to cancel our appointment as a result of these hostile threats.”

An online petition asking for the oxen to be sent to a sanctuary and sponsored by the Green Mountain Animal Defenders had collected 50,000 signatures as of Sunday.

Among those who signed it, Joslin Murphy of Brookline, said that she was heartbroken about Lou but that it was “certainly better than the college’s original proposal.”

But she worried about Bill.

“I suspect that the surviving ox will suffer deeply from the loss of his partner,” she said. “Wouldn’t he be much better off in sanctuary, where he can form new bonds with more permanent residents?”

Veterinarian Deborah Cogan, whose practice is in Peabody, said she was relieved that Lou had been euthanized and it was the most humane solution.

“It’s exactly what I would have chosen,” said Cogan, a vegan and PETA member who signed one of the petitions. “There’s no comparison between euthanasia and being taken to slaughter.”

“America’s Favorite Livestock Newspaper”

December 15, 2012

Page 11

Brown: A horse is a horse, of course, of course

by PHIL BROWN, iowastatedaily.com

horse is a horse, of course, of course. Or, at least, so said the theme song for Mr. Ed. People around the country and around the world have very contentious views on what being a horse means, however.

A great many people view horses as inherently different than other livestock, garnering a greater respect than animals such as donkeys and cattle. Just looking at product lines such as “My Little Pony” can attest to this, not to mention claims such as that of New Mexico Attorney General Gary King, who said, “Horses are different and should be treated differently.” King was speaking in regard to a horse slaughterhouse proposal in Roswell, N.M. Horse slaughter, or the harvesting of horse meat for human consumption, strikes a great many people as wrong, in fact. A 2006 Public Opinion Strategies

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poll showed that 69 percent of Americans surveyed did not approve of human consumption of horse meat. The poll also found that 71 percent of those surveyed thought horses were “a part of America’s culture” and should not be treated as livestock.

Horses, historically speaking, were not raised because they make good friends. They were a beast of burden used for travel, as a farming and ranching tool, for sporting events, and yes, even for food.

There have even been some claims that horses are uniquely unsuited for slaughter. As the ASPCA said in a February 2012 press release, the “biology of horses makes them difficult to stun.” Who could argue against such compelling “science”?

Certainly, there were some real problems with horse slaughter in the United States. In 2007, the last remaining horse-processing plant in America was closed down, due to local disapproval

and heavy pressure from national animal rights groups. Until that plant was closed, there was strong evidence for mistreatment of horses in the United States.

Horses all over the nation were underfed, many were not given adequate health care, some were transported inhumanely, and a great many others were generally neglected and abused.

Thankfully, when we finally came to our senses and stopped treating horses like meat, all of this stopped.

Oh wait. It didn’t.

Despite the complete lack of horse slaughter within the United States today, horses are still being mistreated. The Humane Society of the United States acknowledges that with respect to criminal neglect charges, the most common way to take action against animal cruelty, horses comprised 7 percent of cases in 2007, after U.S. horse slaughter was stopped, 6 percent in 2006, and 8 percent in 2005.

Current figures available at

U.S. redraws world oil map he shale-oil boom can help the United States surpass Saudi Arabia as the largest oil supplier by 2020, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA). Such a change could have major ramifications for U.S. politics and diplomacy. In short, the global energy map is being reconfigured due to the resurgence of America as a major gas producer, says the Wall Street Journal.

The IEA is joining other forecasters such as the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and the U.S. Energy Information Administration in predicting the sharp rise in U.S. oil production in the coming years.

■ U.S. oil production is projected to be at 11.1 million barrels a day in 2020.

■ The IEA says natural gas will displace oil as the largest single fuel in the U.S. energy mix by 2030.

Kevin Book, managing director at Clearview Energy Partners LLC, observes that American energy policy is still influenced by the experiences from the 1970’s supply shocks. However, the current reality is the age of energy adequacy.

■ According to an analyst at Raymond James, the question is: will federal regulators allow these exports to materialize?

■ Allowing exports could be politically tricky. The

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crude export ban was designed to ensure U.S. energy security following the Arab oil embargo in 1973.

The current ban will create limitations.

■ The United States could soon be awash in easier-to-process domestic crude oil — with no way to get rid of the excess supply, because U.S. law generally bans crude-oil exports.

■ That would force new investment in refining capacity for lighter, sweeter grades of oil.

■ Nonetheless, to realize America’s full potential as an energy supplier while boosting the economy, it must commit to global markets.

Regardless of the limitations facing export, there is a strong domestic market.

■ Made-in-USA oil is already displacing imports of similar crude from West Africa, and the market for it could be saturated as early as 2013.

■ Within a decade, the IEA forecasts U.S. oil imports will fall by more than half, to just 4 million barrels a day from 10 million barrels a day currently.

OPEC will continue to be the powerhouse of global production, the agency said, but a growing portion of its output will go to nations like China and India instead of North America.

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www.pet-abuse.com show that horses comprise 1,096, or 14 percent, of the 7,627 recent cases of animal neglect/abandonment.

This does not mean that the end of horse slaughter in the U.S. necessarily caused a flood of mistreated horses, but it also does not point to horse slaughter as the cause of horse abuse.

Claims that allowing horses to be used for human consumption in the United States encourages their mistreatment and promotes abusive ownership simply have not been proved true.

Yet that is the impetus for the numerous legislative proposals that would legally ban horse slaughter in the United States.

Proponents such as the Humane Society cite numerous cases of mistreatment found while horse slaughter was occurring, commonly while horses were being transported for slaughter.

