LMD Dec 2014

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

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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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Livestock Market Digest

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December 15, 2014

Bogus Beef

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website, 50 scientists, chefs, farmers, and engineers are “driven to make the best meats and cheeses you’ll ever eat — from plants.”

If you want to get in on the ground floor, Impossible Foods currently has openings for a Controller, a scientist for systematic chemical analysis of complex samples, a software engineer, a coordinator for their sensory team, and a marketing manager. And boy oh boy are they ever going to need a marketing manager! At a time when the consumer wants to know more than ever what’s in the food they’re eating, selling counterfeit beef would seem to be a tougher sale than a used Gateway 2000.

It’s Impossible Foods goal to create a hamburger that looks, tastes, and cooks like the real thing. Pardon me for asking but wouldn’t it be a lot easier just to eat the real thing?

Mr. Brown seems to have a pet peeve with animals. He says, “livestock is an antiquated technology” and that the cow business is not sustainable. Let’s see, we’ve been eating meat for 2 million years on this planet and that seems pretty sustainable to me, while the half life of your average electronic gadget is what, six months?

Making inferior hamburgers from plants is nothing new. Go into any grocery store and you’ll see a few measly offerings in the refrigerated section, probably past their due date. Those who have tried Mr. Brown’s beef say it tastes more like a turkey patty but again, if you want to eat something that tastes like turkey, why not just eat turkey?

Especially when you consider that one Impossible Foods beef patty costs $20 while a turkey burger costs considerably less.

Impossible Foods says they want to start selling their beef next year and hope to sell 1,000 tons in their first year. But what if it doesn’t catch on? That’s a lot of stuff that could end up filling landfills and that’s a big environmental concern.

The Tech Connection But where, and how, does Bill Gates, America’s richest man and co-founder of Microsoft, fit in?

It turns out that he and other tech gurus like him are the money behind all these fake food startups. And Mr. Gates may be prejudiced towards plant food because, according to syndicated columnist Alan Guebert, Gates owns 100,000 acres of farmland and 8.4 percent of John Deere. He also owns a stake, (or is that steak?) in another outfit called Beyond Meat. Their goal is also to replace animal protein with plant material. Causing us to wonder, what’s Bill’s beef with beef?

The techies have it in for all meat bearing livestock. There are countless startups trying to make chicken from chickpeas

continued from page one

and sci-fi pork from seaweed.

This is all part of a revolution called the clean-food movement.

Livestock producers can only hope that the geeky rich guys are as successful with their counterfeit food investments as they were with their bad bet on a plethora of solar, wind, and fuel-cell companies that went broke.

According to an article written by Brandon Griggs of CNN, two of the most esteemed venture capital firms, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and Khosla Ventures, have backed nearly a dozen startups trying to engineer healthier and cheaper alternatives to beef, eggs, chicken, cheese, salt, and even candy.

In promoting their product over traditional meat the techies drag out all the same tired arguments about livestock, that they require lots of water, produce manure and, according to the UN, cattle produce 14.5 percent of climate-altering greenhouse gases. What they don’t say is that manure is fertilizer, the water is recycled and the cows must not be doing their job because there hasn’t been any global warming on this planet for the past 18 years!

More likely the geeks and nerds see the projections that we’ll have a couple billion more mouths to feed in the near future and the global demand for meat is hotter than the newest I-phone. And they want in on some of that action. “It’s the future,” says Biz Stone, cofounder of Twitter and Jelly.

Not having any stockman tools, they look to technology instead.

The problem for them is technology doesn't have taste buds and they are in way over their heads.

So far the lab meat has not proven taste-worthy. The world’s first lab-grown burger which was funded by Google co-founder Sergey Brin, cost $325,000.

That's per burger! For that kind of money you expect something pretty special.

It was not, to put it mildly.

This all seems like a good example of what happens when some folks get too much money.

They write some computer code making it easier for people to match up, share their boring lives with everyone, or buy stuff, and next thing you know they think they have the answer to all the world’s ills.

Here are a few other tech supported outfits trying to put stockmen out of business: Beyond Meat – This Los Angeles company makes chicken from soybeans and apples based on the recipes from a couple University of Missouri professors. They received seed money from Kleiner Perkins, Bill Gates, Twitter co-founders, and Seth Goldman, the founder of the Humane Society of the United States. The company says that in blind taste tests continued on page three

December 15, 2014

“America’s Favorite Livestock Newspaper”

Bogus Beef their fake chicken fooled people into thinking it was the real thing and its products are now carried in 4,000 stores.

Beyond Meat’s CEO Ethan Brown says, “You can see the change coming when you sit down and talk to a child. No child wants to hurt an animal.

Would we continue to raise and eat animals in such staggering numbers if we could make the same thing from plants?”

Beyond Meat’s mission statement reads in part, “At Beyond Meat, we want to make the world a better place and we’re starting one delicious meal at a time.”

Pardon me for saying so but it doesn’t really look all that appetizing. On the firm’s web site are recipes for Flaky Biscuits with Beyond Meat herbed gravy made with herbs and tamari (whatever that is), feisty pumpkin charred corn and sage chili, and Beyond Beef pumpkin pasta casserole. If you want to see what the future looks like according to the geeks and nerds take a look at the photos.

Be forewarned . . . it’s not a pretty picture

continued from page two

Modern Meadow – It’s not just meat these mad scientists are trying to replace but the hide too. This company was started in 2011 by Andras Forgacs and his biophysicist father, Gabor. They plan to replace the entire cow, right down to her hide which they call “cultured leather.” Says Andras Forgacs, “You don’t waste as much material with cultured leather because animals don't come in the shape of a couch or a handbag.”

They are making the fake leather from stem cells and I’m sure that’s not exactly what folks had in mind when they were promoting stem cell research a few years back.

To make cultured beef, Modern Meadow takes muscle cells from a steer and places them in a soup of amino acids, vitamins, minerals and sugars.

It takes about a week to grow a beef chip for less than $100!

Wow, and you thought beef was high in the grocery store!

“We’re in for a real revolution in the next decade or two,” says Forgacs.

Hamton Creek – This firm

received $30 million in funding from Khosla Ventures and other techies to rid the world of roosters with their plant-based substitute for eggs called Beyond Eggs. (Khosla gets a large chunk of money from Bill Gates.) Unlike many other Silicon Valley food firms this company does have products on store shelves including a vegan mayonnaise called Just Mayo.

Hamton Creek eggs, the firm says are 19 percent cheaper and have a longer shelf life.

Supposedly Bill Gates couldn’t tell the difference in muffins made with real eggs and those made with this company’s fake eggs. The ingredients in a Beyond Egg egg include peas, sunflower lecithin, canola, and natural gums extracted from tree sap.

According to Hamton Creek, “More sustainable solutions like Beyond Eggs reduce the need for chicken feed, including corn and soy, which means less carbon emissions.

We could go on and on like this citing one firm after another that wants to rid the world of livestock. Rich liberal ex-hip-

pies are going to extreme lengths to get rid of the cow.

But why are stock growers their hated enemy? One reason is that you own land . . . lots of it.

Why should you get to own land? Who do you think you are? You have no exclusive right to the outdoors. You are also the direct opposite from them personally.

They work inside, you work outside. They collect cars, you collect horses. They are Tomorrowland while you are Frontierland. They are intimidated by you, and you are bewildered by them. They are pale, pasty and soft from watching computer screens all the time while you are sunburned, strong and swarthy. They are urban, you are rural and this is a civil war.

Or as one writer said, this is no less than vegan jihad. A religious-like war over food.

So, will Silicon Valley be the new Omaha or Amarillo? Will geeks and nerds in Google Glasses and wearing Apple watches replace the iconic cowboy?

I don’t think so. For one thing, a Pew survey found 80

Rodents constitutions specifically guaranteed that right. Typical examples include the Massachusetts constitution, which provides citizens “the right of enjoying and defending their lives and liberties; that of acquiring, possessing and protecting property; in fine, that of seeking and obtaining their safety and happiness,” and Virginia’s, which asserts the “inherent right” to “the enjoyment of life and liberty, with the means of acquiring and possessing property, and pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety.”

The Fourth and Fifth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution assert only the police power to take anything from anyone at any time so long as the government follows due process and pays for it. Property owners can’t challenge the government’s taking and must pay attorney’s fees to pry “just” compensation from the U.S. Treasury for something that wasn’t for sale.

That’s not a protection of property rights; it’s an assertion of government power.

Property owners always have had to fight our government for what’s theirs, and that’s what People for the Ethical Treatment of Property Owners had to do. PETPO retained the nonprofit Pacific Legal Foundation to sue the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for violating its members’ property rights.

Jonathan Wood, the Pacific Legal Foundation attorney who handled the case in federal court at no cost to the plaintiffs, told The Daily Signal, “A balanced approach to environmental protection considers both the animals and the people. No one was protecting the rights of the people who were being affected by the

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percent of Americans would not eat meat grown in a lab.

Although younger people would be more willing to try it, even they won’t eat it if its not as good as, or better, than the real thing. And that’s a tall order.

The lab cowboys have a tough task ahead of them to convince consumers that eating meat from a laboratory is a good thing. After all, we are talking about consumers who don’t trust GMO’s and call square tomatoes “Frankenfoods.” Will folks who want their food natural and organic eat meat grown in a petri dish or a burger of bioengineered beef?

These same millennials who are supposed to eat all this fake meat are the same folks lifestyle magazines call “foodies” because of their extreme interests in food, how it is prepared, where it originated and how it was grown or raised. If this is true then I don’t think they are going to want to eat something manufactured in some chemistry experiment gone horribly wrong.

continued from page one

prairie dogs, and that’s why PLF came to their aid. Our big win was not just for them but for all Americans who believe in limited government.”

