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LMD June 2023

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Riding Herd Saying things that need to be said. June 15, 2023 • www.aaalivestock.com

Volume 65 • No. 6

4 Legged Tractors LEE PITTS

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aving my syndicated column in numerous farm publications means I get to read all about farming and for many years now I’ve been reading about something called “The Right To Repair.” Farmers know a lot about the subject, but cowboys, not so much. Yet I can easily see how ranchers may one day face the same issues farmers are dealing with now.

A Deere In The Headlights

NEWSPAPER PRIORITY HANDLING

The purpose of this story is not to throw rocks at John Deere and Company because they are a great company making great products and they provide 40 percent of all the tractors and farm equipment used by American farmers! The behemoth did 52.577 BILLION dollars of business in the 12 months ending January, 31, 2023, which represented a 25 percent increase year over year. Of that amount, $7.131 BILLION was profit. Deere and Company has been a leader in developing farm equipment that uses onboard computers and proprietary software that has helped farmers dramatically increase their yields. These days if you buy a new piece equipment from Deere basically what you are getting is a super-computer attached to really big tires. The embedded technology in just the seat of the tractor alone is more complicated than the entire tractor was just 10 years

ago. In one court case it was Deere’s position that while the farmer may have paid for the tractor that wasn’t really for the machine but for the implied license to operate it. From Deere’s point of view, they want to get paid for the miraculous machines they are building and they also don’t want just anyone with a wrench, or some hacker, to either steal their software or mess it up. So, Deere doesn’t want anybody else working on their machines

ics have complained that this gave Big Green a monopoly on repair. After Russian troops stole almost $5 million worth of farm equipment from a single John Deere dealer in the Ukraine, John Deere shut down the equipment remotely, making the machines inoperable wherever they were! The implied message to farmers was if you’re not keeping up with payments Deere can shut down your tractor remotely whenever it wants. Farmers hate being told what they can and can’t do almost as much as ranchers do and it also irritates them that using the embedded technology in their equipment the company can see what the farmer’s yields are. Farmers argue that this real-time information can be sold to others, like commodity traders on Wall Street.

Timing has a lot to do with the outcome of a rain dance. except John Deere dealers using John Deere parts. For several years only Deere dealers had the tools to unlock the computers on their new machines. Crit-

Run Over By A Deere

Some farmers have tried to evade the giant company’s clutches by downloading pirated John Deere software. Farmers also resented paying half a million dollars for a tractor or combine and then not having the right to work on it themselves. They allege it’s just another way for Deere and Co. to make more money because the repair work done in a Deere shop is from three to six times more profitable than selling tractors and genuine Deere parts can be from six to ten times more costly. Farmers also complain that it can cost a thousand dollars or more just to truck a tractor or a combine to the nearest Deere dealership just to clear some codes in the onboard computer. As a result of this ongoing war the price of old farm equipment without any computers has skyrocketed and in many cases that old tractor that a farmer has fixed up just to drive in parades has now been put to use plowing, disking and planting. continued on page 2

Governor Tells Colorado They Will Not Be Getting Any Wolves From Wyoming Colorado is having trouble finding wolves for its reintroduction program scheduled to begin this year. Gov. Mark Gordon says they won’t be getting any wolves from Wyoming. BY MARK HEINZ / COWBOY STATE DAILY

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ith the deadline looming to begin its wolf reintroduction program, Colorado isn’t sure where to get wolves, but it’s clear it won’t be from Wyoming, Governor Mark Gordon said. “Wyoming is opposed to sending Wyoming wolves to Colorado because we carefully and scientifically manage our wolf population,” Gordon said in a statement sent to Cowboy State Daily. “We have target population numbers, and reducing those numbers to support a translocation in Colorado may jeopardize those successful management plans,” Gordon said. “In addition, it is likely that Wyoming wolves may very well desire to return to their home ranges, once again putting them in danger as they would likely traverse unsuitable areas of potential conflict.”

Barking Up The Wrong Tree Under its reintroduction program, the Colorado Parks & Wildlife (CPW) has until December 31, 2023 to start putting new wolves on the ground there. Its remains unclear where those wolves will come from. Colorado is reaching out to several other states, according to a statement from CPW passed along to Cowboy State Daily by agency spokesman Joey Livingston.

“While there have been no ‘formal’ conversations, there have been informal discussions with northern Rockies states, and CPW expects these conversations to begin in earnest if the Final Wolf Restoration and Management Plan is approved today,” according to the agency.

Only So Many States Have Them Colorado would prefer to get wolves from the northern Rockies – Wyoming, Montana or Idaho. However, Oregon and Washington might also have viable wolf populations to draw from. Channel 9News in Denver reported that Montana and Idaho also would likely refuse Colorado’s request for wolves, narrowing the options. And even getting wolves from Oregon or Washington could be doubtful.

Narrowly Approved Plan Colorado’s wolf reintroduction program was initiated by Proposition 114, which barely squeaked by Colorado voters in 2020 by a margin of 50.91 percent to 49.09 percent. Colorado already has one established wolf pack, in North Park in the northwestern part of the state along the Wyoming border. That pack was formed by wolves that migrated from Wyoming, and those wolves already are stirring up controversy having killed numerous livestock animals and dogs, which drew fiery The reintroduction plan calls for 30 to 50 more wolves to be moved to Colorado over continued on page 3

by LEE PITTS

What Were They Thinking?

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hat were those adventurous vagabonds who came west 150 years ago thinking when in just the first 400 miles of their journey from the Platte River to Fort Laramie, they saw 12 graves to the mile documented by shallow graves and crosses made from bedposts, wagon boards and double trees? I don’t know about you, but I’d have given serious consideration to doing a quick about-face and running back home to momma. How did past generations survive without childproof lids on pill bottles or seatbelts in our vehicles? The teeth marks in the rails of the family crib that was painted with lead-based paint are still visible, yet here I am 71 years later and not yet totally demented or deranged. When I think of the busy roads, avenues and streets we darted in and out of on our bikes, not always following our mother’s advice to “look both ways,” it’s a miracle most of us survived. Especially when you consider that our miniature and not fully developed brains weren’t cushioned, insulated and sheltered from our own stupidity by the now-mandated hard hats. Was a life just worth less a couple centuries ago when mothers often gave birth to a dozen or so kids knowing that several of them would die before they reached the age of five from eating lye, falling down wells or from scarlet fever, smallpox, polio, the grip, dropsy, or other diseases that no longer strike fear in households? Were mothers having ‘extra kids’ or ‘spares’ to insure there’d be enough help during harvest, or was their loss just considered ‘shrink,’ as if kids were a steer on the hoof? Did mothers love their kids any less than they do now? What were black slaves thinking when they were put on the auction block and sold like they were cattle or swine. And how did one man ever get it in his head that he had the right to ‘own’ another human being? (Even American Indians owned slaves.) What were those brave young men thinking when they stormed the beaches of Normandy and saw their fellow soldiers being mowed

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LMD June 2023 by Livestock Publishers - Issuu