Luckily cattlemen and packers saw the foolishness of their ways and became more consumer oriented. They changed from wanting lean meat to meat that tasted good. All of a sudden, the demand was for choice and prime cattle and premiums were now being paid for such cattle. This was the death knell for the SunLand/Ralph’s program.
Bred To Feed
Then a few years ago I wrote a story about Wulf Cattle, a Limousin breeding and feeding outfit headquartered in Minnesota. This was another very savvy outfit. They saw those nine million dairy cows and realized they produced four million dairy calves a year which are not needed for dairy replacements. Typically, these calves were now heavily discounted. But what if these 4 million head could be turned from Holsteins into Limousin/ Holstein beef machines, producing more tonnage and helping to preserve beef’s market share? That was the idea behind Wulf’s Breeding to Feeding program.
The Wulf family had been in the cattle business for over 60 years when I wrote that story and has been breeding purebred Limousins since the 1970’s. They’ve bought back those Limousin/dairy calves for over 30 years to feed.
Mike Hall, a good friend of mine, fellow judging team member and a retired professor went to work for Wulf in retirement to sell their Breeding to Feeding concept to commercial cattlemen and feeders. In that story a few years ago Hall said, “Wulf Cattle were first cattle feeders before seedstock producers. The late Leonard Wulf chose Limousin over other continental breeds in the early 70’s because they crossed so well with their commercial cattle that were superior in the feedlot and on the rail. They have expanded their
feeding operations from Minnesota to two additional feedyards in Nebraska. They have a onetime feeding capacity of over 50,000 between these feeding locations. Wulf also has cattle on feed in custom feedlots in Texas. Most of their cattle on feed are ‘program cattle’ that are either Natural, NHTC and/ or GAP certified.”
Hall said, “The Wulf operation was built on muscle and the feed efficiency that Limousin brings to a terminal cross. They see dairy cows as an underutilized resource and felt that Limousin would be the ideal beef breed to cross with dairy breeds to produce more of the kind of beef the American consumer demands.
“The idea behind the Breeding to Feeding program is dairymen would use sexed semen on their very best cows to produce their dairy replacements and use beef semen on all lower merit females. Because today’s dairy industry is numbers driven it is possible for a dairyman to rank each of his cows using any one of a number of computer programs. The dairyman would then determine how many replacements he’d need in any given year and breed only that number with sexed semen from the best dairy bulls available. The rest of his cows would be bred to either Wulf Limousin or Lim-Flex® (Limousin x Angus) bulls to increase profits with steers that fit the beef industry’s specs. They recommend using Limousin on Jerseys and LimFlex® on Holsteins.
Fast forward to today and Grimmius is using the same idea with a twist. They buy the very best bulls in the country from Angus breeders that excel in carcass traits and then sell semen from those bulls to dairymen whose cattle they buy to feed.
A Second Source
Rabobank’s senior beef an-
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alyst, Lance Zimmerman, told Ron Hay on Oklahoma Farm Report that beef producers should welcome such beef-ondairy programs because they fill a space that would otherwise be filled by imports. Said Zimmerman, “High consumer demand offsets the ability to find more supply whether through increased feeder cattle and calf imports from Mexico and Canada, increased carcass weights, or just finding ample placements in the feedyards throughout the year.”
Zimmerman continued, “When we saw the January 1 Cattle Inventory Report, the feeder cattle and calf supply outside of feedyards was down more than seven percent year over year. Despite the U.S. beef cattle inventory hitting a 64-year low, strong consumer demand has propelled beef prices to record highs throughout 2024 and into 2025. We’re sitting here today coming out of 2024 with higher per-capita beef consumption than we had in 2022, and we thought that was the cycle high. And yet, we are pushing record-high beef prices—demand is exceptionally good.”