PLF had found a constitutional approach that worked. Wood argued before Judge Dee Benson of the U.S. District Court for Utah that the Constitution’s commerce clause (Article 1, Section 8, Clause 3) does not authorize Congress to regulate a purely one-state species that has no substantial effect on interstate commerce in the nation’s $15 trillion economy.

The Fish and Wildlife Service justified its intrusion into this local matter by asserting that the “necessary and proper” clause (Article 1, Section 8, Clause 17) gives Congress unlimited power to enforce the commerce clause.

On Nov. 5, Benson gave his milestone ruling against the government, putting an end to the decades-long court practice of deferring to agency decisions and perhaps beginning an era of respect for constitutional rights.

He capped his meticulously reasoned decision with this summary and conclusion: Although the Commerce Clause authorizes Congress to do many things, it does not authorize Congress to regulate takes of a purely intrastate species that has no substantial effect on interstate commerce. Congress similarly lacks authority through the Necessary and Proper Clause because the regulation of takes of Utah prairie dogs is not essential or necessary to the ESA’s economic scheme.

Benson’s decision returns prairie dog management authority back to the state under the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources,

which has a strong track record of conservation and cooperation with local officials and property owners.

The Utah prairie dog remains fully protected, said DWR Director Greg Sheehan, and a certificate of registration is required to kill or remove the rodents.

Sheehan said the Division of Wildlife Resources’ strategy includes “safeguarding the health, safety, welfare and property of communities in areas where Utah prairie dogs live,” as well as “ensuring the viability and continued persistence of Utah prairie dogs into the future.” The state will “complement the conservation work that the U.S. Forest Service, the Bureau of Land Management and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

are doing on federal lands.”

A sidelight to the case is the animal rights group that Judge Benson accepted as intervenor. Friends of Animals, a Connecticut-based group with a $4.9 million budget, insists “humans do not have the right to displace or restrict animal populations” and opposes eating meat, milk, eggs, honey or any animal food.

Although of no legal significance, Friends of Animals received payments of more than $115,000 from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in 2001 and 2003, according to USASpending.gov. Such long-term “buddy links” between green groups and federal agencies are widespread, something only recently recognized as federal

grants went online.

Friends of Animals has announced it will appeal Benson’s ruling to the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver, but the Fish and Wildlife Service is still deliberating.

The case is expected to go to the Supreme Court.

Ron Arnold is a free-enterprise activist, author and commentator. He pioneered investigative methods to expose money and power links of the American left in nine books and hundreds of magazine and newspaper articles. He is a veteran consultant for non-profit organizations and businesses faced with crisis situations and governmental abuses.

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Livestock Market Digest

December 15, 2014

‘Case for Sustainable Meat’ takes on many sacred cows

BY DEAN KUIPERS, LA TIMES

Everything you thought you knew about red meat might be wrong, according to ‘The Case for Sustainable Meat’.

Niman Ranch co-proprietor and vegetarian Nicolette Hahn Niman calls for a revolutionized food system.

Nicolette Hahn Niman skewers the sacred cows of the antimeat orthodoxy in ‘The Case for Sustainable Meat.’

Defending Beef, The Case for Sustainable Meat Production

by Nicolette Hahn Niman Chelsea Green: 288 pp., $19.95 paper hen food guru Michael Pollan recently tweeted in support of Nicolette Hahn Niman’s new book, Defending Beef: The Case for Sustainable Meat Production, the protest that followed made it perfectly obvious why such a book is necessary. “A Cattle Rancher wrote a book about how free range, grass fed beef is better than factory farmed. Slow clap,” commented @FoodNetworkVeg. But Hahn Niman’s mission is much bigger than that. If you are looking for a book to inspire fisticuffs at the Thanksgiving table, you’ve found it. Her “manifesto” calls for a revolutionized food system — one that requires cows. The co-proprietor of the famed Niman Ranch has not just extended the thesis of her pig book, Righteous Porkchop, to argue for a few pampered Bessies in today’s artisanal foods movement; rather, she’s saying here that nearly everything we accept as gospel about the negative environmental effects of cattle ranching, and the ill health effects of eating red meat, is wrong.

And further, that cattle are necessary to the restoration and future health of this planet and its people.

Hahn Niman has bit off a lot here. But as a trained biologist, former environmental attorney for Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s Waterkeeper organization, the wife of rancher Bill Niman and, interestingly, also a vegetarian, she relishes the slugfest. “I come armed with data, and plenty of it . . .” she writes in the introduction, adding that “the basic agricultural and demographic facts

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that you’ll be gasping for air.

Remember, she’s a lawyer, using plenty of “as I will show” and “as I have demonstrated” to make her case.

That case, the true subject of Hahn Niman’s book, is for grass. In a chapter titled “All Food Is Grass,” she writes, “Making grass, rather than chemicals and mechanization, the foundation of our food system is a massive but necessary shift.” Even as she excoriates the beef industry (her livelihood) for poor grazing and using growth hormones, among many other bad practices, she keeps coming back to her point that we need grass and that grass needs cattle.

Here Hahn Niman joins a swelling cadre of new books (The Soil Will Save Us, Cows Save the Planet, et al) extolling Zimbabwean grass advocate Allan Savory. His Holistic Grazing theory proposes that ruminants like antelope and bison — and now cows — create healthy grasslands when they’re kept by predators in tight “mobs” and constantly moved place to place, digging up the grass and leaving a steady stream of manure.

Those grasslands thrive, preventing erosion of topsoil, which is one of our worst global environmental crises, sequestering massive amounts of carbon, and producing dense, nutrient-rich food from marginal lands. Moving those herds requires cowgirls and -boys, which also brings more jobs to farm country.

Of course, even the prospect of mitigating global warming or improving global health won’t persuade many vegetarians or vegans to start eating beef.

Obviously Hahn Niman is fine with this. “But if your rationale is based on the environment or health, I think the reasons are poorly grounded,” she adds.

She’s not trying to change your mind; she’s trying to save your world. And if you’re an eater trying to pick your way through this divisive debate, you’re cheering the information on every page.

I come armed with data, and plenty of it . . . the basic agricultural and demographic facts are not in dispute.

– Nicolette Hahn Niman

are not in dispute.”

It’s a book of numbers, and in it she sets out to debunk just about everything you think you know. She starts, for instance, with the now commonly cited criticism that cattle cause global warming. That comes from a 2006 report by the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization, which stated that 18 percent of all greenhouse gas emissions worldwide came from livestock and most of that from cattle.

This number is still used, though it was dismissed even before Hahn Niman got to it. That same year, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the gold standard of global warming monitors, said the emissions from all of farming, including tractors, agrochemical production, tillage, etc. was 10 percent to 12 percent of global emissions. The U.N. Environmental Program now states that the number for all of agriculture is 11 percent, and cattle would be a tiny percentage of that.

One after another, Hahn Niman skewers the, ahem, sacred cows of the anti-meat orthodoxy. Eating meat causes world hunger? No, livestock are critical food (and cash) for 1 billion global poor, many living where plant crops cannot be grown. Deforestation? Forests are cleared primarily for soy, almost none of which goes to feed cows. Red meat and animal fat are the cause of the current epidemic of cardiovascular disease? The 1953 Keys study that spawned this belief actually showed no causation between the two and pushed us into the deadly grip of trans-fats and the true killer: sugar. Overgrazing ruined the American West? No, it was improper grazing and, in some cases, not enough cattle.

I am glossing here, but Hahn Niman does not. She has you so deep in the minutia of studies

Kuipers is writer living in Los Angeles.

“America’s Favorite Livestock Newspaper”

December 15, 2014

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Wolves May Get More Range, But Face More Bullets

BY RAMONA YOUNG-GRINDLE, COURTHOUSE NEWS SERVICE

he U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced a final Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for the endangered Mexican wolf experimental population in Arizona and New Mexico. The final EIS “sets the stage for a final decision on the changes in the program in January 2015,” according to the agency’s statement regarding the action.

The Mexican wolf is the rarest of all North American gray wolves. It was listed as endangered under the Endangered Species Act in 1978. A “nonessential” experimental population was introduced in the two states in 1998. The population is

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termed “non-essential” because its failure would not result in the overall extinction of the species.

Captive-bred wolves were released into the Blue Range Wolf Recovery Area, a small area within the larger Mexican Wolf Experimental Population Area.

The wolves currently occupy just the Blue Range area.

The EIS recommends an increase in the range throughout the larger Experimental Population Area, and the release of more wolves to improve the genetic variation in the population, the agency said.

The recommendations also include provisions for removal of problem wolves either through “translocation” or the approval of wolf kill permits allowed under special provisions that regulate

experimental populations.

The USFWS maintains that the EIS adequately balances the needs of the wolf population and the economic and safety needs of surrounding human populations.

“Over the last 16 years, we have learned much about managing a wild population of Mexican wolves, and it is clear that the current rule does not provide the clarity or the flexibility needed to effectively manage the experimental population in a working landscape,” Sherry Barrett, the agency’s Mexican Wolf Recovery Coordinator, was quoted as saying in the USFWS press release. “We need to increase our management flexibility in a manner that is responsive to the diverse needs of local

communities and the existing prey base.”

Because the EIS was developed without a recovery plan, the Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) and other environmental partners filed suit this month to “compel finalization of a recovery plan,” the CBD said in its response to the EIS. The USFWS’s own draft recovery plan from 2012 would require a population increase more than twice the EIS recommendation, and would allow the wolves to move into areas banned in the new recommendation, the CBD said.

This range restriction in the EIS directly contradicts the draft recovery plan, “which determined that establishing additional populations in Grand

Canyon National Park and northern New Mexico is critical to the ultimate recovery of Mexican wolves,” the CBD said.