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Pat Goggins: As I Saw It n November 2011, Patrick K. Goggins was inducted into the prestigious Saddle and Sirloin Portrait Gallery in Louisville, Kentucky, and his portrait hung alongside approximately 350 other portraits paying homage to the greatest leaders to impact the livestock industry since the mid-1700s.

Most of the inductees’ contributions pertained to one particular facet of the industry — they were big in the packing industry, or they had been influential as a knowledgeable college professor, or they had been a star in the show ring, or they had been a noted auctioneer, or they had raised breed-changing seed stock. In that regard, Pat is a bit of an anomaly because during

Such transport does not end with a nationwide ban on horse slaughter, though. Every year horses are transported to slaughterhouses located on the borders of Canada and Mexico, which buy American horses and sell the meat to overseas buyers. Many of these slaughterhouses have been found to use less-thanhumane techniques in killing their stock.

That would be a very good reason to argue against slaughterhouses in the United States, except any slaughterhouses here would be regulated by our government. Any instances of inhumane practices could actually be addressed, as they cannot be currently.

All occurrences of animal abuse are terrible, terrible things.

Animal cruelty is a disgusting reality, but it is just that — a reality. Banning the human consumption of horse meat and the regulated slaughter of horses does not change it.

his life he has been one of the West’s best known purebred auctioneers, the owner of three Montana auction yards, a wellknown rancher with several large Montana ranches, an Angus seed stock producer of merit, and the publisher of several wellread weekly ag newspapers in which, as the spokesman for America’s cow-calf producers and independent feeders, he has written more than 5,000 weekly columns. In his spare time, he did his civic duty as a bank board director, held various officer slots in several state and national organizations, volunteered his time for the benefit of 4-H and FFA, made numerous trips to Washington, D.C. on behalf of the livestock industry, attended

Mass every Sunday, and raised six fine children.

As the industry giant Les Leachman wrote, “The following biography merely reflects the high points of a career of a selfmade successful man, proving that the American dream is alive and well in these United States.”

Filled with numerous photographs and newspaper clippings reflecting Pat’s full and productive life over eight decades, the 500-page hardbound book has been assembled painstakingly by Pat’s editor Linda Grosskopf.

Available early in 2013, the book is being presold for $50 postpaid.

To get your copy, make your check out to: Western Ag Reporter and mail it to Book Order, PO Box 30758, Billings, MT 59107, or call us 406/259-4589 with your credit card number.

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Page 12

Shorthorns name National Champions at NAILE

Valley Farmers Versus Killer Whales

by MOLLY SAMUEL, www.kqed.org

he federal government is reviewing whether a population of killer whales should be taken off the endangered list. But there’s a twist: the review was sparked by a legal challenge from Central Valley farmers.

You might not expect farms in California to be concerned with killer whales off the coast of Washington.

“We’re awfully surprised by it, too,” says Damian Schiff. “But it’s a connection the federal government itself has already made.”

Schiff is an attorney with Pacific Legal Foundation, a group that advocates for less government regulation. He filed the petition to delist southern resident killer whales — a population that lives in the Puget Sound.

“The Feds reason that water projects in the Delta negatively affect salmon and other fish species that are prey for this

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killer whale population,” Schiff explains.

The southern resident killer whales are the only orcas protected by the Endangered Species Act. Schiff says, recent research indicates that they’re not genetically distinct from the larger group of Pacific Ocean killer whales, so they shouldn’t be treated differently.

Brian Gorman, of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, says the agency’s decision to review the killer whale’s status doesn’t mean they’ll delist them.

“It’s part of a process,” he says.

“We’re going to spend the next nine months looking at it very carefully, and then we’ll make a call about whether we should continue with an extra step.”

If the killer whales were removed from the endangered species list, they would still be protected by the Marine Mammal Protection Act.

horthorn exhibitors hit the green chips once again for the North American International Livestock Exposition (NAILE) in Louisville, Kentucky, which also served as the National Shorthorn Show this year.

Cody Lowderman, Macomb, Illinois, and associate judge Bob Goble, Alto, Michigan, evaluated 347 head — 292 females and 55 bulls, for the prestigious event.

Grand and Junior Bull Calf Champion distinction was awarded to SULL Red Knight 2030 ET, exhibited by Sullivan Farms, Dunlap, Iowa. The February 2012 bull calf is sired by CF Solution X ET. Reserve Grand and Junior Bull Champion was awarded to CF BCL HBO X ET, exhibited by WHR Shorthorns, Van Alstyne, Texas; Robinett Family Cattle, Jay, Okla.; and Simon Farms, Rockford, Ohio.

The March 2011 bull is sired by WHR Sonny 8114 ET.

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Senior Champion Bull: SULL Master of Rose, exhibited by Sullivan Farms.

Reserve Senior Champion Bull: R-C WG Damn Proud, exhibited by RC Show Cattle, Eaton, Ohio.

Reserve Junior Champion Bull: PB Ice Berg ET ET, exhibited by Kolby Berg, Osage, Iowa.

Intermediate Champion Bull: DMW Diamond Mine ET, exhibited by DAV-MAR-WAY Farms, Jerseyville, Ill. Reserve Intermediate Champion Bull: MAV Bayou 136Y, exhibited

by Ashley D. Vogel, Hartley, Iowa.

Senior Bull Calf Champion: CVF Imax 106Y, exhibited by Aidan Raab, Markle, Ind. Reserve Senior Bull Calf Champion: GJD Swagger, exhibited by Jerry Duvelius & Family, Hamilton, Ohio.