“With beef prices remaining strong,” said Zimmerman, “dairy producers have fine-tuned their reproductive programs to capitalize on these market conditions. Many are utilizing sexed dairy semen on their highest-performing cows to ensure a steady supply of replacement heifers while breeding the rest of the herd with beef semen. This approach results in crossbred calves better suited for beef production, offering improved feed efficiency, enhanced carcass characteristics, and greater market appeal compared to straight dairy steers.”
“Even as more dairy producers adopt beef-on-dairy breeding strategies, overall calf numbers have remained stable. We had a very prolific cow herd last year,” Zimmerman noted, “and I think part of that is due to the beef-on-dairy mix. We’re keeping these cattle viable longer and
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managing them more intentionally with better health, genetics, and overall care throughout the system.”
“Another factor influencing cattle supply is the ongoing decline in veal production. We’ve seen a long-term trend of fewer calves going into veal production, and that’s expedited in recent years. This shift means that more dairy progeny calves are staying in the fed cattle supply, further reinforcing the beef-ondairy movement.”
“The strength of demand has been incredible—beef demand is at 30-year highs,” Zimmerman said. He points out that, “Despite rising prices, beef remains relatively affordable compared to historical income ratios. In 2014-15, the average consumer had to work 14 and a half minutes to afford a pound of beef. In 2024, they only have to work 13 minutes.”
“With consumer demand for beef remaining strong, the beef-on-dairy sector has become a crucial asset to the beef industry. It has also helped dairy farmers diversify by adding a second source of income during a time when milk price margins continue to remain tight.”
According to Taylor Leach writing in Dairy Herd Management, “Beef-on-dairy is the solution to the shrinking U.S. cattle herd. With native cattle numbers still under pressure, beefon-dairy crossbreds are providing the industry with a critical supply of cattle. The U.S. beef cattle herd is the smallest it has been in 64 years, and there’s little indication that rebuilding will happen anytime soon. Persistent drought and strong cattle prices have discouraged beef producers from retaining heifers, further tightening supply. As a result, the beef industry has increasingly turned to dairy farmers to produce beef-ondairy crossbreds to help meet growing demand.”
American Raised
According to CoBank, “The dairy cow is the most studied domestic animal on the planet and the power of that rich data collection is driving genetic change. That may sound like a bold statement, but progress is being driven by the over 100 million dairy cattle records in the database maintained by the Council on Dairy Cattle Breeding. The only other warm-blooded species with larger genetic datasets than dairy cows are humans and lab mice. However, those two species do not have the comprehensive phenotypic dataset that exists in the dairy cattle sector. That dataset drives accuracy for genomic predictions. The data from Holsteins are important to the overall dairy industry because it has the largest dairy cattle population base in the U.S. Last year, 83 percent of dairy bull semen sold in the U.S. came from Holsteins. The Jersey breed represents the next largest group of dairy cows. When combined with Holsteins, the two breeds and crosses among them comprise over 95 percent of the U.S. dairy cow population.”
“The use of gender-sorted semen to create heifer calves from the top half of the herd amplified genetic gains,” according to CoBank. “By 2024, 61 percent of all dairy semen sold in the U.S. was gender-sorted semen. This trend gave rise to the beef semen on dairy cow trend or what some farmers would say,
‘sexed semen on the best and beef semen on the rest.’”
Crossbred beef-on-dairy animals have improved straight Holsteins so much they now offer a high-quality product and with a withering supply of American-raised beef cattle, utilizing the beef-on-dairy animals has meant we needed to import fewer cattle from the far corners of the world.
In general, cattle feeders report 86 to 92 percent of beef-on-dairy cattle are grading either prime or choice and it’s quite common to get 20-30 percent prime! Such cattle are not the best to run in a stocker program but when they hit the feedlot they are not afraid to eat, if anything that’s a problem. They like to eat too much and get too big for packers to hang them. They convert at about 6.5 pounds of feed per pound of gain and because they’ve been weaned from their mother since day one there are fewer health problems, other than liver abscesses that come from being on a high concentrate diet their entire life.