According to the USFWS, there are only 83 wolves in the experimental population, and only five breeding pairs. Small populations result in problems with inbreeding, such as low pup survival rates.

“We’re disappointed that despite the fact that killings of Mexican wolves, both legal and illegal, have hampered recovery, Fish and Wildlife is still handing out permits to kill more,” Michael Robinson said in the CBD’s statement. “This appears to be more about appeasing those who fear and abhor wolves than it is about rational, sciencebased management.”

Plans To Import Live Cattle, Fresh Frozen Beef On The Way APHIS Rule Proposal Could Devastate American Cattle Herd

BY PETE BONDS, PRESIDENT TEXAS & SOUTHWESTERN CATTLE RAISERS ASSOC.

n August 29, 2014, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS), published a rule proposal in the federal register that would allow the importation of live cattle and fresh or frozen beef from Northern Argentina.

APHIS would accomplish this by adding the Patagonia areas of Argentina to the list of regions considered free of Foot-andMouth Disease (FMD).

The Texas and Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association (TSCRA) is deeply concerned with this proposal. FMD is a severe and highly contagious viral disease of cows, pigs, sheep, goats, deer and other animals

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with divided hooves. It is considered to be one of the most economically devastating livestock diseases in the world and poses a significant risk to not only our country’s cattle herd, but also our national food security.

FMD could also cost our industry hundreds of millions of dollars.

I am extremely worried if FMD comes into the cattle herds, especially in Texas with the high population of feral hogs, we could see an unstoppable outbreak of the disease.

Pigs are more susceptible to the disease than cattle, and with feral hogs being a problem in most of the state, the disease could spread throughout the country.

Also, if an FMD outbreak were to occur in the U.S., I am afraid we wouldn’t have the ability or amount of vaccine needed to control the disease.

APHIS conducted their risk analysis based on a series of site visits to Argentina to determine the FMD risk status. TSCRA and

other cattle industry groups requested written reports for these visits; however, APHIS informed us that written documentation wasn’t required for their site reviews. The lack of documentation makes me question their transparency and ability to conduct an accurate and thorough review.

A third party scientific review team from the University of Minnesota (UMN), College of Veterinary Medicine, objectively reviewed the APHIS risk analysis. The review team acknowledged limited or lacking methodological approaches in performing the risk assessment and poorly defined scope regarding the specific animal types and products for the risk assessment. There was also a lack of sufficient detail for geographical landmarks outlining the Patagonia region in the risk analysis and maps lacking the necessary level of detail to be useful.

APHIS believes the export region in northern Argentina is FMD free because

the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) recognizes the region as “FMD free with vaccination being practiced.” However, I disagree. In fact, the U.S. doesn’t recognize northern Argentina as being FMD free, because vaccination against FMD is currently taking place in the export region.

Additionally, northern Argentina’s extensive border exposure to multiple countries, such as Bolivia, Paraguay, Uruguay and Brazil, which are not recognized in the U.S. Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) as FMD free, poses a major risk for the reintroduction of FMD into the export region. The large border area is difficult to control, and Argentina has acknowledged that smuggling does occur at the borders.

TSCRA is also very concerned about Argentina’s trend of compliance problems and deficiencies with routine USDA and continued on page 10

Livestock Market Digest

Page 6

December 15, 2014

Agriculture can’t allow outsiders to define sustainability

BY TROY MARSHALL IN MY VIEW FROM THE COUNTRY, BEEF MAGAZINE

t first blush, one would think that defining sustainabilityand efficiency shouldn’t take more than few moments. Sustainability, according to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, is defined as “harvesting or using a resource so that the resource is not depleted or permanently damaged.” USDA has already produced a legal definition of sustainable agriculture.

According to U.S. Code Title 7, Section 3103, sustainable agriculture means “an integrated system of plant and animal production practices having a site-specific application that will over the long-term:

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n Satisfy human food and fiber needs. n Enhance environmental quality and the natural resource base upon which the agriculture economy depends. n Make the most efficient use of nonrenewable resources and on-farm resources and integrate, where appropriate, natural biological cycles and controls. n Sustain the economic viability of farm operations. n Enhance the quality of life for farmers and society as a whole.”

Efficiency is even easier to define; simply divide outputs by inputs. Certainly there are different types of efficiency; for example, we can measure economic efficiency or biological efficiency.

The relationships for both are

pretty simple to calculate, and while economic efficiencies change according to costs of inputs and outputs and the like, the concepts seem pretty straightforward and well-defined.

Yet, these concepts are not nearly so simple in application.

That’s because politics and marketing have become the drivers in these discussions, and both tend to care far less about facts and far more about creating perceptions.

Sadly, politics and marketing are also seen as a zero sum game, where there are not two winners but decided victors and losers.

Thus, we have a lot of confusion about what the words “sustainable” and “efficiency” mean and how they can be achieved.

The fact that they’re interrelated isn’t the important concept. The

key is that as marketing and political tools, they are being manipulated to achieve predetermined goals by those involved.

Some of it’s laughable and should be ignored. After all, agriculture has made great strides in sustainability since the Great Depression, and even greater strides in efficiency. In fact, the rate of progress in efficiency has been staggering.

In 1970, the U.S. needed an inventory of 140 million head of cattle to produce the same amount of beef product as we do today with 90 million head! We were able to do that by improving reproductive efficiency and growth and carcass traits.

We’re just now beginning to measure and identify feed efficiency, which promises to spur

even more dramatic improvements in cattle efficiency. Yet, there are some who claim efficiency is strictly outputs or inputs, and some reduce the debate to absurdity via simplification.

For instance, some marketers claim smaller cows are more profitable in every environment. Forget the fact that such a premise would result in the never-ending chase for smaller and smaller cattle. Meanwhile, the disciples of output would have us soon producing cattle that resemble elephants.

Such extremes in view are admittedly in the minority, and the mainstream rejects such claims with little thought. In a broad sense, efficiency is fairly easy to define, but it is unique to each individual operation.

McDonald’s Wants Industry Help In Defining Sustainable Beef

BY AMANDA RADKE IN BEEF DAILY, BEEF MAGAZINE

he beef industry’s largest customer, McDonald’s, has announced it will spend the next 18 months defining sustainable beef. Bob Langert, McDonald’s vice president of sustainability, spoke at the recent 2014 Cattle Industry Summer Conference in Denver, CO, where he told the crowd, “Just thinking you’re sustainable isn’t enough anymore; you’ve got to prove it.”

Gene Johnston for agriculture.com reports on Langert’s speech in an article entitled, “Fast-Food VP Challenges Cattle Industry.”

Here is an excerpt: “McDonald’s buys a lot of beef – 2 percent of the entire world’s supply.

Through its 34,000 worldwide franchise locations, it sells about half of all fast-food burgers, an average of 75/second. That’s more than Wendy’s, Burger King, Sonic, Arby’s, and Jack-in-the-Box combined. By 2016, McDonald’s intends to source and sell hamburger beef that fits the new criteria (whatever that is) and be applied worldwide.”

McDonald’s doesn’t currently have a definition for “sustainable beef,” but Langert saysMcDonald’s wants the beef industry to help define it.

“It’s a comprehensive approach. Beyond that, we don’t know the definition. You will help us create it. Let’s do it before someone else does it for us. Start by measuring things. How much do you contribute to your com-

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munity? How much energy have you saved in the last few years?

People want to know how much you care. It’s part of the sustainable answer.”

With 69 million customers going to McDonald’s on a daily basis, the chain sells a lot of beef and has the power to be extremely influential in public perceptions about our product. Take, for example, the company’s bad reputation for making America fat; the company rebranded and revamped its menu — offering apple slices, oatmeal, yogurt and better salad options to meet the needs of the health-conscious customer.

The beef industry certainly has a great opportunity to sit down with McDonald’s and shape the discussion about sustainability in beef production. We better make the most of this opportunity or risk others doing the defining for us.

Businessweek.com sees McDonald’s promise to serve sustainable beef in 2016 as a direct result of Chipotle’s successful campaigning for its all-natural burritos.

In an article entitled, “McDonald’s Gives Itself A Year And Half To Get Into Chipotle-Fighting Shape,” Businessweek.com reports that McDonald’s rebranding will focus on adding more fruit and vegetable options and offering sustainable beef, a la Chipotle.

According to the article, “The goal of McDonald’s is to become a more trusted and respected brand. The McDonald’s brand — eroded over the

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years by service problems, dietary concerns, lack of blockbuster product launches, and recent employee-pay issues — isn’t one many consumers feel too good about anymore. In fact, one study shows that 38 percent of online conversations about McDonald’s over the past year have been negative.

“To create a dining experience customers will feel good about, McDonald’s has turned a West Coast restaurant into a learning lab to gather feedback about the food, environment, and other aspects of dining at the Golden Arches. Core products, such as the Big Mac, Egg McMuffin, and fries — three items that

account for about 40 percent of sales — will be at the center of the food efforts, and expect menu additions to be focused around premium beef and chicken items, breakfast food, and coffee and blended ice drinks.”

I hope that McDonald’s doesn’t go down the path of Chipotle. It’s important our consumers know that conventionally raised beef really is sustainable. It’s also nutritious and safe.

However, if McDonald’s has certain specifications it would like beef producers to meet, I’m positive the industry will rise to the occasion to produce the beef our number-one customer demands. Hopefully, McDon-

ald’s can then sell said beef without bashing conventionally raised beef in the process.

And that’s going to be the difference between Chipotle and McDonald’s — one makes its money by bashing conventional agriculture while the other works to improve the industry by actually working with ranchers and not against them.

What do you think about McDonald’s promise to serve “sustainable beef?” How would you define sustainable beef?

Share your thoughts in the comments section below.

The opinions of Amanda Radke are not necessarily those of Beefmagazine.com or the Penton Farm Progress Group.