Reserve Junior Bull Calf Champion: SBF Hennessy 32Z, exhibited

by Duane B. Truss Family, Wabash, Ind. Early Spring Bull Calf Champion: KOLT-KLUG Premium BSH 71, exhibited by Reece Klug, Columbus, Neb. Reserve Early Spring Bull Calf Champion: M&E Major 844 ET, exhibited by M & E Shorthorns, Winnsboro, Texas.

Late Spring Bull Calf Champion: CF Focus X, exhibited by Ben Warfield, Marriottsville, Md. Reserve Late Spring Bull Calf Champion: Little Cedar Verlander ET, exhibited by Little Cedar Cattle Company, Beaverton, Mich.

Female Divisions: Junior Champion Female: SS Dream Lady 161 ET, exhibited by Samantha Marie Schrag, Marion, SD. Reserve Junior Champion Female: CF Caroline 157 RD X ET, exhibited by Jacob Boyert, Seville, Ohio.

Intermediate Champion Female: CF Revival 1105 BS X, exhibited by NP Farm, Pekin, Ind. Reserve Intermediate Champion Female: SULL Mona Lisa Wow ET, exhibited by Renee Lock, Avon, Ill. Senior Heifer Calf Champion: GCC Lucky Sunshine 153 ET, exhibited by Lauren Corry, Xenia, Ohio.

Reserve Senior Heifer Calf Champion: V8 CF Mona Madness 1124, exhibited by Cole Whisman, Illinois City, Ill. Junior Heifer Calf Champion: CYT Isobella CY 2107 ET, exhibited

by Kailey Davis, Glenville, Minn.

Reserve Junior Heifer Calf Champion: SULL Crystal's Tootie ET, exhibited by Sara Rose Sullivan, Dunlap, Iowa.

Early Spring Heifer Calf Champion: CF Countess 252 TP X ET, exhibited by Cole A. Clanton, Bucyrus, Kan. Reserve Early Spring Heifer Calf Champion: CYT Rayflower 2130 ET, exhibited by Joshua Darbyshire, Morning Sun, Iowa.

Late Spring Heifer Calf Champion: KOLT Gentry 363 ET, exhibited

by Nathan Kolterman, Seward, Neb. Reserve Late Spring Heifer Calf Champion: CF HHF Margie 2106 HC X ET, exhibited by Simon Farms.

t DigesClassifieds COME TRAIN WITH THE CHAMPIONS. Join the financially rewarding world of auctioneering. World Wide College of Auctioneering. Free catalog. 1-800/423-5242, www.worldwidecollegeofauctioneering.com.

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Grand and Senior Champion Female distinction was awarded to CF Margie 119 SOL X ET, exhibited by Autumn Robison, Markle, Ind. The February 2011 female is sired by CF Solution X ET and was also named Supreme Champion Shorthorn. Reserve Grand and Reserve Senior Champion Female was awarded to SULL Dream Big 1126 ET, exhibited by William O'Sullivan, Maple Lake, Minnesota. This January 2011 female is sired by WHR Sonny 8114 ET.

To place your Digest Classified ad here, contact RANDY SUMMERS at randy@aaalivestock.com or by phone at 505/243-9515

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“America’s Favorite Livestock Newspaper”

December 15, 2012

TEXAS & OKLA. FARMS & RANCHES

ASA elects Board of Directors, announces awards embers of the American Shorthorn Association (ASA) gathered in early November for the ASA Annual Meeting and National Show held in conjunction with the North American International Livestock Exposition (NAILE) in Louisville, Ky. Among the first order of business at the annual meeting was the election of board of directors. Ed Kruse of Kimball, Neb., and James Freed of Chickasha, Okla., were two members elected to the ASA Board of Directors for a threeyear term. Mike Bennett of Ducor, Calif., was re-elected to the board for a second term and also elected to serve as the Vice President of the ASA. Other returning board members include: Les Mathers, Mason City, Ill., president; Ricky Guidry, Bell City, La., executive director; Billy Zack Taylor, Salem, Ky., director;

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Lynn Nelson, Albert Lea, Minn.; Mark Gordon, Middletown, Ill., director; and Marty Loving, Pawnee Rock, Kan., director.

Two retiring ASA board members were recognized during the National Shorthorn Show on Monday, November 12. Boyd Strope of O’Neil, Neb., and Virginia Davis of Franklin, Ind., were recognized for their dedicated service to the ASA from 2006 through 2012.

One of the most prestigious awards announced every year during the National Show and Annual Meeting is the Herdsman of the Year award. A trophy belt buckle is presented to the winner in memory of Lawrence Grathwohl. Jess Recknor of Cyclone Trace Cattle Company in Clarion, Iowa, was voted this year's recipient by fellow Shorthorn breeders.

The Century Club award was also announced during the

National Show between the bull and female shows. The award recognizes breeders who have registered over 100 head of Shorthorns in the past year.

The following breeders were recognized for their achievement: Loving Polled Shorthorns, Pawnee Rock, Kan.; Sullivan Cattle Company, Dunlap, Iowa; WHR Shorthorns, Van Alstyne, Texas; Jungels Shorthorn Farm, Kathryn, N.D.; Byland, Loudonville, Ohio; EA-RA-BA-H Farm, Liberty, N.C.; Peak View Ranch, Inc., Fowler, Colo.; Sneed Shorthorns, Sedalia, Mo.; J. Phillip Bowman & Family, Greens Fork, Ind.; Keith H. Lauer, Abilene, Kan.; Cyclone Trace Cattle Company, Clarion, Iowa; JDMC Cattle Company, Renville, Minn.; Hugh W. Moore, Jr. & Sons, Jerseyville, Ill.; Martindell Shorthorns, Hardyville, Ky.

