Livestock “The greatest homage we can pay to truth is to use it.” – JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
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Digest B Volume 56 • No. 12
Bogus Beef by Lee Pitts
C
A Better Way?
NEWSPAPER PRIORITY HANDLING
Sand Hill Foods sounds more like a Nebraska outfit than it does a Silicon Valley startup. It was created by Stanford professor Patrick Brown to produce beef and dairy products in Cali-
Remember: the easiest way to find something lost is to buy a replacement. fornia labs that will be substantially cheaper and every bit as good as the meat and dairy products produced by ranchers and dairymen. And the only chips involved will be made from silicon, not grass. Of course, others have tried this before but Brown thinks he has discovered the secret ingredient this time: plant blood. Wow, who knew plants had blood? And if so, that means they must bleed just like ani-
mals. Does that mean we are murdering plants when we harvest them? Are we causing them pain and do they scream in the night when no one is listening? Doesn't this now mean that the animal rightists should direct a little bit of their anger previously reserved for meat, towards beans, broccoli and barley too? But we’re getting ahead of ourselves here. Another of Professor Brown’s startups is a company called
Impossible Foods. According to a story in the Wall Street Journal written by Evelyn Rusli, Impossible Foods is developing a new generation of meats and cheeses made entirely from plants. Says Brown, “Our mission is to give people the great taste and nutritional benefits of foods that come from animals without the negative health and environmental impact.” Continued Brown, “We looked at animal products at the molecular level then selected specific proteins and nutrients from greens, seeds, and grains to recreate the wonderfully complex experience of meats and dairy products. For thousands of years we’ve relied on animals as our technology to transform plants into meat, milk, and eggs. Impossible Foods has found a better way.” According to the company’s continued on page two
For Once, a Court Sided With People Rather Than ‘Threatened’ Rodents BY RON ARNOLD, @RON_ARNOLD
or the first time, a federal court has struck down a regulation under the Endangered Species Act of 1973 for exceeding the government’s constitutional power. The Endangered Species Act has long been known as a property owners’ curse and the most invincible law on the books. It is primarily a land-use control law that gives agencies absolute regulatory power over “critical habitat” regardless of who owns the habitat. The landmark case centered on the Utah prairie dog, a rodent found only in southwestern Utah and protected as “threatened” under the ESA despite its population of more than 40,000. Prairie dogs had completely overrun the area surrounding Cedar City, Utah, tearing up farmlands, eating crops, gouging burrows and tunnels in parks, gardens and
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by LEE PITTS
The Perfect Neighbor
DECEMBER 15, 2014 • www. aaalivestock . com
attlemen and cowboys expect competition from pork producers, poultry pluckers, lamb-lords and tasteless tofu tillers, but I’m quite sure no one ever saw Bill Gates, Google or Silicon Valley as beef’s major adversary. But thanks to the man who cleaned up on Windows, and other geeks and nerds just like him, someday we will view the technocrats of Silicon Valley as a bigger threat to our well-being than all the wolves, bureaucrats, Sierra Clubbers, Obamanites and the BLM combined. Driving through San Jose, Stanford, Cupertino and San Francisco one gets the distinct impression that this is computer country, not cow country. If it wasn’t for the Cow Palace in South San Francisco there’d hardly be any sign of livestock at all. But if the techies have it their way, this just might be the origin of the meat you eat 20 years from now. It won’t be produced by ranchers in boots and spurs but by eggheads in lab coats.
Riding Herd
building sites—and even buckling a local airport runway. Last fall, the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service sparked a rebellion with a special rule against “takes” of the prairie dogs. It demanded property owners not “harass, harm, pursue, hunt, shoot, wound, kill, trap, capture, or collect” the rodents, which curtailed pest-control measures in the region. Outraged citizens formed a group called People for the Ethical Treatment of Property Owners, or PETPO, to fight the Fish and Wildlife Service for the right to control the rodents. Derek Morton, PETPO’s point man, told The Daily Signal, “We would find them in sacred spaces such as our cemeteries, burrowing underneath headstones and barking during funerals. We found them in built-out neighborhoods, which put our children at risk.” Utah prairie dog colonies suffer outbreaks of sylvatic plague, which can cause
plague in humans. “These animals undermined the whole community’s psyche,” Morton said. “When we would recruit new businesses for new jobs, the cost of prairie dog removal was always a deal killer. We couldn’t build a home on our own land. We couldn’t protect ourselves at all. A rodent was running our lives.” Nathan Brown, a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services biologist who has worked on the prairie dog issue for more than a decade, told CBS reporters that PETPO had “real concerns” and “there isn’t a legal framework to remove [prairie dogs] from private property.” That missing framework is a seldom-noted flaw in the Constitution. Unlike state constitutions, the nation’s fundamental law contains no enumerated right to property. From the beginning, state continued on page three
illionaires have rediscovered land as a secure investment and my neighbor ReRide and I were wondering what kind of neighbors these new ranchers will be. “They’ll make awful neighbors,” opined ReRide. “Them and their huge ranches that cover two time zones and their pressed jeans, hundred dollar monogrammed shirts, with their cows all the same color. Who wants a neighbor like that? They’ll invite you over to preg check cows and they’ll have color coordinated facilities designed by Temple Grandin. They’ll use a different needle for every cow, have electronic ear tags and their hydraulic squeeze chute will be inside a building. The next thing you know you’re wife will be asking, ‘Why don’t we have one of those?’” “I see your point ReRide.” “They’ll have a veterinarian, a manager of sustainability and a PhD in wildlife management all on staff. They’ll have weekly meetings and the number one agenda item at every meeting will be how to keep your cattle on their own side. They’ll have fences with razor and concertina wire with guard towers at every corner just to keep their $15,000 bulls from breeding your $800 cows. And their Director of Biosecurity will call you all the time about trich-related issues. Whatever that means.” “That would sure cut down on my carrying capacity. And I’d have to buy more range bulls,” I admitted. “Talk about feelin’ inferior. They’ll drive brand new pickups and pull trailers with a small condo inside with more living space than your house. They’ll have silver on their saddles and spurs, and have reins made by Mr. Ortega himself. And they’ll ride $50,00 horses once owned by Trevor Brazile. They won’t work the ground at your branding because of their bad knee they injured playing polo. Make you want to puke I tell ya. They’ll be name dropping all the time continued on page twelve
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