Personhood Denied

BY NANCY E. HALPERN, DVM, ESQ. POSTED IN ANIMAL RIGHTS, PERSONHOOD

n a stunning decision, the Appellate Division of the Third Judicial Department in the State of New York denied personhood status for Tommy, the chimpanzee, expressly rejecting The Nonhuman Rights Project fundamental assertion that chimpanzees are “legal persons.”

In the Order, which upheld the lower court’s denial of a petition for a writ of habeas, the Court addressed the issue presented directly: “This appeal presents the novel question of whether a chimpanzee is a ‘person’ entitled to the rights and protections afforded by the writ of habeas corpus . . . the petitioner requests that this Court enlarge the common-law definition of ‘person’ in order to afford legal rights to an animal.” The Nonhuman Rights Project, Inc., on Behalf of Tommy v. Lavery, Case No. 518339, Slip. Op., (N.Y. App. Div. Dec. 4, 2014).

The Court declined to do so.

“Petitioner does not cite any precedent – and there appears to be none – in state law, or under English common law, that an animal could be considered a ‘person’ for the purposes of common-law habeas corpus relief. In fact, habeas corpus relief has never been provided to any nonhuman entity.” Slip. Op. (citations omitted).

But the Court did not stop there. It went on to discuss when, why, and how society provides rights consistent with legal personhood and what responsibilities are associated with those rights,

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citing to the legal scholarship of Richard L. Cupp Jr., a law professor who has written extensively on this topic.

Consistent with Cupp’s position, “[c]ase law has always recognized the correlative rights and duties that attach to legal personhood,” that nonhuman animals do not have.

The Court also addressed petitioner’s assertion that since non-human entities like corporations have been afforded personhood-type rights, there is no bar to do the same for non-human animals.

“Associations of human beings, such as corporations and municipal entities, may be considered legal persons, because they too bear legal duties in exchange for their legal rights.”

While ultimately rejecting that a chimpanzee should be afforded “the fundamental right to liberty protected by the writ of habeas corpus [because] unlike human beings, chimpanzees cannot bear any legal duties, submit to societal responsibilities or be held legally accountable for their actions,” the Court listed the specific legal protections that have been afforded to animals, including chimpanzees in New York.

These “rights,” like the protection against cruel treatment, are routinely ignored by activists claiming that animals have no rights.

Expect to see many citations to this decision in response to other lawsuits to “free” animals from captivity and “slavery.”

The Nonhuman Rights Project announced that it is pursuing an appeal in response to this decision.

December 15, 2014

“America’s Favorite Livestock Newspaper”

Page 7

We Can Do Better Some Inside Work Needs to Be Done - Set Goals and Study Before the Sale.

Focused breeding goals, with clear outcomes relevant to the production of beef, should be at the heart of all cattle operations.

BY KRIS RINGWALL, BEEF SPECIALIST NDSU EXTENSION SERVICE

arning: Critical statements exist in this article, so you may not want to read it. However, you should at least take home the point that acquiring good bulls through knowledgeable and informed bull selection is critical to the survival of the beef business.

Implementing focused production goals, with clear outcomes relevant to the production of beef, is critical. If in doubt, simply glance over the fence and view the competition. The poultry, swine and dairy industries routinely produce very uniform, marketable products that meet predefined production goals utilizing the same tools that are available to the beef industry.

But first let’s talk about working cattle because it always is challenging. With the cold snap and several sets of cows needing ultrasounding for pregnancy evaluation, I got ready.

Chuteside attire certainly varies with the weather. Having prepared for the cold with layered clothing under the traditional blue coveralls, I suddenly realized my ability to put my plastic boots over the cowboy boots was in question.

Reaching my feet was a challenge, but the job got done.

I was reminded that we all change. If nothing else, we get older. Our individual flexibility seems to come up short some days, but with an appropriate tweak, we get the job done. However, those tweaks only can do so much.

As an industry, our tweaking is evident. However, some days, I wonder because we can do better.

Maybe one should not say that.

However, the other day, while watching several sets of cattle sell at a public market, the variation that was present was notable.

The cows, bulls, yearlings and calves of all sizes and types were selling to the sound of the auction. With each swing of the door, one set went out and one came in.

The announcement of what was behind the incoming door was waited for with anticipation. If the set of cattle was large, the mooing of the cattle could be heard. If the set was small, the door would swing open and close quickly, and the bidding would begin.

I do not want to be critical because the type of cattle that producers choose to raise is up to them, and the market does an excellent job at connecting the seller and buyer. However, sometimes thoughtful presale pondering by the producer on how those

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cattle will look at the market isn’t always evident.

For the most part, there always is a buyer, but sometimes determining how to best present the cattle needs to be thought through. The concept that the auction market will sort away all the problems is not true. That being said, cattle that are unthrifty need to stay at home, eat some groceries and “beef up” a little bit.

That may not be easy but certainly is a worthy goal for a beef operation.

But we can do better. However, there are too many “buts” in this story. Fundamentally, there is a larger issue than the simple management, presentation and sale of cattle, which is the genetics

of the business. Those cattle that arrive for sale lacking good structure, condition and muscling are products of breeding programs.

As was noted at the beginning, focused breeding goals, with clear outcomes relevant to the production of beef, should be at the heart of all cattle operations. Simply breeding cows to produce calves with no thoughtful purpose challenges the industry. The competition appreciates those cattle, but the cattle industry should not.

As producers, the tools are readily available to assure the availability of bulls that will carry with them the genetics that will meet focused breeding goals and outcomes relevant to the produc-

tion of excellent beef for consumption by the consumer.

The ultrasound evaluations of the cows are finished. The pregnancy rate is good, but my cold hands started my mind thinking some inside work would be good, which means bull buying. The bull catalogs are starting to arrive, and the opportunity for proper selection of genetics means a better product.

Focused production goals for the Dickinson Research Extension Center that involve clear outcomes relevant to the production of beef are open for discussion.

However, the center has selected for birth, weaning and yearling weight, and rib eye area for several years. Attention for milk pro-

duction and marbling also have been part of the selection process.

The real question is setting the percentile thresholds within the various breeds. The selection pressure is rising while keeping the bulls affordable. Not all bulls are created equally, so find the right bull, pay the right price and sell the right calves.

The hands are warm, so start figuring.

May you find all your ear tags.

For more information, contact Ringwall at 1041 State Ave., Dickinson, ND 58601, or go to www.ag.ndsu.edu/news/ columns/beeftalk/.

Ringwall is a North Dakota State University Extension Service livestock specialist and the Dickinson Research Extension Center director.

Livestock Market Digest

Page 8

Fact Check: Will Keystone Oil Stay in the United States? resident Obama has criticized the proposed Keystone XL pipeline for a number of reasons, one of which involves where the oil will go: will it be sold to refiners in the United States, or will it be shipped abroad? While the president claims the pipeline will only provide a path for Canada to ship its oil overseas, Lauren Carroll at Politifact says that’s not the case: the oil will be bought and used in America.

The oil shipped from Canada down to the Gulf of Mexico via the pipeline would be crude oil, not refined oil.

While the United States exports refined oil such as gasoline, it is a crude oil importer. American refiner-

P

ies, says Carroll, are located along the Keystone XL route, and U.S. refineries already get more oil from Canada than they do from other countries. Refineries in the upper Midwest as well as Texas are in need of crude oil and currently have to import it from nations such as Venezuela. Were they able to purchase Canada’s crude, it would be cheaper, says Carroll.

She also notes that the State Department has reported that it would not make economic sense for Canada to export its Keystone oil to other nations.

Source: Lauren Carroll, “Obama says Keystone XL is for exporting oil outside the U.S., experts disagree,” Politifact, November 20, 2014.

December 15, 2014

FDA Menu Labeling Law Overreaches hen Congress passed the Affordable Care Act, it included a provision requiring restaurants to display nutritional information for their menu items.

Specifically, the rule applied to “a restaurant or similar retail food establishment that is part of a chain with 20 or more locations.”

The Food and Drug Administration proposed a regulation to implement the new requirement in 2011, but Daren Bakst of the Heritage Foundation contends the agency went far beyond what was required by the law. Instead of applying the nutrition mandate to traditional food establishments, the agency included grocery stores and convenience stores as well: as long as the stores sold prepared food, they would be required to include nutritional information for their products.

This means, says Bakst, that a convenience store whose only prepared food offering is a hot dog

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would still be required to comply with the labeling requirements.

Now, the agency has released its final rule.

Rather than scale back its 2011 proposal, the FDA has only increased the reach of the regulation: movie theaters and bowling alleys, among other locations, will now be required to comply with the menu requirements.

Do these menu laws even have an influence on nutrition and health? There is no clear, scientific indication that they do. In fact, when New York City imposed a law requiring food establishments to post nutrition information for consumers to see, a study from New York University and Yale University discovered that people actually consumed more calories, not less, after the labeling requirement was imposed.

Source: Daren Bakst, “FDA\’s Final Menu Labeling Rule: Going Way Beyond What\’s Required Under Obamacare,” Daily Signal, November 25, 2014.

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Page 9

Born to be a Cowboy . . . And a Balladeer: RW HAMPTON

BY SHARON NIEDERMAN

lthough RW Hampton lives on a secluded ranch in the Northern New Mexico back roads village of Miami, it’s exactly those authentic down home experiences of family, faith, and place that power his worldwide touring and performing.

Hampton’s resonant baritone aligns his sound with Randy Travis at his acoustic best. Having just released his 14th studio album, This Cowboy, Hampton fits his musicmaking in and around ranch chores, feeding and training the horses, finding his tunes and doing much of his composing horseback, driving to and from the school bus in Rayado

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and keeping up with family’s daily needs. He and wife Lisa have a family of six children, from age 34 to 8.