THE LIVESTOCK MARKET DIGEST

Farms & Ranches

Agrilands REAL ESTATE

541/473-3100

Real Estate GUIDE To place your Real Estate Guide listings, contact RANDY SUMMERS at 505/243-9515 or at randy@aaalivestock.com

www.agrilandsrealestate.com

Missouri Land Sales

JOE STUBBLEFIELD & ASSOCIATES 13830 Western St., Amarillo, TX • 806/622-3482 Cell 806/674-2062 • joe3@suddenlink.net Michael Perez Assocs Nara Visa, NM • 575/403-7970

AGUA NEGRA

RANCH

16,400 Deeded Acres Santa Rosa, New Mexico ❙ Water Rights (Ditch & Sprinkler) ❙ Extensive Improvements ❙ Pre-Conditioning Facility ❙ 3 Additional Houses ❙ Rolling Hill Country ❙ Sub-Irrigated Meadows ❙ Headquarters is a Historic Stagecoach Stop ❙ Deer and Antelope Hunting ❙ Indoor Arena ❙ Outdoor Arena ❙ Horse Stables ❙ Horse Walker ❙ Running Water ❙ Springs

■ 675 Ac. Excellent Cattle Ranch, Grass Runway, Land Your Own Plane: Major Price Reduction. 3-br, 2ba home down 1 mile private land.

New 40x42 shop, 40x60 livestock barn, over 450 ac. in grass. (Owner runs over 150 cow/calves, 2 springs, 20 ponds, 2 lakes, consisting of 3.5 and 2 ac. Both stocked with fish. Excellent fencing. A must farm to see. MSL #1112191

Call for Price www.vista-nueva.com

Joe Priest Real Estate 1205 N. Hwy 175, Seagoville, TX 75159

972/287-4548 • 214/676-6973 1-800/671-4548 • Fax 972/287-4553 joepriestre.net • joepriestre@earthlink.com

Cell: 417/839-5096 1-800/743-0336 MURNEY ASSOC., REALTORS SPRINGFIELD, MO 65804

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REAL ESTATE COMPANY

TOM SIDWELL Associate Broker

We may not be the biggest, the fanciest or the oldest but we are reliable and have the tools.

O: 575/461-4426 C: 575/403-7138 F: 575/461-8422 E: nmpg@plateautel.net www.newmexicopg.com 615 West Rt. 66 Tucumcari, NM 88401

6221 QR AL Tucumcari, NM. 3 bedroom brick home with 80± acres is located 5-1/2 miles East of Tucumcari. Of the 80± acres, 50± acres has Arch Hurley Conservancy District surface water rights. Barn and guest house. Price $275,000.

Pajarito Farm. There is a total of 73.90± acres. Of the 73.90± acres, there is 40.45± of Arch Hurley surface water rights. Live water on this property, the Pajarito creek. Wildlife, whitetail and mule deer, wild turkey. Tucumcari, NM. Price $120,000.

Western Drive Stables. 24 years established Horse Motel, very nice and well maintained property. There is a home, 3,000 square foot barn with stalls and 4.20± acres. The stalls are very nice. There are stalls with run/semi-covered and boxed stalls and turnouts.

Tucumcari, NM. Price $350,000.

To place your ad, contact Randy at 505/243-9515 or at randy@aaalivestock.com

10,000± ac., large lake w/permits for dam and right-to-impound in place to add tremendous esthetic quality to the ranch together w/hunting, boating, fishing and commercial and residential development potential. Please call for details!

CAPITAN FOOTHILLS RANCH: A working ranch on an all weather road w/excellent homes, barns, pens, livestock water and fences.

4,822± ac. deeded, 18,942± ac.

BLM, 1,800± ac. State Lease and 160± ac. uncontrolled nestled in the foothills of the Capitan Mountains with rolling hills, canyons and large valleys.

Check our websites for info on this property and many others.

1301 Front Street, Dimmitt, TX 79027 Ben G. Scott/Krystal M. Nelson – Brokers 1-800/933-9698 day/night www.scottlandcompany.com • www.texascrp.com

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WORKING COW and HORSE RANCHES CUT OVER TIMBER LAND, LAKES and STREAMS

Campo Bonito, LLC RANCH SALES P.O. Box 1077 • Ft. Davis, Texas 79734

Write or call for free publication:

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RICHARD RANDALS Qualifying Broker

LOW ROLLING PLAINS OF TEXAS: TO BE SOLD and CLOSED

BY DECEMBER 31ST, 2012

1-800/343-4165 E-mail: deuprees@yahoo.com

PAUL McGILLIARD

■ 483 Ac., Hunter Mania: Nature at her best. Don’t miss out on this one. Live water (two creeks). 70+ acres open in bottom hayfields and upland grazing. Lots of timber (marketable and young) for the best hunting and fishing (Table Rock, Taney Como and Bull Shoals Lake) Really cute 3-bd., 1-ba stone home. Secluded yes, but easy access to Forsyth-Branson, Ozark and Springfield. Property joins National Forest. MLS#1108090

Selling New Mexico

Scott Land co.

Ranch and Farm Real Estate

See all my listings at: paulmcgilliard.murney.com

■ NEW LISTING, 327 ACRES: Cattle/horse ranch. Over 225 acres in grass. 3/4 mile State Hwy. frontage. Live water, 60x80 multi-function barn.