Feeding Into The Pipeline
During the 2024 MILK Business Conference, Dale Woerner of Texas Tech University highlighted the impact beef-ondairy has had on the industry. “Beef-on-dairy crossbreds have added enough value to the beef supply chain that we should never change what we’re doing. We should continue creating these crossbred cattle for the future. I don’t think we’ll ever return to the low value of purebred Holstein steers from the past.”
“Feedlots need these animals – they’re a top commodity,” says Woerner. “Over the years, many feedlots have gained experience in feeding beef-on-dairy cattle, optimizing their efficiency and performance. From a feedlot perspective, these cattle are in higher demand than ever before.”
Woerner says that these beef-on-dairy cattle have one big advantage over straight beef animals: TRACEBILITY. “Even when native cattle numbers rebound, the traceability system in place with beef-ondairy crossbreds will continue to offer a level of accountability that sets these animals apart in the marketplace. I wouldn’t be surprised if feedlots and packers start offering a premium for that kind of information.”
Even when we start rebuilding our beef herd (assuming that we do) Woerner says, “The beef industry will continue to rely on these crossbred animals to meet demand and keep the pipeline full.” ▫
environment! This project is just as stupid and dangerous as Bill Gates’ plan to put up a sky level shield to block out the sun. And he proposed that with a straight face!
Just as I’ve been warning for over thirty-five years, all of this is part of the plot called for in Agenda 21, Agenda 2030, the Green New Deal and the Great Reset. In their words, “A blueprint for the reorganization of human society.” It has nothing to do with protecting the environment. It’s the scare tactic to get you to surrender your liberty to their global control.
Now, America’s farmers are on the front lines of the ground war to enforce that reorganization. Control the food – control our entire society. They are facing powerful forces — from rich corporations set on grabbing federal tax money to build the pipeline — to non-elected appointed government boards that are providing the power of eminent domain to enable those corporations to take any farmland they desire — to ignorant or corrupt elected representatives who refuse to stand up and protect their landowners.
I’ve run up against them all! It all started a couple of years ago when I was sponsored by the John Birch Society to travel to Iowa to address the carbon capture pipeline issue. I learned that the two main corporations pushing to build the pipeline were Summit Carbon Solutions and Navigator CO2 Ventures.
They sent out letters to farmlands in the proposed path of the pipeline, saying “Our goal is to reach voluntary agreements with all landowners along the Project route…” The goal was to get all landowners to sign an easement to “voluntarily” give up their land in the path of the project.
That path of the pipeline is not along the edges of the property where it wouldn’t interfere with the farmer’s use to grow crops. No, the pipeline will meander across the farm wherever the corporations want it – sometimes even as close as 60 feet from the house. And it’s not just a ditch for the pipes. It also includes buffer zones that could be twenty feet wide or more. The farmer loses control of that entire area.
Summit letter went on to explain that, if the farmer refused to voluntarily cooperate- “… if we are unable to do so (voluntarily) we may need to request the right of eminent domain (condemnation) from the (non-elected) appointed Iowa Utilities Board.” In other words, the corporation would use eminent domain to just take the land. Can you imagine how the farmers felt? Who stood with them to protect their land and their livelihood?
Then I was given a copy of a letter written by some Iowa county supervisors. It said the supervisors didn’t support the pipeline, but “There’s Not Much We Can Do. It Looks Like It’s Just Going To Happen.”
That’s when I barnstormed the state and as I spoke to local audiences, I challenged all the county supervisors. “How dare you,” I said. “Who do you represent?” “Who will stand for these citizens? You swore an oath to represent THEM.” Further, I charged that the Iowa Utilities Board was not elected by anyone. And it was not the boss of these elected officials. I challenged them – “YOU COWARDS! When are you going to stand up and serve the people who elected you?”
I was surprised to learn that my speech was recorded by a local activist. He used the recording to make 300 DVDs and passed them out across the state, including to many county supervisors. And then he rented a movie theater and showed my recorded speech to a larger public audience.
