JUST THE FACTS ... & THEN SOME by Caren Cowan, Publisher New Mexico Stockman
Traceability
T
he US Department of Agriculture information. In today’s world of technology banned Bud Light from their concerts and (USDA) Animal & Plant Inspection that access can be accomplished with a few their bars. Many have joined in. Service (APHIS) has just closed yet clicks on a computer. Sales of Bud Light fell 17 percent in the another comment period on electronic idenThere was a difference of opinion on week ended April 15 compared to the same tification eartags as official identification in whether the border needs to be addressed week in 2022, according to an analysis of cattle and bison. Although the Federal Reg- before traceability can be tackled. In the end, NIQ data compiled by Bump Williams Conister notice was nearly eight pages long, the the two are tied and neither can be ignored. sulting provided to the Wall Street Journal. issue at hand was sexually active cattle over It might be surprising to know the That same week, sales of rival beers Coors the age of 18 months. This applies primarily number of operations who are already using Light and Miller Lite each grew nearly 18 to dairies that are already using electronic electronic identification for their own man- percent compared to the same week a year identification. agement purposes. earlier. There were nearly four pages of self-jusDespite the backlash AH continues to say tification for the regulatory process. One of “Regularizing” illegal immigrants they must reach out to a younger audience the most disturbing comments made by With the demise of Title 42 on the border that is turning to canned cocktails. USDA was their reliance on organizations by mid-May, the Biden Administration is Jack Daniels is in the same pickle. providing “significant and ongoing input on trying to ward off fallout. One thing that Maybe people should stay in their own the animal disease traceability program. stands out is the constant reframing of the lane. Sell your product and leave the social It should be noted that there are 700,000 situation and the language used to describe issues alone. cattle operations in the US; the three national it. This morning the new word was Seriously? cattle organizations represent much fewer “regularizing”. than 70,000 of those cattlemen and women. While tens of thousands of immigrants I am probably going to make everyone How can the federal government implement are lining up at the border to cross on as soon mad, but it is time we take control of our a program with the reach and the cost of as Title 42 ends, open border groups are government. We live in the greatest country traceability with input from less than 10 claiming federal immigration agencies are in the world, and most of us want to keep it percent of those impacted? ramping up severe immigration policies that way. It will take every man, woman and An additional concern is the fact that ahead of the policy ending on May 11. voting age child to fix this mess. neither USDA nor the largest of those orgaThey say that as Title 42 ends, Title 8 will Yet with a presidential election in 18 nizations make any connection between the kick in. Title 8 says that if asylum officers months, the polls, whoever they are, predict open Mexican border and the free flow of determine that migrants don’t have a credi- that we will have a do-over of the last presihumans, livestock and wildlife and the threat ble fear back in their home country or dential election. Is that the best our country of catastrophic livestock disease outbreak. migrants don’t ask for asylum, the federal can do? An unfortunate Fox News interview with government can remove them from the I will continue to harp on this for the next a newly elected volunteer leader of the largest country. 18 months. Each of us, individually, must of the three organizations tripped a switch Only time will tell. take responsibility for making the change. with ranchers who live and work under the Sad News… constant threat of the border invasion. The Speaker McCarthy get the move on! concern about the potential ramifications of Although the 2023 House of RepresentaOur dear Bullet left us on Easter that interview led to a meeting of the minds tives pledged to tackle the border crisis, little Sunday. of cattlemen from Arizona, New Mexico and substantive action has been taken. Yes there Texas in mid-April on traceability. Some have been some hearings and congressional were for, some were against. visits to the border in Texas and Arizona, but The meeting surfaced many interesting those don’t fix the problem. thoughts. The largest concern of ranchers is Understandably there are a few things not the traceability, but of who holds the that might take president, like the debt database. There was no dissension on the fact ceiling, but the border must be addressed that the program must be voluntary. immediately. Other concerns included the liability attached to animal identification and the fear Give me some beer drinkin’ music… of market manipulation if the database is Anheuser-Busch (AB) continues to face held in government hands. It is clearly fallout from its ill-advised change in adverunderstood that in the event of a disease tising for Bud Light. The uproar started with outbreak, there needs to be access to specific country music singers and then others who
▫
12 MAY 2023