2-bedroom, 1-bath rock home. Priced to sell at $1,620 per acre. MLS #1204641

CHARLES BENNETT

575/356-5616

SO LD

DAVID P. DEAN Ranch: 432/426-3779 • Mob.: 432/634-0441 www.availableranches.com

JACK HORTON

INTEREST RATES AS LOW AS 3%. PAYMENTS SCHEDULED ON 25 YEARS

• 735 acres Paris, Texas, excellent pasture, paved road frontage, huge lake, mansion home. $2,750,000.

• 274 acres in the shadow of Dallas. Secluded lakes, trees, excellent grass. Hunting & fishing, dream home sites. $3,550/ac. Can add 300 more acres, only 30 miles out of Dallas.

• 98.2 acres Dallas Co., $375,000. SOLD • 256 Acre Texas Jewel – Deep sandy soil, highrolling hills, scattered good quality trees, & excellent improved grasses. Water line on 2 sides rd., frontage on 2 sides, fenced into 5 pastures, 5 spring fed tanks and lakes, deer, hogs & ducks. Near Tyler & Athens. Price $1,920,000.

Make us an offer!

• 146 horse, hunting cattle ranch N. of Clarksville, TX. Red River Co. nice brick home, 2 barns, pipe fences, good deer, hogs, ducks, hunting. PRICE REDUCED to $375,000.

• 535 ac. Limestone, Fallas, & Robertson counties, fronts on Hwy. 14 and has rail frontage water line, to ranch, fenced into 5 pastures, 2 sets, cattle pens, loamy soil, good quality trees, hogs, and deer hunting. Priced reduced to $1,750 per ac.

• 10 Wooded Acres with a 6-bedroom, 3.5 bath and a 2-car garage and shop for $185,000, owner financed with 10% cash down.

• 134 acres Wortham, Texas, $1,750/ac. Hunting and cattle. Fronts FM Hwy.

Page 13

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BOTTARI REALTY • WELLS, NEVADA 113 RANCH NEAR PANACE, NEV.: Approximately 632 deeded acres of which approximately 500 acres are irrigated with center pivots and 4 shallow irrigation wells. This area of Nevada typically gets around 7 tons per acre per season. The property has exceptional improvements including a 4,000-ton hay barn; a 3,000+ sq. ft. home on one level with covered porch full-around. Other improvements include a concrete horse barn with stalls inside and out; a large shop/storage building; a large garage near home—large enough to house a motor home and approximately 8 cars; a 400-head feedlot with concrete bunks, scales and chutes and alleys. Price: $2,800,000 For more information and other properties, check out our website at www.bottarirealty.com

OUT WEST REALTY NETWORK AFFILIATE

Bottari Realty PAUL D. BOTTARI, BROKER www.bottarirealty.com • paul@bottarirealty.com 775/752-3040 • Cell: 775/752-0952 • Fax: 775/752-3021 Bottari Realty & Associates • 1222 6th St., Wells, NV 89835

Livestock Market Digest

Page 14

National Western Stock Show Commits to Stay in Denver ational Western Stock Show leaders, joined

by Mayor Michael B. Hancock and other city officials, announced today they are committed to keeping the iconic and century-old Stock Show in Denver.

“Denver has been the Stock Show’s beloved home for 106 years, and our complex is a timehonored destination for visitors worldwide,” said Paul Andrews, the National Western’s President and CEO. “We want to enrich and educate the lives of millions for another century, and we believe our future exists right here where we began. By working with our dedicated city partners, we will find the best option to create a sustainable future for the world’s greatest stock show.”

The National Western’s intention is to remain at its current location in Denver’s Elyria-Swansea neighborhood and explore forging stronger part-

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nerships and greater coordination with Art & Venues Denver and VISIT DENVER. “We thank the National Western for its dedication to our city and those who have supported the show throughout the years,” Mayor Hancock said.

“The National Western is a cherished cultural and economic asset that enriches our Western heritage.

We stand at the ready to help them find a sustainable model that will deliver long-term success to the complex and the surrounding neighborhood.”

Last winter, Mayor Hancock requested detailed information from the National Western, including business, financial and facilities plans, to better understand the National Western’s current and future needs. Following receipt of those documents, the Mayor asked the Denver Urban Renewal Authority to provide an independent review of the data.

Antibiotic Use, Resistance Calls for Collaborative “One Health” Approach he message emerging from the “A One Health Approach to Antimicrobial Use & Resistance: A Dialogue for a Common Purpose” symposium, held in mid November in Columbus, Ohio, was clear: Antibiotic use and antimicrobial resistance are the responsibility of all communities — human health, animal health and environmental health — and solutions will require collaboration of these health communities.

At the end of the three-day symposium, which was coordinated by the National Institute for Animal Agriculture, presenters and participants agreed on numerous points: ■ Antibiotics dramatically improve human, animal and plant health, and increase life expectancy.

■ Antimicrobial resistance is not going to go away. A historical look at antimicrobial resistance shows antimicrobial resistance is not a new phenomenon but existed before mankind.

■ The topic of antimicrobial

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resistance can be subtle, complex, difficult and polarizing. It is more than science and evidence.

It’s about politics, behavior, economics and conflicting opinions.

Antimicrobial resistance is not merely a consequence of use; it’s a consequence of use and misuse — and each community — animal health, human health or environmental health — is responsible for antibiotic stewardship.

■ The finger pointing and blame for antimicrobial resistance need to end. The time has come to work together.