The result was that several county supervisors did act. A few counties began to pass property rights protection legislation for the citizens in their individual areas. The legislation
helped to serve as a roadblock to the pipeline, even as other counties took no action. That was a great start in the effort to stand up to the corporations.
Then the battle shifted to South Dakota where many farmers were publicly opposing the pipeline. Again, as in Iowa, I travelled across the state, speaking to local activists, providing ideas on how to stand up and fight to protect their property and farmers. In fact, I have been given credit by some of the local activists for inspiring positive action in their fight.
The fight in South Dakota became vicious as the corporations took action to silence opposition. One farmer, Jared Bossly, was very open in his opposition to the pipeline. He had signs posted on his property specifically notifying the pipeline corporations to not come on his property without his permission.
Summit Carbon Solutions decided to make an example of him to show other farmers what would happen if they openly opposed the pipeline. One day, without warning, as Bossly was out working in his fields, Summit arrived at his house. They began to walk around his property and even entered his barn where he had his farm office.
His wife, scared by these strangers on their land, called Jared, who was working out in the field. In a quick six second phone conversation with her, he said “we will need to get the sheriff involved.”
Jared did not talk directly to the surveyors. But those surveyors reported that he had threatened their lives. HE DID NO SUCH THING. But a judge put a restraining order on him, as if he was a danger to these corporate trespassers.
Then, less than two weeks later, Summit sent another team to his property, complete with armed guards and huge equipment designed to drill 90-foot-
Trump Wavers on Future of North American Trade Deal
BY FRANK FUHRIG / MEATINGPLACE.COM
President Donald Trump left the future in doubt for the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) — a trade deal that he signed in 2020 — after a meeting Tuesday with the newly elected Canadian premier.
At the White House with Prime Minister Mark Carney, a journalist asked Trump about the agreement, which allows a review by the three member countries by July 2026. Trump said the deal, which his first administration negotiated, “is still very effective, but … people haven’t followed it.”
He called USMCA a “transitional step” past the previous
deep holes into his soil. They drove this monster equipment over his soybean and corn crops destroying them. But, by order of the judge, Jared was not allowed to confront or interact with them – on his own property. It is obvious that Summit’s purpose in this intimidation tactic was to scare other farmers from opposing the pipeline on their own land, and to silence their opposition. That tactic backfired! Instead of silencing them, farmers rose up like never before in opposition. Within days, the farmers held a rally at the South Dakota State Capitol, demanding that the governor and state legislature take action to protect their property rights.
The battle has taken a positive turn. Suddenly, Navigator cancelled its plans to build its pipeline. In addition, recently, South Dakota Governor Larry Rhoden signed a bill banning the use of eminent domain for carbon capture pipelines.
Of course, that is a huge victory and should end the threat. But the real problem is Summit Carbon Solutions. It’s planning legal action to stop the ban. Also, Summit is looking for a possible new route around South Dakota to continue the pipeline into North Dakota. Most recently, a new carbon capture pipeline project has been announced to cover Ohio, West Virginia, and western Pennsylvania. For those states, the battle begins anew.
The Carbon Capture Pipeline is a scam that has nothing to do with protecting the environment. It is simply a weapon to take valuable farmland as evil forces work to impose their global agenda on us. The key weapon for stopping the threat is to fight for protection of property rights. Local elected officials must make the determination – who do they represent? – private corporations and non-elected Boards, or the people who elected them? ▫
North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). “We’re going to be starting to possibly renegotiate that if it’s even necessary,” he said. “I don’t know that it’s necessary anymore, but it served a very good purpose … as we got rid of NAFTA.”
In early March, Trump applied 25 percent tariffs on large swaths of Canadian and Mexican imports despite USMCA, citing illegal immigration and drug trafficking emergencies under a national security law. Last year, the two neighbors combined bought more than $2.2 billion of U.S. beef, $3.4 billion of pork and $2 billion of poultry.