Inspiration comes directly out of daily life. “It could be in front seat of the pickup, on the back of a horse, jotting a few things on the sleeve of my Carhartt coat – usually what I get is a couple of lines and a tune,” he says.

Says Hampton, “What I’m writing is a love letter to this country we live in – this Cimarron country and this nation. It’s for my wife, my family, my Lord and Savior.” His songs very much focus on matters of faith, patriotism, and traditional values.

He and his wife Lisa work very much as a team, with Lisa handling publicity, bookings, and producing

on the CDs. She works out of their home office with band members, studios and agencies from Nashville to Fort Worth.

“Sacrifice – we’ve completely forgotten about some of that stuff.

Most of the songs that I write and the songs that Lisa and I write together come out of a sense of passion and inspiration” One of Hampton’s most popular tunes is titled “My Country’s Not for Sale.” “It’s time to tell Washington this country’s not for sale,” he explains. “Lisa and I wrote this song about the mosque that was proposed to be built on Ground Zero.

Big money talks. Big money will buy you what you want (even in politics).

That particular song – we played it

all across the U.S. Everybody was standing up. We all feel the same way,” he says.

While he has lived in Miami since 1999, Hampton’s associations with the place he calls home go much further back. Originally from Dallas, he has lived in and visited Colfax and Union Counties since he was a kid. As an Eagle Scout, he ventured to Philmont in 1972 and became a horse wrangler there in 1974. He brought his guitar as part of his gear, and he has fond memories of playing it around bonfires in Cimarron Canyon.

After he learned the basics at Philmont, he chose to be a working continued on page ten

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Livestock Market Digest

Page 10

December 15, 2014

Judge invalidates county GMO law

BY TOM CALLIS, TRIBUNE-HERALD STAFF WRITER, M.HAWAIITRIBUNE-HERALD.COM

versight of genetically modified crops in Hawaii remains the state’s kuleana, a federal judge ruled recently when invalidating Hawaii County’s law restricting the use of transgenic plants.

The ruling by U.S. Magistrate Judge Barry Kurren was in line with another decision he made in August overturning Kauai County’s law on pesticides and modified crops. In both, he found lawmakers intended the state to have broad oversight of agricultural issues in Hawaii.

“In light of the comprehensive statutes and the network designed to address statewide agricultural problems, the court concludes that legislative intent for an exclusive, uniform and comprehensive state statutory scheme on the precise subject matter addressed by Ordinance 13-121 preempts the county’s ban on genetically modified

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organisms,” the ruling said.

The law — adopted by Hawaii County Council a year ago — bannned open-air use and testing of GMOs with a few exceptions.

Kurren ruled the law was only partially preempted by federal law.

Supporters of the law, which went into effect Dec. 5, 2013, said they weren’t surprised given the ruling in the Kauai case.

“We were playing chess with the big boys,” said County Councilwoman Margaret Wille, who spearheaded the anti-GMO legislation. “There’s a lot of power there and you can’t expect that they (biotech companies) don’t have a lot of influence.”

Wille, an attorney, said she was hoping for an appeal.

Molly Stebbins, county corporation counsel, said the county disagrees with the preemption argument but added no decision has been made yet on whether to appeal the ruling to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. The county has 30 days to make that decision.

The plaintiffs, who filed the lawsuit in June, included agricultural groups representing florists, banana and papaya growers, and ranchers. The Biotechnology Industry Organization, and isle farmers and ranchers Richard Ha, Jason Moniz, Gordon Inouye and Eric Tanouye also were listed as plaintiffs.

In addition to preemption, they argued the ban was not supported by the science of biotechnology and would harm farmers who could benefit from modified crops.

“I think it’s a step in the right direction and certainly was a favorable ruling for the farmers,” said Lorie Farrell, a coordinator for Hawaii Farmers and Ranchers United, which opposed the law.

“And our reaction is maybe we can begin the conversation about food and farming and move forward in a positive direction.”

While supported by a large majority of testifiers, the law created sharp divides between proGMO farmers and scientists and those who oppose the use of

biotechnology in agriculture.

Supporters of genetically engineered crops pointed to the success of the transgenic Rainbow papaya, developed by scientists to be resistant to the ringspot virus, while opponents cited fears about the widespread use of herbicideresistant crops.

“Hawaii Island is a unique and important place,” said organic farmer Nancy Redfeather in a statement released by the Center for Food Safety. “I am deeply disappointed that the court would agree with the chemical companies’ arguments, stripping us of our right to make local agricultural decisions.”

Michael Shintaku, a plant pathologist at the University of Hawaii at Hilo, said the law could have prevented him from developing new types of virus-resistant plants. Unlike Roundup ready corn and other herbicide-resistant crops that make up the bulk of transgenic plants, these don’t rely on the use of chemicals.

“I was hoping that this would be overturned and it was,” Shin-

RW Hampton cowboy, and says his “desk was my saddle.” He knows of what he sings, having worked on ranches all over New Mexico, including Capitan, along the Canadian River, west of Carlsbad by the Guadalupe Mountains, and for the Red River Ranch.

He also lived and ranched around Clayton and Amistad.

“I’ve always enjoyed music,” he

taku said. “Now next year, when I’m ready, we can proceed with our plants.”

But he said he also was left frustrated by the way Council handled the debate about modified agriculture.

Shinktaku said council members relied too heavily on testimony from anti-GMO activists who lacked scientific backgrounds. Big Isle and other Hawaii scientists, he said, felt left on the sidelines during the process and particularly on a day reserved for expert testimony.

“More than 90 percent of the time was spent talking to and hearing from people who were very much anti-GMO and they really had no qualifications,” Shintaku said. “… I was appalled.”

Wille defended the process, saying Council offered 13 days for public testimony.

“Did you not have an opportunity to testify?” she said in response to the complaint.

“I felt there was a lot of discussion,” Wille said. continued from page nine

says, although he “can’t read a lick of music” and is basically self-taught. He started playing the guitar as a teenager, “because girls liked it,” counting Jim Croce and John Denver as his influences. In 1971, when he lost a sister to a car wreck, he dealt with his grief by closing his bedroom door and losing himself in singing.

His new album is already charting

at #5 on Roots Music Chart for True Country and he has a following of 45,000 on his Facebook page, as well as audiences in such far-flung places as Brazil, Italy, and Germany, some of his fondest memories are of appearing on the Grand Old Opry Stage and “standing where Hank (Williams) stood.” He is the only artist who has appeared twice on the

cover of Western Horseman Magazine, where and he was recently ranked as one of the Top 50 country artists by American Cowboy Magazine, and has been featured in many other western publications such as the True West and Working Ranch Magazines.

In addition to son Cooper in the Marine Corps, the Hampton offspring partner on a ranch at Sedan,

Beef

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another works at the T4 Ranch in Tucumcari, and the oldest is at Baylor studying finance and accounting.

Two of the youngest attend school in Cimarron.

“We’ve never pretended our kids would be cowboys, but anything they learn out here at the ranch will suit them in whatever they choose to do in life.” continued from page five

European Commission food safety audits for Argentina.

While TSCRA supports open trade markets, we must always make certain the foreign countries we are importing beef from have proper animal health and food safety protocols in place. They must also have a proven history of being able to control foreign animal diseases, such as FMD. TSCRA believes these protocols should be substantiated by sound, scientific evidence.

Simply put, I don’t believe Argentina can meet these critical standards to keep FMD out of the country.

TSCRA will be submitting comments expressing concern with the rule, and you can do the same by visiting www.regulations.gov and typing into the search screen, APHIS2014-0032-0131. The deadline for

submitting comments is December 29, 2014.

It is important for you as cattle ranchers to voice your opposition to the APHIS rule proposal. If implemented, this rule could pose a major threat to your cattle herds and detrimentally affect your business.

Protecting the U.S. cattle industry from a catastrophic animal disease, such FMD, is a major priority for TSCRA. We will closely watch this rule proposal and do everything possible to block implementation so we can continue producing a safe and healthy beef supply worldwide.

Pete Bonds, President, Texas and Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association has ranched his entire life. He operates the Bonds Ranch in Saginaw, Texas, where he also lives. Bonds currently serves as the President of the Texas and Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association. He and his wife Jo have three daughters, Missy, Bonnie and April.

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December 15, 2014

Flawed Model Hides Costs and Exaggerates Benefits of Climate Legislation new report from Kevin Dayaratna, Nicolas Loris and David Kreutzer of the Heritage Foundation contends the Obama administration has ignored costs while exaggerating the benefits of climate change-related regulation.

According to their calculations, the EPA's proposed regulation of greenhouse gases could reduce employment and lower GDP by more than $2.5 trillion over the next two decades.

Dayaratna, Loris and Kreutzer report that White House has misrepresented climate science and the need for expensive carbon regulations.

When the U.S. Global Change Research Program issued its National Climate Assessment in May 2014, it claimed that human-caused (anthropogenic) global warming was already having negative effects in the United States, and it warned of increases in sea levels, extreme weather events and temperature. But Dayaratna, Loris and Kreutzer say the report was faulty: n The report claimed that there was a 97 percent consensus on anthropogenic global warming.

However, that figure says nothing about the amount of warming that scientists believe should be attributed to humans, nor the degree of tem-

A

perature acceleration or whether temperature increases would be catastrophic. n The report’s concerns about sea level rise ignore that sea level rise has been slowing. In fact, sea levels have been rising since the end of the ice age but are rising at a much slower rate today. n The report's claims of more extreme weather events is at odds even with the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which concluded that the globe was unlikely to see an increase in extreme weather events. n Much has been said about melting ice caps, but the amount of global sea ice is actually above average, and Antarctica has record amounts of sea ice. n The report ignores more recent studies on how sensitive the climate is to carbon dioxide increases, thereby overstating climate predictions.