“Finding a solution is not about compromise; it’s about reaching agreement,” stated Dr. Lonnie King, Dean of The Ohio State University College of Veterinary Medicine. “We (animal health, human health and environmental health communities) need to focus on interests and not positions and initiate options for mutual gain. We need to find common ground — something we all can agree to when we disagree on other issues.”

Topics addressed by the 13 animal health, human health and environmental health experts during the symposium covered: ■ Overview of antibiotic use ■ History of antimicrobial resistance ■ Antimicrobial resistance

surveillance ■ Environmental contamination with antimicrobial residues ■ Interplay of animal and human antimicrobial resistant populations ■ Nationally funded antimicrobial resistance research projects ■ Alternatives to antibiotics in agriculture “The symposium’s four interactive sessions allowed presenters and attendees to provide input to questions that moved the group to consensus,” stated Dr. Leah Dorman, co-chair of the symposium, and Director of Food Programs at the Ohio Farm Bureau.

“In the end, it was extremely evident that the dialogue among the animal health, human health and environmental health communities is critical to a solution.”

“A ‘One Health’ approach is important. Plus, we need think in a much larger dimension.”

Dr. Jennifer Koeman, symposium co-chair and Director of Producer and Public Health with the National Pork Board, agreed, adding, “It’s about mutual gain and not a victory for any one community.”

Presentations by symposium speakers will be available at www.animalagriculture.org. A white paper is being developed and will be available online at NIAA’s website as well.

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December 15, 2012

Global Irrigated Area at Record Levels, But Expansion Slowing n 2009, the most recent year for which global data are available from the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), 311 million hectares in the world was equipped for irrigation but only 84 percent of that area was actually being irrigated, according to new research conducted by the Worldwatch Institute for its Vital Signs Online service (www. worldwatch.org). As of 2010, the countries with the largest irrigated areas were India (39 million hectares), China (19 million), and the U.S. (17 million), writes report author Judith Renner.

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major agricultural producers (particularly India, China, and the United States) are also the ones responsible for the highest levels of depletion.

Another problem with pumping water from aquifers and redirecting flows for irrigation is the impact on delicate environmental balances. Salinization occurs when water moves past plant roots to the water table due to inefficient irrigation and drainage systems; as the water table rises, it brings salts to the base of plant roots.Plants take in the water, and the salts are left behind, degrading soil quality and there-

Salinization occurs when water moves past plant roots to the water table due to inefficient irrigation and drainage systems; as the water table rises, it brings salts to the base of plant roots.

The irrigation sector claims about 70 percent of the freshwater withdrawals worldwide. Irrigation can offer crop yields that are two to four times greater than is possible with rainfed farming, and it currently provides 40 percent of the world’s food from approximately 20 percent of all agricultural land.

Since the late 1970s, irrigation expansion has experienced a marked slowdown. The FAO attributes the decline in investment to the unsatisfactory performances of formal large canal systems, corruption in the construction process, and acknowledgement of the environmental impact of irrigation projects.

The increasing availability of inexpensive individual pumps and well construction methods has led to a shift from public to private investment in irrigation, and from larger to smaller-scale systems. The takeoff in individual groundwater irrigation has been concentrated in India, China, and much of Southeast Asia.

The idea of affordable and effective irrigation is attractive to poor farmers worldwide, with rewards of higher outputs and incomes and better diets.

“The option is often made even more appealing with offers of government subsidies for energy costs of running groundwater pumps and support prices of irrigated products,” said Renner, a senior at Fordham University in New York. “In India’s Gujarat state, for example, energy subsidies are structured so that farmers pay a flat rate, no matter how much electricity they use. But with rising numbers of farmers tapping groundwater resources, more and more aquifers are in danger of overuse.”

If groundwater resources are overexploited, aquifers will be unable to recharge fast enough to keep pace with water withdrawals. It should be noted that not all aquifers are being pumped at unsustainable levels – in fact, 80 percent of aquifers worldwide could handle additional water withdrawals. One troubling aspect of groundwater withdrawals is that the world’s

fore the potential for growth.

A potentially better alternative is drip irrigation, a form of micro-irrigation that waters plants slowly and in small amounts either on the soil surface or directly on roots.Using these techniques has the potential to reduce water use by as much as 70 percent while increasing output by 20-90 percent. Within the last two decades, the area irrigated using drip and other micro-irrigation methods has increased 6.4-fold, from 1.6 million hectares to over 10.3 million hectares.

With predictions of a global population exceeding 9 billion by 2050, demand for higher agricultural output will put more strain on already fragile water reserves.

Even without the effects of climate change, water withdrawals for irrigation will need to rise by 11 percent in the next three decades to meet crop production demands.Reconciling increasing food demands with decreasing water security requires efficient systems that produce more food with less water and that minimize water waste. Intelligent water management is crucial especially in the face of climate change, which will force the agriculture industry to compete with the environment for water.

Further highlights from the report: ■ The share of the area equipped for irrigation that is actually under irrigation ranges from 77 to 87 percent in Asia, Africa, the Americas, and in Oceania, but is only 59 percent in Europe. More reliable rainfall allows farmers in northern and eastern Europe to rely less on existing irrigation infrastructure than is the case in drier or more variable climates.

■ Worldwide, the most commonly used irrigation technique is flood irrigation, even though plants often use only about half the amount of water applied in that system.

■ India claims the lead in irrigated area worldwide, irrigating almost 2 million hectares of its land using drip and micro-irrigation techniques.