Trump later called USMCA “a good deal for everybody.” Carney firmly interjected: “It is a basis for a broader negoti-
ation. Some things about it are gonna have to change, and part of the way that you’ve conducted these tariffs has taken advantage of existing aspects of USMCA.”
In a solo press conference Carney said he had “wide-ranging and very constructive discussions” with Trump and other top U.S. officials. “This is the point at which a serious discussion begins,” he said.
Carney said they would meet again in June when Canada hosts the Group of Seven Summit in Kananaskis, Alberta. Asked if Trump could negotiate in good faith after violating USMCA, Carney said: “We’ll make that determination over the course of the negotiations.”
Patronize Our Adver tisers
Famed Scholar, Advocate to be a Featured Speaker at AVMA Convention 2025
The American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA) has awarded Temple Grandin, PhD, professor of animal sciences at Colorado State University and a pioneering animal welfare advocate in the livestock industry, with the 2025 AVMA Humane Award.
The AVMA Humane Award is given to a non-veterinarian to recognize achievement in advancing the welfare of animals through leadership, public service, education, research, product development or advocacy. It is one of three Animal Welfare and Human-Animal Bond Excellence Awards presented annually by the AVMA and supported by Merck Animal Health.
“I’m deeply honored to receive the AVMA Humane Award,” said Dr. Grandin. “My goal has always been to improve the lives of animals through practical, science-based methods that reduce stress and promote humane treatment. It’s been a privilege to work alongside veterinarians, educators and industry leaders to bring about lasting changes that benefit animals and the people who care for them.”
Dr. Grandin has spent more than 35 years transforming how animals raised for food are handled in the United States and around the world. Her groundbreaking designs for humane livestock handling systems are used in facilities across the
globe, and her center track restrainer system is now the industry standard in large beef plants across North America. Her work has directly improved the welfare of millions of animals, reducing fear and stress in critical situations.
“Dr. Grandin’s unique understanding of animal behavior and welfare has had an unparalleled impact on the livestock industry, the veterinary profession and the public’s understanding of animal agriculture,” said Dr. Sandra Faeh, president of the AVMA. “She is perhaps the most recognizable public figure in the world when it comes to the welfare of food animals, and for good reason. Her ground-
breaking work has improved the lives of millions of animals and set a standard for what humane care in animal agriculture can and should look like. It is an honor to recognize her with the AVMA Humane Award.”
Diagnosed with autism at an early age, Dr. Grandin did not begin speaking until she was 3 years old. But thanks to early intervention and strong support from her family, she learned to navigate a world that often struggled to understand her. A deep affinity for animals and a unique way of thinking in pictures gave her a special insight into how animals perceive their environments, which would become the foundation of her groundbreaking lifelong work in animal welfare.
Dr. Grandin would go on to earn her PhD in animal science from the University of Illinois and become a leading voice in the push for more humane treatment of livestock. In the 1990s, Dr. Grandin developed one of the first objective scoring systems to assess animal handling and stunning practices in slaughter plants. Adopted by the USDA and major food companies, her comprehensive auditing protocols revolution-
ized animal welfare oversight and helped drive sweeping industry-wide changes. In 1999, McDonald’s Corporation, for example, brought her in to train their food safety auditors on handling procedures, and adopted her criteria to evaluate suppliers and require compliance with humane handling practices, which led to improvements in livestock facilities across the country.
Dr. Grandin has authored hundreds of scientific publications and more than a dozen books, including several bestsellers. Her most recent book, Visual Thinking, explores the unique ways in which differently wired minds—like her own as a person with autism—contribute to science and society. She teaches and mentors students at Colorado State University and is a regular presenter at U.S. and international conferences on animal welfare, agriculture and autism awareness.
Dr. Grandin has served as a member of several AVMA advisory panels, including the Panel on Euthanasia, Panel on Humane Slaughter and Panel on Depopulation. Her work on these entities has helped shape AVMA guidance that continues to encourage humane practices across the veterinary and food animal industries.
