Riding Herd
“The greatest homage we can pay to truth is to use it.” by LEE PITTS
– JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
November 15, 2017 • www.aaalivestock.com
Volume 59 • No. 11
The Other Red Meat
BY LEE PITTS
Don’t interfere with something that ain’t botherin’ you none.
A
mericans eat a ton of food. No, we aren’t being flippant. That’s how much food each of us will eat in a year. A ton. Of the ton we’ll eat in 2017, 217 pounds will be meat. In 2018 it’s expected to be 218 pounds. How utterly mathematical! Wasn’t it just 20 years ago it looked like we were turning into a nation of tofu and bean sprout eaters? Meat consumption had fallen to 202 pounds per person and was trending down. The great meat success story that no one is telling now is how, despite all the bad things vegetarians were saying about us, we’re only a couple pounds shy of the all time high in meat consumption. Sadly, beef was not the meat responsible for the comeback.
High On The Hog
NEWSPAPER PRIORITY HANDLING
Americans have fallen back in love with meat. We ate 55.6 pounds of beef in 2016 which was the first year in a long time that beef consumption didn’t go down. The ten years previous saw it plummet 15 percent. While we should feel good about beef’s meager comeback we shouldn’t get too complacent because there’s an old familiar competitor ready to eat our lunch... and our breakfast and our dinner. In any discussion about
competing meats we can forget about poultry, chicken left beef in the dust a long time ago. Now the race is for second place and for the first time beef could soon be relegated to third place. Next year it’s estimated that for the first time in recorded U.S. history we will produce more pork than beef and also eat more of it. We should really be worried because pork has something chicken never had: good taste! Pork is bacon, ham, spare ribs, pork chops, and sausage. See the difference? What’s not to like?
As much as they tried to fool people into thinking that pork is the other white meat, pork is not chicken. One of the reason for pork’s resurgence is they gave up on the idea of being a white meat. It was a ridiculous claim to begin with. Now pork wants to be the other red meat and it’s a much better fit. American’s pork consumption has increased nearly 30 percent since 1975 and sales of pork are up 20 percent in the last six years. John Nalivka, President of Sterling Marketing predicts that pork production will rise another three percent in 2017
and four percent in 2018. If this were a meat Olympics beef would win the bronze.
What A Difference A Decade Makes If there’s one thing responsible for pork’s resurgence it’s bacon. That’s right, we said bacon, which has become the most costly cut of the hog. “Bacon has been an ‘in food’ for several years,” says Ron Plain, professor emeritus in agricultural economics at the University of Missouri. One food critic went so far as to call bacon “sexy”.
Bacon? Sexy? Thanks largely to a growing demand for bacon the American Farm Bureau’s regular survey of food products rose by three percent compared to prices year ago. According to the Farm Bureau, “Average retail bacon prices during the continued on page two
Today’s Environmentalists Would Have Blocked George Washington’s Crossing of the Delaware BY KEVIN MOONEY
I
f you visited Washington Crossing State Park in New Jersey in early October, you will have had the opportunity to travel back in time. This year marks the 241st anniversary of General George Washington’s famous Christmas night crossing of the Delaware River in 1776. More than 100 colonial re-enactors were in the park to participate in Revolutionary War Weekend, which included “educational programs,” “colonial life demonstrations,” and historical talks about the pivotal events of the revolutionary period. For those that did make the trip, there was no escape from contemporary public policy disputes. The roadways in and around the park and the adjoining neighbors include signs that say “We the People Say No to PennEast.” There are other versions of the signs that all take aim against a proposed 120-mile, 36-inch diameter, underground natural gas pipeline that would originate near the Pocono Mountains, extend across Eastern Pennsylvania and the Delaware River into Mercer County, New Jersey. The six companies that are part of the PennEast Pipeline project are awaiting final approval from Federal Energy Regulatory Commission this fall.
If the project does move forward, as is widely expected, the natural gas pipeline will dramatically lower energy prices for consumers in both Pennsylvania and New Jersey, according to studies PennEast has cited. Environmental activists who are opposed to the project claim the pipeline will result in both economic and environmental damage. Jeff Tittel, who serves as director of the New Jersey chapter of the Sierra Club, has made this argument. “PennEast will cut through quaint, bucolic towns that depend on ecotourism,” he said in a phone interview. “So the pipeline will actually hurt the economy. These are very old, historic areas. This is the area where Washington crossed the Delaware and one of the places where PennEast wants to put the pipeline is where Washington’s army camped on the New Jersey side before they crossed to the Pennsylvania side when he crossed back. There are pristine waterways and endangered species in the area. The pipeline will have to cross over 256 streams and the people don’t want it.” But even as environmental activists invoke Washington’s name to drive public opinion, the proponents of natural gas development see those same environmentalists embracing continued on page fifteen
Drug Lords H
e walked into the dump of a diner the regulars called “Aphids Place” and quickly surveyed the landscape. There were only six tables with six more seats at a dirty counter. He was there because an anonymous snitch said a major drug deal would be going down. The undercover cop quickly saw the suspected perps sitting in a booth tucked away in the back near the kitchen door. It was a seedy hole in California’s San Joaquin Valley, the milk and meth capital of the world. The cop had been in hundreds of such places, the kind frequented in early mornings by truck drivers, farmers, ranchers, and heavy equipment operators. He must admit, the druggies fit right in. Sitting on one side of the table was a man in his twenties, wearing a dirty, sweat-stained straw hat, cheap jeans he probably bought off the clearance rack at Target and a tee shirt that was frayed at the collar and on the front showed a funny car at the Famoso Drag strip with flames roaring from its fenders. Colorful tattoos peaked from beneath his shirt. On the opposite side of the table sat a man and a woman who appeared to be married. Maybe, or maybe not, to each other. He wore a ball cap, long sleeve shirt and boots that had never felt a shoeshine. She was a fairly attractive woman who wore sunglasses rimmed in rhinestones with gaudy turquoise surrounding her wrists. Admittedly, not your typical looking crackhead but the deadly addiction attracts all kinds. Now they were all three trapped in the tight grasp of a worldwide cartel that sold premedicated murder. The narco cop took a seat at the far end of the counter with his back to the drug buyers. It was as close as he could get without sitting in their laps. He
continued on page seven
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