“America’s Favorite Livestock Newspaper”

December 15, 2012

Economists cut U.S. Q4 growth forecasts reporting by LEAH SCHNURR. editing by CHIZU NOMIYAMA, Reuters, www.cattlenetwork.com

orecasters cut their expectations for U.S. economic growth in the fourth quarter, though the labor market was seen holding on to recent improvement, a survey released on recently showed.

Economists expect the economy to grow at an annual rate of 1.8 percent in the current quarter, down from the previous estimate of 2.2 percent growth, according to the Philadelphia Federal Reserve’s fourth-quarter survey of 39 forecasters.

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While that left estimates for gross domestic product for the year unchanged at 2.2 percent, growth in 2013 looked modestly weaker with economists forecasting 2 percent, down from 2.1 percent.

Over the next three quarters, growth was seen averaging 2.1 percent, down from earlier expectations of 2.2 percent.

The unemployment rate was forecast to come in lower than expected, averaging 7.9 percent in the fourth quarter from the previous estimate of 8.1 percent.

The monthly unemployment rate released by the government was 7.9 percent in October.

Still, unemployment was seen stuck at 7.9 percent in the first quarter of next year, and holding at 7.8 percent in the second and third quarters.

Economists raised their forecasts for inflation this quarter with the headline consumer price index seen averaging 2.3 percent, up from earlier estimates for 2.0 percent. For the year, CPI was expected to average 1.9 percent, up from 1.8 percent.

Core CPI, which strips out volatile energy and food prices, was expected to rise by 1.8 percent in the fourth quarter, down from the previous forecast of 2.0 percent.

Alternative enterprises boost farm incomes JOHN MADAY, Managing Editor / Drovers CattleNetwork

lose to a third of U.S. farm households generate income by engaging in off-farm business ventures and on-farm activities independent of commodity production, according to a new report from USDA’s Economic Research Service.

Of the 687,000 farm households pursuing on-farm or off-farm non-commodity businesses, over 290,000 engaged only in on-farm diversification activities in 2007, earning an average of about $14,400 per farm from these activities.

On-farm diversification activities described in the report include: ■ Custom work in which farmers rent out their technical skills and farm equipment to other farm operations.

■ Agritourism such as guided farm or ranch tours and other entertainment services, hospitality services, and outdoor recreation including hunting, fishing, and bird watching.

■ Sale of forest products, such as firewood and timber.

■ Direct-to-consumer sales of food commodities through farmers markets, on-farm stores, roadside stands, and pick-your-own operations.

■ Sale of value-added goods produced on the farm, such as jellies and jams, sauces, and other prepared items.

■ Sale of food commodities through community-supported agriculture buying clubs.

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Family farms involved in on-farm diversification tend to be on the larger end of the scale, averaging over 660 acres, which is twice the average size of farms not engaged in any alternative entrepreneurial activity. Those alternative enterprises do require extra work, and the study shows farm households engaged in on-farm diversification devoted an average of 1.4 full-time equivalents (FTEs) to the total farm operation, almost 50 percent more than an average of 0.9 FTEs for farm households not engaged in such activities.

Type of operation clearly plays a role in determining its ability to engage in particular on-farm diversification activities. For example, custom work generated the largest share of non-commodity income for field crop producers, amounting to almost $1.5 billion in income, compared with $860 million in income for livestock producers from custom work. Livestock producers however, earned almost 60 percent of agritourism dollars in 2007.

On-farm diversification allows some farmers and ranchers to capitalize on their skills and resource base to earn additional income, but offfarm businesses are, on average, more lucrative. In 2007, about 396,000 U.S. farm households operated off-farm businesses. The report refers to these as “portfolio entrepreneur households.” These operations earned incomes averaging $140,200 per year, nearly twice the average of $72,610 for farm households not engaged in alternative income-generating business activities in 2007.

Page 15

Los Angeles City Council endorses ‘meatless Mondays’

by RICK ORLOV, Staff Writer/ www.dailynews.com

rom the City Council that declared war on trans-fats and fast-food restaurants comes the latest way to make residents feel, well, guilty about what they eat.

The Los Angeles council, in a 14-0 vote on recently, adopted a resolution urging residents to adopt a personal pledge to have a “meatless Monday.”

While it does not have the force of law and police will not be checking what you brought to work for lunch, city officials said they hope it will start a trend, make residents healthier and reduce the impact on the environment.

“This follows the ‘good food’ agenda we recently adopted supporting local, sustainable food choices,” said Councilwoman Jan Perry, who has called for a ban on new fast-food restaurants in South Los Angeles to fight obesity.

“We can reduce saturated fats

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and reduce the risk of heart disease by 19 percent,” Perry said.

“While this is a symbolic gesture, it is asking people to think about the food choices they make. Eating less meat can reverse some of our nation’s most common illnesses.”

Councilman Ed Reyes, who joined with Perry in proposing the resolution, said one of his sons has been diagnosed with diabetes.

“The issue is how does a local municipality engage in this and how do we create change,” Reyes said. “If we do it one plate at time, one meal, one day, we are ratcheting down the impact on our environment. We start with one day a week and then, who knows, maybe we can change our habits for a lifetime.”

The proposal was developed by the Food Policy Council, which has a goal of “creating more and better food jobs” and encouraging food companies and small food enterprises as part of a bigger agenda to encourage healthy foods in the city.

Washington Supreme Court hears arguments on water pollution

by STEVE BROWN, Capital Press

awyers for rancher Joe Lemire and the state Department of Ecology argued before the Washington Supreme Court Nov. 13 in a case both sides say could have far-reaching ramifications for farmers and ranchers.