A recipient of numerous national and international honors, Dr. Grandin was named a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2018 and the American Acad-
American Gelbvieh Association Welcomes Grace Schlueter as 2025 Summer Intern
The American Gelbvieh Association (AGA) is excited to welcome Grace Schlueter as the 2025 summer intern. Schlueter, a sophomore majoring in Animal Science at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, brings a wealth of experience and enthu-
emy of Arts and Sciences in 2017. In 2010, the same year she was portrayed by Claire Danes in the Emmy Award–winning HBO biopic Temple Grandin, Dr. Grandin was named one of Time magazine’s “100 Most Influential People in the World.” She is the recipient of the Meritorious Achievement Award from the World Organization for Animal Health, the Double Helix Medal by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory for raising awareness and funds for biomedical research, and the 2024 Denver Business Journal’s Outstanding Women in Business Lifetime Achievement Award. Dr. Grandin was named one of USA Today’s 2025 Women of the Year and was elected to the National Women’s Hall of Fame in 2017.
In 2023, Dr. Grandin was awarded an honorary veterinary degree from the Kansas State University College of Veterinary Medicine.
Dr. Grandin will receive the award and be a featured speaker at AVMA Convention 2025 at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center in Washington, D.C., July 18-22. Those interested in attending can visit https://www.avma.org/events/ avma-convention to learn more. ▫
siasm for the cattle industry to her role.
Schlueter grew up on a registered Gelbvieh and Balancer® cow-calf operation near Scribner, Nebraska. Her lifelong involvement in agriculture includes participation in 4-H and FFA programs, where she enjoyed livestock judging and showing. She is also a current member of the UNL Block and Bridle Club and Meats Judging team.
“I’ve always been passionate about agriculture and genetics,” she said. “This internship is an incredible opportunity to gain a holistic view of the beef industry by working with a breed association.”
One of Schlueter’s key responsibilities this summer will be assisting with the American Gelbvieh Junior Association (AGJA) Junior Nationals event, which brings together youth from across the country for competitions, networking, and leadership development.
“I’m most excited about helping organize Junior Nationals,” she said. “It’s such a busy time, but I love the energy and seeing everything come together.”
AGA is committed to the success of the cattle industry which means supporting and fostering opportunities for the future of the industry: the next generation of producers and colleagues.
As a former ag teacher,
AGA
director, shares that creating opportunities for interns and witnessing their professional growth is rewarding for the AGA team and its members.
“Internships provide invaluable hands-on experiences, helping our young leaders explore their passions, build skills, and discover pathways to longterm involvement in an industry that is vital to agriculture and food production,” he says. “These are the future leaders of our industry and helping them discover all that the industry has to offer is an important role we can all take part in.” During her internship, Schlueter will gain exposure to various aspects of the AGA’s operations, including youth outreach, genetic programs, and registration services.
“This internship will help me figure out what I want to do with my future while allowing me to give back to an industry I love,” Schlueter adds. Schlueter will officially begin her internship on May 27, 2025.
Harold Bertz,
executive
Grace Schlueter, AGA Summer Intern
Temple Grandin, PhD
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Ranchers Plead For Help to Fight a Devastating Pest on Its Way Back to Texas
BY MICHAEL MARKS / AGRICULTURE & ANIMALS, TEXAS STANDARD ORIGINAL
Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins, a Texan, spoke to reporters in front of the White House in early May about a dangerous pest on its way back to the United States.
“The New World Screwworm, the NWS for short, is a scourge that is making its way from Latin America up through Mexico,” Rollins said. “And if it hits America, it is going to be absolutely devastating to our cattle industry at the top of the list, frankly to a lot of our industries.”
The New World Screwworm – actually a fly – was a huge problem for U.S. livestock and wildlife until it was eradicated in the 1960s, and pushed south all the way to Colombia. Recently however, the screwworm’s steadily made its way north, back toward the United States. The U.S. needed Mexico’s help to control the screwworm, and it wasn’t getting it.
