Livestock “The greatest homage we can pay to truth is to use it.”
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Digest S
MARCH 15, 2012 • www. aaalivestock . com
Volume 54 • No. 3
Going Out Of Business by Lee Pitts
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NEWSPAPER PRIORITY HANDLING
by LEE PITTS
Bureaucrats In Training
– JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
t’s a puzzling conundrum: in this, the most heady period the cattle business has seen in my lifetime, we see more American ranchers than ever sacking their saddles, coiling their ropes and hanging their spurs up on a wall. They’re done with the cow business at a time when it’s never been better. According to Tom Troxel of the University of Arkansas, the total number of US beef cattle has declined 14 of the last 16 years, with 2011 marking the sixth consecutive year of weakening numbers and the longest consecutive decline in history. Our business is shrunk up like a set of salted desert steers held off water and feed overnight. We’ve lost 160,000 ranchers in the last 20 years and the USDA now says there are only 687,540 beef cattle operations left in this country, with 90.8 million cattle and calves. That’s the smallest inventory since 1952. That, my friends, is the very definition of an industry in decline. While this shrinkage has been good for those good operators who have managed to survive, it is not good news for those whose cowboy dreams have died. (We’d argue that it’s not even good news for the survivors.) While beef production is still the largest part of American agriculture, comprising 31 percent of all ag
Riding Herd
“A six inch rain in Arizona is one drop every six inches” receipts, from purely an objective viewpoint, our industry looks like one that is dying a slow death. Here are my top ten reasons that ranchers are quitting the business:
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I’m From The Government And I’m Here to Help. Eastern dudes argue that the number of public land ranchers is inconsequential and that they produce a small amount of our total beef. But as
usual, they don’t see the big picture. BLM and forest lands are merely “hay replacers.” Instead of forking out truckloads of hay to their cattle, the public lands rancher takes them to the mountains or forest for a brief period each year. But the government has cut them back until, for many, it’s not worth the hassle the government gives you. These cuts have meant that the home deeded ground is no longer viable as a cattle operation, and
increasingly they are being turned into ranchettes, wilderness, or wetlands. On top of that the feds are trying to “protect” every bear, mountain lion, wolf and wildflower. They’re protecting everything it seems except the taxpaying rancher. It doesn’t take too many carcasses of young calves that have been eviscerated by federal wolves to get discouraged in a way that makes a person throw up his or her hands and say, “I quit. You win.” Who wants to spend what’s left of their lives fighting with the feds? It’s much easier to sell the deeded ground as a ranchette or private getaway to some rich Silicon Valley billionaire, or turn it into a family vacation spot where the family gathers once a year to talk about the good old days.
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It Isn’t US. Slowly, the American cowboy is being replaced by gauchos and continued on page two
Chipotle Sells Twisted Image of Animal Agriculture American Society of Animal Science says commercial misrepresents real conditions of animal agriculture uring the Grammy Awards broadcast on Feb. 13, Chipotle Mexican Grill aired their popular YouTube video “Back to the Start.” The video contrasts a dismal “factory farm” with cheerful, Chipotle-approved grasslands where pigs run free. In an effort to sell their products, Chipotle misrepresents the real conditions and science behind large scale food production. The Chipotle advertisement rejects the reality that indoor housing and medications are crucial in modern swine production. Darryl Ragland, DVM, PhD, a veterinarian and associate professor of food animal production medicine at Purdue University, said the negative portrayal of antimicrobials in the advertisement misrepresents how antibiotics, vaccines and other medications are used in pig production. “These products are used in a strategic manner to address health issues on most farms and represent a tool and not a crutch,”
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Ragland said. “The push to ban antimicrobial use in animal production is likely to create a welfare issue where we may have sick animals that cannot be medicated because of restrictions on the use of antimicrobials.” In the advertisement, the cartoon farmer rebels against an oppressive factory system by making his barns disappear and having all his pigs forage in an un-fenced area. James Pettigrew, PhD, a swine researcher and professor of animal science at the University of Illinois said outdoor housing systems actually create new animal welfare problems. “I have worked in both outdoor and indoor pig production systems. Like most others who have actually worked in both systems, I do not consider outdoor systems to be more pigfriendly,” Pettigrew said. Pigs are exposed to new diseases when they forage outside. They also bite and injure each other to assert dominance in large groups. “The notion of raising pigs on pasture does not demonstrate good stewardship of the land. The fact of the matter is that pigs are
ome Washington, D.C. grown-ups making mischief have proposed changes to the Fair Labor Standards Act what would forbid youths under the age of 16 from operating tractors on operations other than their own family farms. Are these people nuts? That’s a rhetorical question; of course they are, they’re government bureaucrats. Their job is to stifle ambition, creativity and humanity. Next thing you know they’ll say kids under the age of 21 can’t ride horses without helmets, knee pads, shin guards, a rollover bar, seat belts and training wheels. The proposed changes are in response to a new study that says agriculture is the most dangerous profession. But that’s just because the same government bureaucrats have put most of the loggers and fishermen out of business with their endless regulations. We’re told that the feds are also considering making rules that would forbid kids from working when it gets too hot. My, my, get little Hortense and Farnsworth out of the sun, hand them their sippy cup, blanky, video game and some junk food. And mothers, don’t forget to disinfect with one of those disinfectant wipes you carry in your purse. The kids will be safe that way. And you’ll still be handing them their allowance when they come back to live with you at age 26 because all the jobs have been taken by foreign kids who weren’t nurse-maided and mollycoddled. When I was the age they are talking about I got a job so that one day I could buy my own pickup. And when I got that pickup I knew how to drive because old Mr. Moore let me drive his equally old Fordson tractor to pull the spray rig. Believe me, the only safety device that tractor had was a rear view mirror with Mr. Moore in it, checking on my driving. Occasionally he even let me drive it when he wasn't around, but he later continued on page eight
continued on page nine
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