The controversy began in 2003, when Ecology officials first told Lemire to fence off a stream running through his southeastern Washington property to keep his cattle away from it.

At issue is whether that requirement constitutes a “taking” of private property.

Ecology appealed a Superior Court judge’s dismissal of a 2009 state Pollution Control Hearings Board order that required Lemire to avoid the risk of pollution from his 29 head of cattle in Pataha Creek.

Lemire, with the financial and moral support of fellow ranchers and county and state Farm Bureaus, has mounted a legal battle that he said is intended to

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protect the rights of landowners across the state.

“I don’t compromise,” he said after the court hearing. “If I lose, I’m willing to gamble it all. Why not? I have no backup plan.

“There are thousands of people backing us. If we lose here, we all lose,” he said.

Laura Watson, a lawyer from the state attorney general’s office representing Ecology, argued that addressing a substantial potential for water pollution is not a “per se taking.”

When Justice James Johnson repeated the Superior Court judge’s statement that there was no proof of actual pollution, Watson said the state has the authority to take corrective action over potential pollution before it impacts public health.

Lemire’s description of a taking as “the use of property being impacted” has never been upheld in court, she said. The required fencing would have gates allowing the cattle access to other pastures. The ranch also has access to well water, she said.

Speaking for Lemire, attorney James Carmody told the justices the issue is significant to the farming and ranching community, that prohibiting access to a stream “is going to destroy that agricultural undertaking.” http://www.capitalpress.com/content/SBSupreme-Court-water-111312-art

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Livestock Market Digest

Page 16

December 15, 2012

NMSU publication gives strategies for farming during drought conditions s incidences of drought have become more recurrent in the Southwest over the past decade, farmers across New Mexico need to be prepared to effectively cope with it in order to remain productive and profitable.

Since farming in a drought situation is not business as usual, New Mexico State University’s Cooperative Extension Service has released a new publication entitled “Agronomic Principles to Help with Farming During Drought Periods” to give agricultural producers some suggestions to help them develop strategies to cope with drought.

“New Mexico’s climate is normally hot and dry, but drought

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conditions and higher-than-average temperatures can make farming even more challenging.

A variety of strategies can be used to ensure that your farm remains productive during drought,” said John Idowu, NMSU Extension agronomist, who co-authored the publication with Extension specialists Mark Marsalis and Robert Flynn.

Idowu’s research and Extension activities are focused on sustainable field crop production and soil health management in New Mexico.

The publication addresses aspects of planning for drought conditions, such as good planning, scaling back on acreage to be planted, moving away from

water-intensive crops, selecting early maturing and drought-tolerant varieties, using reduced tillage practices, watching out for salinity of soil, and properly scheduling irrigation.

A key point of the strategy is to plan only for the water that you have or are assured of receiving.

“An important consideration is to analyze the economics of the situation since it is different from normal years,” Idowu said.

“The focus should be to optimize your economic returns with the water that is available. Don’t be too ambitious by planting more acreage than your allocated water can support, hoping that the situation will improve

through in-season rainfall.”

Drought is a time to match the water allotment with the size of the area to be planted.

“Calculate the amount of acres that your water allotment can successfully support and limit your production to that acreage,” Idowu said. “Know what the maximum water use for your crop is during the peak water demand time of the season and adjust acres down to meet this demand.”

How the water is applied is also critical.

“If possible, schedule your irrigation during early morning or late evening to avoid evaporation losses,” he said. “However, scheduling irrigation during

these times may not be practical for some production systems due to crop type or logistics of operation.”

Because available water is scarce during a drought, there is a tendency to irrigate without also thinking about leaching the accumulated salts from the soil surface.

“It is important to note that a build-up of salts can occur on the farm if insufficient water is applied to leach out the excess salts,” Idowu said. “Salt accumulation can affect yields and crop quality. To avoid salt accumulation in the surface soil, you should know the salinity level of your soil and the quality of your water that will be used for irrigation and then calculate the leaching requirement along with the crop demands for water.”

Selection of the crop is also a factor to consider, such as moving away from water-intensive crops, and selecting early maturing and drought-tolerant varieties.

“Forage crops such as alfalfa and corn have very high demands for water,” Idowu said.

“In situations with limited water, it becomes difficult to raise these crops with a high level of output.

An alternative is to transition temporarily to crops that consume less water and are more drought-tolerant, such as sorghum and millet.”

The publication has a table that lists various crops, the critical period for irrigation and the crop’s level of sensitivity to drought.

“Early maturing and droughttolerant varieties can also help growers cope with drought,” he said. “It is good to carefully select crop varieties that will mature earlier in the growing season. Although varieties that mature later tend to have higher yield, during a drought the yield advantage may be lost due to insufficient water.”

How the land is worked can also help offset the impact of drought on the plants.

“Compared to conventional plowing and disking, reduced tillage has been shown to help conserve soil moisture and improve soil health,” Idowu said.

“Reduced tillage emphasizes a reduction in the depth and total area of the farmland that is being intensively tilled.”

Many reduced tillage options are available to farmers, such as strip-till, no-till, zone-till, chiseling and permanent beds. The type of reduced tillage that will fit each farming operation will vary.

“Some reduced tillage methods may involve acquiring new tillage tools,” Idowu said. “Therefore, reducing tillage should be seen as a long-term strategy to conserve moisture and improve soil quality.”

To learn more about these topics, the full publication Guide A-147 may be obtained from NMSU’s College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences website at http:// aces.nmsu.edu/pubs/_a/A147.pdf or by ebook at http://aces.nmsu.edu/pubs/ebooks/ _a/welcome.html.