The authors cite research from Paul Knappenberger and Pat Michaels demonstrating that EPA climate regulations will only lower warming by 0.02 degrees Celsius by 2100.

Source: Kevin D. Dayaratna, Nicolas D. Loris and David W. Kreutzer, “The Obama Administration’s Climate Agenda: Underestimated Costs and Exaggerated Benefits,” Heritage Foundation, November 13, 2014.

The Anti-Environment Tax Rolls On: the State-Based Version

BY BRIAN SEASHOLES, REASON.ORG

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problematic and very likely to lead to land fragmentation. The state estate tax rates and maximum exemptions for these states are: Washington, 10-19 percent estate tax rate and $2,012,000 exemption; Oregon, 10-16 percent and $1,000,000; Minnesota, 9-16 percent and $1,200,000.

Leading wildlife experts acknowledge the detrimental effects of the federal Estate Tax on the environment, and similar effects apply to state estate taxes, especially because the combination of the federal and state taxes can create a greater chance of land being fragmented. According to Michael Bean, when he was with the Environmental Defense Fund (and currently at the Interior Department), and the person widely acknowledged as the foremost expert on the Endangered Species Act and U.S. Wildlife law, the federal Estate Tax is: “highly regressive in the sense that it encourages the destruction of ecologically important land in private ownership.

In order to pay estate taxes, cashpoor inheritors of ranches, farms, and forests must often liquidate timber assets, subdivide the property, or otherwise destroy ecologically valuable land that had been cared for by owners who had truly loved it.”

The best solution to this problem is to eliminate the Estate Tax at the federal level and in the fourteen states where they still exist.

Unless these taxes are eliminated, there will always be the threat that perpetually revenue hungry legislatures will seek to increase the tax rates and decrease the maximum exemptions, or seek to fiddle with estate taxes in other ways.

Landowners need clear signals from government so they can plan better for the future. One clear signal they could receive, which would be an enormous benefit to American wildlife, would be the elimination of the federal and state estate taxes.

Digest

S

hile there has been a great deal of focus on the federal Estate Tax in the past several years, including the tax’s negative impacts on wildlife and especially endangered species (as I discussed in a previous post, here), there has been relatively little attention paid to the likely detrimental environmental impacts of state estate taxes. Now, however, as detailed in an article by Tamara Cushing, Assistant Professor of Forest Economics, Management and Policy at Oregon State University, it is clear this needs to change.

After recent federal Estate Tax reform, which raised significantly the amount exempt from the tax, many landowners and others thought their problems were solved. Not so, according to Prof.

Cushing: “Lurking in the background, however, and receiving little attention from the forestry community, media, and even some tax advisors, was the lingering bogeyman of state estate tax laws (or state death taxes). Even after the federal estate tax burden was lifted for 2011 and beyond, a number of states retained – and still retain – more oppressive estate tax burdens.”

In 2012, Congress reformed the federal Estate Tax by making permanent the 2011 temporary exemption of $5 million per person of an estate’s value (or $10 million per couple), fixed the top tax rate at 40 percent (which prevented a possible return to the 55 percent rate that prevailed for much of the 1980s and 90s), included an adjustment for inflation, and added a portability provision (which allows the unused portion of a deceased spouse’s estate tax exemption to be transferred to the surviving spouse).

Even so, a top rate of 40 percent is still very steep, to say nothing about the larger issue of whether there should even be a tax on inherited assets.

Due to the 2012 reforms, owners of large or valuable pieces of land, such as forest owners, felt a sense of relief. But there remains a big but relatively unnoticed problem, as Prof. Cushing points out: “Many forest landowners have been under the belief that very few of them will have to worry about the estate tax with the federal exemption now set at over $5 million and adjusting for inflation each year. Programming efforts (mine included) have shifted to focus on succession planning rather than the traditional programs to explain how to minimize taxes on transfer at the time of death. Don’t fail to account for state death taxes just because you are below today’s federal estate tax exemption, especially if you live in a state with a death tax – or own land in one that does.”

The environmental tie-in for all of this is that estate taxes, whether federal or state, can force heirs of large or valuable pieces of land to subdivide the land and sell off pieces in order to pay federal and state estate taxes. When federal and state estate taxes are combined they can run in the range of 52-59% for the top rates and must be paid within one year of the owner’s death. Land tends to have higher environmental values, including for wildlife and endangered species, if it is in larger, more contiguous chunks. Habitat destruction and degradation, which occurs when land is fragmented, is the leading threat to all wildlife species, common and imperiled. For states like Washington, Oregon and Minnesota that have large amounts of valuable privately owned timber land, the combination of the federal and state estate taxes is especially

Page 11

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Page 12

Riding Herd about who their bulls are related to and you can bet your bottom dollar their horses won’t have names like Horse Face, Old Puke or Stinky.

They’ll pay $10,000 for cow dogs that can do the work of five men prompting your wife to say, ‘If we had one of those I wouldn’t have to plug holes in fences when I have the flu.’"

“But won’t they increase the value of all the ranches in the area?” I asked.

“You’re kidding right? Whose gonna want your shack when they have compounds with hunting lodges, metal shops for woodworking and hangars for airplanes, brand new D8’s, road graders and hay balers. And your wife will wonder why their hired help all live in better homes than you do. She’ll ask, ‘Why do they have medical insurance pensions and retirement plans?’ Tell me Lee,” said ReRide, “do you have a 401K?” “What’s that,” I asked. “Some model number for a tractor?”

ReRide was on a roll. “They’ll host field days where other ranchers will put their legs up on their vinyl fences, look at your place and say, ‘What a

Livestock Market Digest

December 15, 2014

continued from page one

dump!’ No thank you very much. I don’t want a neighbor like that. That’s a neighbor from Hell.”

ReRide continued, “No sirree, give me a neighbor whose fences are falling down, whose lead-up alley is made of bed springs, whose cattle are every color of the rainbow, whose Gooseneck doesn’t have a changing room and whose horses don’t make any sudden moves. Give me a neighbor whose brandings are an adventure without 37 townies on inbred horses gathering the cattle according to a plan. I want a neighbor who will trust me with a branding iron, a needle and a knife. A neighbor who will come to my aid at the drop of a hat and loan me anything I need without signing a rental agreement, even if it’s something I loaned him to begin with. I don’t want a neighbor who makes me feel jealous but one who makes me feel superior in every way.

A neighbor who is a worse roper than I am and whose cattle make mine look like purebreds. In other words, a neighbor just like I have now.”

“Thanks a lot ReRide. I like you too.”

New Hope for America?

BY BARRY DENTON

was out on roundup last month and as is the tradition with many ranches in the West we had a big meal together afterward. It is always quite an affair with the men folk getting some superb vittles from the nice ranch ladies.

I

I have always wondered how women could help you work during the day and come up with such a fine meal at night. I am sure that is why we think they are so special. The end of roundup is one of my favorite times of the continued on page thirteen

2015 National Western Stock Show Denver, Colorado January 8 - 22 January 8, Thursday Wool Show Judging, Stadium Hall 1, 8:00 am Kick-Off Parade, Downtown Denver, 12:00 pm January 10, Saturday Quarter Horse Performance Classes, Events Center, 7:00 am National Junior Gelbvieh Heifer Show, Stadium Arena, 7:30 am 4H/ FFA Livestock Judging Contest, CSU - Fort Collins, CO, 8:00 am 4H/FFA Meats Judging Contest, CSU - Fort Collins, CO, 8:00 am Red Angus Junior Show, Stadium Arena, 8:00 am Rodeo 101, Denver Coliseum, 9:15 am – 9:45 am Thank A Farmer Magic Show, Ames Activity Pavilion, 9:30 am Gelbvieh/Gelbvieh Balancer Futurity, Stadium Arena, 10:00 am Colorado vs The World Rodeo, Coliseum, 11:00 am Top Hogs, Ames Activity Pavilion, 12:30 pm Colorado vs. The World Rodeo, Coliseum, 3:30 pm Mile High Select Quarter Horse and Paint Horse Sale, Events Center, 5:00 pm Colorado vs The World FINALS, Coliseum, 8:00 pm January 11, Sunday 4H/ FFA Livestock & Meats Contest Awards Breakfast, Denver, 7:00 am Gelbvieh & Blancer Pen Show, Livestock Center Auction Arena, 8:00 am Thank A Farmer Magic Show, Ames Activity Pavilion, 9:30 am Catch-A-Calf Show, Stadium Arena, 10:00 am Church Service – Fellowship of Christian Cowboys, Centennial Room, 10:00 am Thank A Farmer Magic Show, Ames Activity Pavilion, 10:30 am Red Angus Pen Show, Stockyards Arena, 11:00 am Top Hogs, Ames Activity Pavilion, 12:30 pm National Gelbvieh Sale, Livestock Center Auction Arena, 1:00 pm Mexican Rodeo, Coliseum, 2:00 pm Red Angus Mile High Classic Sale, Livestock Center Auction Arena, 3:00 pm RAM Invitational Freestyle Reining, Events Center, 4:00 pm Mexican Rodeo, Coliseum, 6:30 pm January 12, Monday National Gelbvieh & Balancer Show, Stadium Arena, 8:00 am Open Red Angus Show, Stadium Arena, 8:00 am Thank A Farmer Magic Show, Ames Activity Pavilion, 10:00 am Pedal Tractor Races, Ames Activity Pavilion, 1:00 pm Denver Chute Out PBR Touring Pro Finale (Semi-Finals), Coliseum, 7:00 pm January 13, Tuesday Paint Horse Halter & Performance Classes, Events Center, 7:00 am Junior South Devon Show followed by National South Devon Show, Stadium Arena, 9:00 am National Limousin Junior Heifer/ Lim-Flex Show, Stadium Arena, 9:00 am Fabulous Farm Animals, Beef Palace Auction Arena, 10:00 am Thank A Farmer Magic Show, Ames Activity Pavilion, 10:00 am Limousin Sale Cattle Parade, Stadium, Arena, 3:00 pm National Limousin Sale, Beef Palace Auction Arena, 6:15 pm Denver Chute Out PBR Touring Pro Finale (Semi-Finals), Coliseum, 7:00 pm January 14, Wednesday Paint Horse Performance Classes, Events Center, 7:00 am Angus Bull Super Point Show, Stadium Arena, 8:00 am National Limousin MOE Show, Stadium Arena, 8:00 am Braunvieh Show, Stockyards Arena, 10:00 am Fabulous Farm Animals, Beef Palace Auction Arena, 10:00 am Thank A Farmer Magic Show, Ames Activity Pavilion, 10:00 am Angus Bull Sale Show, Stadium Arena, 12:00 pm