For years, the U.S. Department of Agriculture has strategically dropped sterilized screwworms from airplanes to prevent their spread. Rollins said that authorities in Mexico held this up with bureaucratic delays and taxes on equipment.
“The sterile flies on the planes that we’re trying to land, that is what will push that New World Screwworm back into the south of Mexico and into southern Latin America,” Rollins
said. “We were having all sorts of trouble landing those planes. They wouldn’t let us land them.”
So Rollins wrote a letter to Julio Berdegué Sacristán, Mexico’s agriculture and rural development secretary, saying that if these delays continued, the U.S. would stop accepting imports of Mexican cattle.
The impasse between the two countries broke shortly afterward. But a bigger problem remains: pushing screwworms back south again before they reach the United States.
Controlling the screwworms
Generations of American ranchers fought screwworms.
“In the past when we did have screwworms, and we’re going back to the 1960s, ’70s, I remember reading about cases in the Dakotas,” said Max Scott, a professor of entomology at North Carolina State University.
Their screw-shaped larvae burrow into the sensitive spots of mammals, causing disease, infection and death.
“This is a critter that we don’t want back in the U.S.,” said David Anderson, a livestock professor and extension economist with Texas A&M University. “If you have livestock, you’re going to be out there all the time checking your animals for any wound. … I think would be a pretty devastating thing if we were to get it back.”
A Texas entomologist named Edward Knipling was one of the researchers who made a major
breakthrough in screwworm control, called the sterile insect technique.
Since female screwworms mate only once, Knipling realized he could collapse their population by releasing sterilized male screwworms. Labs in Kerrville and Mission sterilized billions of screwworms over the second half of the 20th century with nuclear radiation.
Over the decades, wave after wave of sterilized screwworms pushed the insects all the way to Panama’s border with Colombia. The barrier is maintained by a joint venture between Panama and the United States called COPEG, which conducts air-drops of sterile insects and on-the-ground inspections. It’s saved an untold number of animals’ lives, as well as billions of dollars.
“The screwworm sterile release program had been very effective for you know, 20 years – longer, maybe,” Scott said.
A renewed threat
In 2022, however, the flies broke through COPEG’s barrier and started to spread north. No one knows exactly why this happened, but the illegal movement of people and cattle, as well as regulators being stretched thin by the pandemic, likely contributed.
“The fly started to spread northward through Panama, up into Costa Rica and Central America and then, the first detection November of 2024 in Mexico,” said Jenny Lester Moffitt, who was in charge of the screwworm program at the time as USDA undersecretary for marketing and regulatory programs. Moffitt was a Biden administration appointee and left the agency in January.
When USDA got word that
screwworms had reached Mexico in November, they temporarily shut down cattle imports, like Rollins threatened to do last week. During that time, the agency installed inspection equipment in southern Mexico and started dropping sterile insects in the country. To keep them from reaching the U.S., Moffitt also realized that they would need more flies.
“Starting in November when we had the first detection in Mexico, realizing that we were going to need to have more flies to release, and we needed to really not just rely on the one production facility that we have in Panama,” she said.
The facility in Panama can produce 100 million sterile flies per week.
“The 100 million flies out of that Panamanian facility are not enough flies to push it back down to Colombia probably in my lifetime. It’s going to take an increased amount of flies,” said Wayne Cockrell, a rancher from College Station who chairs the cattle health committee for the Texas and Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association.
In early April, Cockrell went to Panama with a group of other Texans to see where the flies are made. He was impressed by its size, its staff, and its continuous operation.
“It was absolutely much larger than I anticipated,” Cockrell said. “They have their own water treatment facility, their own sewer treatment facility, backup power. They’re operating 24 hours a day – they can’t have a breakdown and say ‘Oh hey, they’ve ordered the part; it’s going to be here in a week.’”
Push for a US sterilized insect plant
If the plant in Panama shuts
down for any length of time, Texas ranchers’ best tool to fight screwworms goes away. That’s why Cockrell is one of many in the cattle business pushing to get a sterilized insect plant built on this side of the border, as soon as possible.
