Livestock “The greatest homage we can pay to truth is to use it.”
MARKET
Digest E
OCTOBER 15, 2011 • www. aaalivestock . com
Volume 53 • No. 11
If At First ...
“SECOND VERSE, SAME AS THE FIRST.”
by Lee Pitts
I
“Never take to sawin' on a branch that's supporting you unless you're being hung from it.” USDA in coming up with an all new program. The request for an extension was signed by such groups as the Livestock Marketing Assn., American Angus Assn., R-CALF, NCBA, National Farmers Union, Texas Cattle Feeders Association, Texas and
Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association and the U.S. Cattlemen’s Assn. Wow! When have you ever seen the NCBA and R-CALF agree on anything, let alone sign their names on the same piece of paper? It must really be bad!
R-CALF’s Animal ID Committee Chair Kenny Fox told those attending R-CALF’s 12th annual convention that the government’s new mandatory animal I.D system is “a Packer’s Dream,” and called it “a thinly veiled scheme to force U.S. livestock producers to provide economically valuable, source-verification information to beef packers, at no cost to the packers.” “This deceptive rule,” said Fox, “will change the current standard that export customers now require for verifying the traceability of U.S. beef. Once a government sanctioned traceability program is implemented, our export customers will rely on that for verifying the origins of U.S. beef and the premiums continued on page two
To The Last Cowboy
NEWSPAPER PRIORITY HANDLING
Here’s how bad the new ADTF is: 49 different farm and ranch groups sent a letter to Ag Secretary Tom Vilsack begging for an extended comment period on the new rules. The 49 groups called themselves The Cattle Identification Group (CIDG) and was formed after the NAIS debacle to give input to the
by LEE PITTS
Why Buy The Cow?
– JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
was reminded of that phrase as I read the USDA’s second stab at mandatory animal identification. Except hardly anyone is singing along. The USDA’s latest inventory control program, disguised as a health program, is every bit as unpopular as the NAIS (National Animal Identification System) was. Even Congress could see what a bad idea NAIS was and cut its funding, but USDA’s Animal & Plant Health Inspection Service new animal disease “traceability” system is no better than the dreaded NAIS, the only difference being in vocabulary. The NAIS is now the Animal Disease Traceability Framework (ADTF) and instead of a “premise” your ranch will be a “Unique Location Identifier.”
Riding Herd
Hagens Berman Files Class Action Against Dairy Groups CLASS-ACTION COMPLAINT ALLEGES AN INDUSTRY-WIDE SCHEME TO RAISE THE PRICE OF MILK BY KILLING OVER 500,000 COWS agens Berman, on behalf of several dairy consumers, including Compassion Over Killing (COK) members, yesterday filed a class-action lawsuit alleging that various dairy companies and trade groups, including the National Milk Producers Federation, Dairy Farmers of America, Land O’Lakes, Inc. and Agri-Mark, Inc. combined to form Cooperatives Working Together (CWT) in order to fix the price of milk in the United States. CWT is a massive trade group representing dairy producers throughout the country who produce nearly 70 percent of the milk consumed in the United States. The lawsuit, filed in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California on Sept. 26, 2011, alleges that between 2003 and 2010, more than 500,000 cows were slaughtered under CWT’s dairy herd retirement program in a concerted effort to reduce the supply of milk and inflate its price nationally. According to the complaint, the increased price allowed CWT members to earn more than $9
H
billion in additional revenue. The plaintiffs in the case are represented by leading class-action law firm Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro, LLP. The case was initially researched and developed by Compassion Over Killing, a national animal protection organization. “We believe this case serves two important causes,” said Steve Berman, managing partner of Hagens Berman. “A resolution to this case will protect consumers from artificially-inflated milk prices and also will prevent the unnecessary and shameful killing of tens of thousands of cows each year.” “The dairy industry has consistently shown its lack of regard for animal welfare and the environment,” said Compassion Over Killing general counsel Cheryl Leahy. “Now it’s milking its own consumers by unlawfully jacking up prices. The dairy industry must be held accountable for these illegal profits.” The complaint further alleges that the procontinued on page five
veryone has their own theory of how we got so messed up in this country. I think you are probably, right this moment, holding the answer in your hands. The downtown of a city near us used to be a quaint collection of thriving mom and pop stores but today it is a hollowed out assortment of vacant buildings and eateries, most of which are starving because consumers are watching every penny, and many can’t find a job. I talked to one man who was going out of business and he explained that his store had become nothing more than a showroom for folks to check out the merchandise before going online to buy it cheaper. And without any sales tax! So he had to fire five people. The man I bought my last car from was forced to sell out for the same reason as his salespeople were spending their time giving free test rides to folks who had no intention of buying the car because they could get a better deal online from a dealer in the big city. And so the “too big to fail” get bigger, while mom and pop sell out. The newsstand I used to love went out of business and fired more folks because consumers are downloading the same content they used to sell. Borders went broke and many newspapers are teetering because people are reading their newspapers online and not paying for a subscription. Music stores and video stores shuttered their doors for the same reason. Hey, why buy the cow when you get your milk for free? There are two empty bank buildings in town, one of them was shut down by the Feds and the other was merged out of existence. The tellers lost their jobs because more folks are banking online or at the ATM. No need for a building or the folks who worked there. And we wonder why there is 9 percent unemcontinued on page five
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