Junior Market Goat Championship Drive, Stadium Hall 1, 1:00 pm Pedal Tractor Races, Ames Activity Pavilion, 1:00 pm Boer Goat Show, Stadium Hall 1, 2:00 pm Stick Horse Grand Prix, Ames Activity Pavilion, 3:00 pm Angus Bull Sale, Beef Palace Auction Arena, 3:30 pm Mutton Bustin’, Stadium Arena, 6:00 pm Denver Chute Out PBR Touring Pro Finale (FINALS), Coliseum, 7:00 pm January 15, Thursday Collegiate Livestock Judging Contest, Coliseum, 8:00 am Junior Angus Heifer Show, Stadium Arena, 8:00 am National Hereford Bull Show, Stadium Arena, 8:00 am Collegiate Wool Judging Contest, Adams County Fairgrounds, 9:00 am Limousin & Lim-FLex Carload & Pen Show, Livestock Center Auction Arena, 9:00 am Fabulous Farm Animals, Beef Palace Auction Arena, 10:00 am Thank A Farmer Magic Show, Ames Activity Pavilion, 10:00 am National Hereford Junior Heifer Show, Stadium Arena, 12:00 pm Denver National Maine-Anjou/ MaineTainer Sale Bull Evaluation, Stockyards Arena, 1:00 pm CINCH Equicross, Coliseum, 2:30 pm Angus “Denim & Diamonds” Sale, Beef Palace Auction Arena, 5:00 pm CINCH Super Shootout Rodeo, Coliseum, 7:00 pm Collegiate Wool Judging Awards Banquet, Double Tree - Denver, 7:00 pm Trowbridge Family & Friends Sale, Livestock Center Auction Arena, 7:00 pm January 16, Friday Angus Female Super Point Show, Stadium Arena, 8:00 am Hereford Pen of Heifers Show, Livestock Center Auction Arena, 8:00 am Collegiate Carload Judging Contest, Stockyards Arena, 8:30 am Hereford Pen / Carload Bull Show, Livestock Center Auction Arena, 9:30 am Fabulous Farm Animals, Beef Palace Auction Arena, 10:00 am Thank A Farmer Magic Show, Ames Activity Pavilion, 10:00 am Denver National Maine-Anjou / Maine Tainer Pen Show, Stockyards Arena, 12:00 pm Pro Rodeo, Coliseum, 1:30 pm Ranch House Design Workshop, Beef Palace Auction Arena, 2:00 pm Colorado Angus Association Foundation Female Sale, Livestock Center Auction Arena, 2:30 pm Herd Sire Display Opens, Yards, 4:00 pm Stick Horse Rodeo, Ames Activity Pavilion, 5:00 pm Collegiate Livestock Judging Awards Banquet, Double Tree - Denver, 6:00 pm National Hereford Sale, Stadium Arena, 6:00 pm Pro Rodeo, Coliseum, 7:30 pm January 17, Saturday Angus Pen/Carload Show, Livestock Center Auction Arena, 8:00 am National Hereford Female Show, Stadium Arena, 8:00 am Herd Sire Display Opens, Yards, 9:00 am National Charolais Pen Show, Stockyards Arena, 9:00 am Thank A Farmer Magic Show, Ames Activity Pavilion, 9:30 am Thank A Farmer Magic Show, Ames Activity Pavilion, 10:30 am Pro Rodeo, Coliseum, 11:00 am Shorthorn Pen Show, Stockyards Arena, 11:00 am “Bright Lights” Maine-Anjou Bull / Female Sale, Livestock Center Auction Arena, 3:00 pm Pro Rodeo, Coliseum, 3:30 pm Junior Market Lamb Showmanship, Stadium Hall 1, 4:00 pm Western Elite Female Sale, Livestock Center Auction Arena, 6:00 pm Pro Rodeo, Coliseum, 8:00 pm January 18, Sunday Charolais Junior Heifer Show / Open percentage Charolais Show, Stadium Arena, 8:00 am Chianina / Chiangus Pen of Bulls / Females Show, Livestock Center Auction Arena, 8:00 am

December 15, 2014

“America’s Favorite Livestock Newspaper”

Back Side year.

The cattle prices are still up, the neighbors are all in, and have time to visit. One thing that we find out is that each ranch deals with primarily the same set of problems.

Many times our conversations lead to solutions that we could not achieve on our own. The other item that is so important to folks that live in remote areas is news. We all like to hear good news, but bad news is important as well.

Since I’m the local guy that is involved politically I seem to get all the flack when all the politicians I know do something stupid. Believe me, there is an endless supply of flack. I try to just report what I know about issues and let each individual make up their own mind about the subject. However, since as ranchers I think we should keep our hand in politics I’m often the messenger that is shot. The enlightening part is that we may argue and fight over specific topics among

Page 13 continued from page twelve

ourselves, but we all tend to vote the same way. The other thing that we all have in common is that we actually make time to go to the polls as we don’t trust the absentee ballot.

In our minor group of voting cowboys there are a couple of Independents, no Democrats, and mostly Republicans. We may unite to be influential, but I truly doubt that we have had any impact on any election.

Perhaps we need to start a “voting cowboy movement”.

Let’s face it — we are becoming extinct. It is quite evident when you go into the hardware store and a transplanted city guy wants to buy your cowboy hat to put on his game room wall.

I was getting fuel the other day in Camp Verde, Arizona and someone in a Mercedes rolled down his window and asked to buy my hat. Foolishly I said no, but I did offer him an authentic cowboy pocket knife with the end of the blade broke off so it could double as a screwdriver.

Our roundup supper was prior to election day so everyone wanted to know about the issues and the candidates. Most had heard that the Republicans had a good chance of winning so they were eager to cast their ballots.

The ranchers have been bludgeoned for six years by the current administration so there was finally some hope in the air.

I think after six years the ranchers would have voted for a third grader with a broken arm over a Democrat. I’m sure that goes for the rest of the country as well per the outcome of the recent election. Isn’t it remarkable that the majority of the country voted with a small group of cowboys and cowgirls. That is how you tell there has been a creeping crud permeating the country for too long.

My next duty was to meet with our congressman who is a champion of the “working person”. Yes, that’s what I said, and he has the record to prove it.

One of the few members of con-

Junior Market Lamb Show, Stadium Hall 1, 8:00 am National Simmental Pen of Bulls Show, Stockyards Arena, 8:00 am Open Maine-Anjou & MaineTainer Bull Show / Junior MaineTainer Breeding Heifers / Open MaineTainer Show / Junior Maine-Anjou Breeding Heifers / Open Maine-Anjou Heifer Show, Stadium Arena, 8:00 am Herd Sire Display Opens, Yards, 9:00 am Thank A Farmer Magic Show, Ames Activity Pavilion, 9:30 am Church Service – Founders Memorial, Denver Coliseum, 10:00 am Junior Shorthorn Heifer & Jr. ShorthornPlus Heifer Show /National Shorthorn Bull Show, Stadium Arena, 11:00 am ACA “Hybrid Advantage” Bull & Female Sale, Livestock Center Auction Arena, 1:00 pm Pens of 3 & 5 Prospect Calves Show, Stockyards Arena, 2:00 pm Pro Rodeo, Coliseum, 2:00 pm Charolais in the Rockies Sale, Beef Palace Auction Arena, 2:30 pm Salers Bull Futurity Show, Livestock Center Auction Arena, 2:30 pm National Salers Heifer & Bull Pen Show, Livestock Center Auction Arena, 3:00 pm “The Summit” National Shorthorn Sale, Beef Palace Auction Arena, 6:00 pm Junior Market Lamb Champion Selection, Stadium Arena, 6:00 pm Pro Rodeo, Coliseum, 6:30 pm January 19, Monday National ROE Charolais Show, Stadium Arena, 8:00 am National Simmental Pen of Heifers Show, Stockyards Arena, 8:00 am Chianina Junior Show, Stadium Arena, 9:00 am Pens of 3 & 5 Prospect Calves Sale, Livestock Center Auction Arena, 10:00 am Thank A Farmer Magic Show, Ames Activity Pavilion, 10:00 am 40th National Salers Sale, Beef Palace Auction Arena, 1:00 pm American Galloway Show, Stockyards Arena, 1:00 pm National Shorthorn Female Show / Open ShorthornPlus Show, Stadium Arena, 1:00 pm Pro Rodeo, Coliseum, 1:00 pm Simmental Sale, Livestock Center Auction Arena, 3:00 pm MLK Jr. African American Heritage Rodeo, Coliseum, 6:00 pm January 20, Tuesday Classic Open Horse Show Performance Classes, Events Center, 7:00 am National Simmental Jr. Breeding Heifer Show / Simmental Bull Show, Stadium Arena, 8:00 am Salers Jr. Breeding Heifer/ 40th National Salers Open Show, Stadium Arena, 9:00 am Fabulous Farm Animals, Beef Palace Auction Arena, 10:00 am Thank A Farmer Magic Show, Ames Activity Pavilion, 10:00 am Piedmontese Show, Stockyards Arena, 11:00 am Sheep Shearing, Ames Activity Pavilion, 12:30 pm Junior Market Swine Showmanship, Stadium Hall 1, 4:00 pm Mutton Bustin’, Stadium Arena, 5:00 pm Pro Rodeo – Military Appreciation Night, Coliseum, 7:00 pm January 21, Wednesday Classic Open Horse Show Performance Classes, Events Center, 7:00 am National Simmental Female Show, Stadium Arena, 8:00 am Junior Market Swine Show, Stadium Hall 1, 9:00 am NWSS Commercial Heifer Show, Livestock Center Auction Arena, 9:30 am Fabulous Farm Animals, Beef Palace Auction Arena, 10:00 am National Wagyu Female & Bull Show, Stockyards Arena, 10:00 am Thank A Farmer Magic Show, Ames Activity Pavilion, 10:00 am Sheep Shearing, Ames Activity Pavilion, 12:30 pm Andis Cattle Grooming Demonstration, Beef Palace Auction Arena, 1:00 pm Pro Rodeo, Coliseum, 1:30 pm NWSS Commercial Female Sale, Livestock Center Auction Arena, 2:30 pm Junior Market Steer Showmanship, Stadium Arena, 3:00 pm Colorado Cattleman’s Association Night at the Rodeo, Coliseum, 7:00 pm Junior Market Swine Champion Selection, Stadium Arena, 7:00 pm Pro Rodeo, Coliseum, 7:00 pm January 22, Thursday Junior Market Steer Show, Stadium Arena, 8:00 am