“We’re trying to put as much pressure as we can on USDA to give us a plan and give us some figures. And that’s not just cattle, that’s all across livestock. I mean this affects the grain farmer in Kansas or Nebraska just as much, because with a reduction in cattle numbers, that’s a reduction in demand for grain,” Cockrell said.
He and other members of the cattle raisers association met with Rollins in a private meeting at the Texas A&M Beef Center last week to discuss the issue. Association President Carl Ray Polk Jr. stressed the need for a new screwworm plant.
“This is not going away. You’re never going to eradicate New World Screwworm. You’re going to push it back. You’re going to put a Band-Aid on it,” Polk said. “But Texas, the United States of America, need a facility, and need a facility quick. You’re talking about 24 to 36 months.”
Polk said that Rollins was receptive to the idea of a new sterile fly facility. He has identified sites in South Texas that might be suitable.
A sterile insect plant can’t just go anywhere. It uses nuclear radiation to sterilize screwworms, which would complicate any review process. It also needs lots of water, a few hundred staffers, and a wide berth from any neighbors who might be offended by its odor (which is “the smell of death,” according to Cockrell). ▫
Spain and Portugal Go Dark
SOURCE: CFACT
Trains froze in place. Traffic lights went dark. Elevators trapped their passengers. Refrigerators shut down. Flights were canceled. Life ground to a halt.
A massive blackout shut down the Iberian Peninsula in late April shortly after Spain announced that it was running on 100 percent “renewable” energy for the first time ever.
Michael Shellenberger wrote, “It was one of the largest peacetime blackouts Europe has ever seen. And it was not random. It was not an unforeseeable event. It was the exact failure that many of us have been, repeatedly, warning lawmakers about for years — warnings that Europe’s political leaders systematically chose to ignore.”
Marc Morano posted this analysis to CFACT’s Climate Depot:
“Before the outage hit, Spain was running its grid with very little of what’s called ‘dispatchable spinning generation,’ which means power plants, like gas or nuclear, that can quickly adjust their output to keep the grid stable... Traditional plants provide this with their spin-
ning turbines, but renewables don’t, making the grid more fragile if you don’t have a way to very rapidly load-balance in the case of an outage. This likely contributed to the outage that hit Spain, Portugal, and parts of France, as the grid couldn’t handle sudden disruptions well.”
“A reliance on net zero energy left Spain and Portugal vulnerable to the mass blackouts engulfing the region, experts said last night.”
Spain’s Socialist government has been letting the Greens have their way. Radicals celebrated as Spain shut down its nuclear and hydrocarbon plants, just when neighbors have been delaying and even increasing nuclear generation.
Spain was forced to import massive amounts of electricity from nuclear-powered France and coal-and-oil-powered Morocco to get its grid back online.
Time and again Europe illustrates how not to manage our energy economy.
Fortunately, as President Trump takes stock of his first 100 days, shutting down the Left’s energy mistakes has been among his finest accomplishments.
Wind and solar are not up to the task of powering our future, but they do have their moments.
A silver lining of the power outage: Spanish cafes dishing out free ice cream...before it melted.
Consumers Push Forward in Whole Foods Beef Case
BY CHRIS MOORE / MEATINGPLACE.COM
Attorneys for a proposed consumer class urged a federal judge in early May to move ahead with class certification in a lawsuit accusing Whole Foods of deceptively marketing its beef as antibiotic-free. The plaintiffs argued that all purchasers were financially harmed by paying a premium for meat labeled “No antibiotics, ever,” which they said was not accurate.
The case references studies from Farm Forward and others showing antibiotic residues in beef sold under labels like “organic” or “Animal Welfare Certified.” Plaintiffs said customers routinely pay up to 20 percent more for antibiotic-free beef.
The court’s decision on class certification could hinge on an upcoming U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Lab Corp v. Davis regarding whether uninjured members can be included in certified classes.