gress that is not a lawyer and actually cares what his constituents think. Funny thing, but one time I used the term “working person” in describing a problem to one of our state legislators and he had no idea what I meant by that term. Talk about disconnected.

Back to the congressman, he was delighted with the sweep of the election that the republicans made. I expressed to the congressman that now my fellow cattle folks were concerned that the Republicans would squander their victory like they had done so many times before. They have a history of not knowing how to handle victory. I know there are at least a handful of good Republicans that possess some courage, but most seem to quake in their boots when their opponent looks cross eyed at them.

Why would you ever make concessions when you are the one with the power? Do you remember the story of Jesus in the temple in Jerusalem? As I

remember it at that time you were required to go to the temple twice a year and sacrifice a lamb for God. You had to buy your sacrificial lamb from the Pharisees that owned all the sheep and made the rule in the first place. Jesus was aware of this and walked up to the tables full of money in the temple and turned them over with the help of his disciples.

Can you imagine the look on their faces? He intimidated the Pharisees so much that they wanted him put to death. And you know the rest of the story.

It’s time for the Republicans to intimidate instead of negotiate. While I agree that the country is more polarized than it was 30 years ago, I think it is actually a healthy evolution. We are in part of a cycle and bipartisanship will come back around in the future. Now is not the right time for it. Someone has to lead and it may as well be the newly elected Republicans. Are they capable?

Fabulous Farm Animals, Beef Palace Auction Arena, 10:00 am National Lowline People’s Choice Show, Stockyards Arena, 10:00 am Pro Rodeo, Coliseum, 10:30 am Thank A Farmer Magic Show, Ames Activity Pavilion, 11:00 am Sheep Shearing, Ames Activity Pavilion, 12:30 pm National Lowline Sale, Livestock Center Auction Arena, 1:00 pm AJHA Junior Challenge, Beef Palace Auction Arena, 2:00 pm Junior Market Steer Champion Selection, Stadium Arena, 6:00 pm Highland Jr. Breeding Heifer Show / Steers & Prospect Show, Stadium Arena, 7:00 pm Pro Rodeo, Coliseum, 7:00 pm January 23, Friday Junior Premier Exhibitor Interviews, TBA, 8:00 am Miniature Hereford World Show, Stadium Arena, 8:00 am Mule & Donkey Halter Classes, Events Center, 8:00 am National Bison Judging, Stockyards, 8:00 am National Highland Show, Stadium Arena, 8:00 am National Lowline Junior Show / Showmanship, Stockyards Arena, 8:00 am Stock Dog Trials (Preliminary Cattle Competition), Stockyards, 8:00 am National Lowline Female Show (Fullblood & %), Stockyards Arena, 9:00 am Thank A Farmer Magic Show, Ames Activity Pavilion, 10:00 am Draft Horse & Mule Perfornace Classes, Events Center, 11:00 am Sheep Shearing, Ames Activity Pavilion, 12:30 pm Pro Rodeo, Coliseum, 1:30 pm Bison Handling Q&A in the Yards at NWSS, Stockyards Arena, 2:00 pm Open Prospect Heifer Show, Stadium Arena, 2:00 pm Texas Longhorn World Show (Haltered), Stockyards Arena, 3:00 pm Junior Livestock Champions Auction, Beef Palace Auction Arena, 6:30 pm Draft Horse & Mule Show, Events Center, 7:00 pm Pro Rodeo, Coliseum, 7:30 pm January 24, Saturday Draft Horse & Mule Performance Classes, Events Center, 7:00 am Junior Ewe Lamb Showmanship (All Breeds), Stadium Hall 1, 8:00 am National Lowline Pen Show, Stockyards Arena, 8:00 am Junior Breeding Sheep Show followed by the Open Show (Wool Breeds – Jr., Breeding, Natural Color), Stadium Hall 1, 8:30 am National Lowline Bull Show (Fullblood & %), Stockyards Arena, 9:00 am Open Prospect Steer Show, Stadium Arena, 9:00 am Rodeo 101, Denver Coliseum, 9:15 am – 9:45 am Thank A Farmer Magic Show, Ames Activity Pavilion, 9:30 am National Gold Trophy Bison Carcass Sale, Livestock Center Auction Arena, 10:00 am National Highland Sale, Beef Palace Auction Arena, 10:00 am Thank A Farmer Magic Show, Ames Activity Pavilion, 10:30 am National Gold Trophy Bison Live Sale, Livestock Center Auction Arena, 11:00 am Pink Pro Rodeo, Coliseum, 11:00 am Miniature Hereford World Sale, Beef Palace Auction Arena, 2:00 pm Texas Longhorn World Show (Non-Haltered), Stockyards Arena, 3:00 pm Pro Rodeo, Coliseum, 3:30 pm Sheep Lead Contest, Stadium Hall 1, 6:30 pm Draft Horse & Mule Show, Events Center, 7:00 pm Pro Rodeo, Coliseum, 8:00 pm January 25, Sunday Draft Horse & Mule Perfornace Classes, Events Center, 8:00 am Junior Breeding Sheep Show followed by the Open Show (Meat Breeds), Stadium Hall 1, 8:30 am Stock Dog Trials (Intermediate Sheep Competition), Stadium Arena, 9:00 am Thank A Farmer Magic Show, Ames Activity Pavilion, 9:30 am Church Service – Fellowship of Christian Cowboys, Denver Coliseum, 10:00 am Draft Horse & Mule Show, Events Center, 1:00 pm Pro Rodeo FINALS, Coliseum, 2:00 pm

Livestock Market Digest

Page 14

December 15, 2014

Fear Drives Organic Marketing Success

BY GARY TRUITT, WWW.HOOSIERAGTODAY.COM

have often said that, if you want to sell a food product, just put the word “organic” or “Amish” on it. Food marketers have been doing this for decades with great success. But research now indicates that different words on food products are having a more significant impact on consumer buying decisions. Unlike the positive connotations that Amish and Organic have, the new words play to the fears and the misinformation that consumers have. In addition, efforts are underway to mandate the use of these negative messages on all food products.

At this point, let me state I am not against organic agricul-

I

ture or people who farm organically. My issue is with the way some organic products are marketed and promoted. The “Organic Marketing Report” found no scientific consensus to prove the organic marketing industry’s claims that organic food is more nutritious and safer than traditional food. The report reviewed more than 200 published studies from 1990 – 2014 as well as sales trends.

What I found to be more disturbing are the findings that indicate what messages are impacting and motivating food buyers today. The study found three reasons why consumers purchased organic foods: personal health, food safety concerns, and absence claims (i.e. pesticide free, no GMOs, hormone and antibiotic-free). It

was also found that organic labels do not compel consumers to purchase organic products unless the label contains absence claims or related packing callouts that imply health or safety related concerns. “In other words, fear sells,” says Joanna Schroeder, who presented the research findings to the Western Plant Health Association annual meeting in Palm Desert, California.

Schroeder explained, in terms of organic marketing, success has come from capitalizing on food health scares.

The industry has also targeted expectant mothers with the message that the food they are eating could harm their child, but that eating organic would help ensure a healthy baby.

PRELIMINARY SCHEDULE OF LIVESTOCK SHOW EVENTS

67th ARIZONA NATIONAL LIVESTOCK SHOW Schedule Subject to Change FRIDAY DECEMBER 26, 2014 10:00 am Tie Outs Available 1:00 pm OCB Poultry Arrival until 9:30 pm Feed Store Open 3:00 pm Earliest Livestock Arrivals in Barns No Barn Access from 8:30 pm Friday thru 6:00 am Saturday Scales Available until 9:30 pm for Sheep, Goats & Swine Barns Open for receiving until 8:30 pm Tie Outs available all night 7:00 pm OCB Broiler & Turkey Weigh-in (ends at 8pm) 9:00 pm Barns Locked SATURDAY, DECEMBER 27, 2014 6:00 am Barns Open Barns available for Swine, and Cattle 6:00 am SB Jr. Sheep/Goats New Arrivals until 11 am Barns available for Cattle until 2 pm & SB Open Sheep may arrive until 6:00 pm AC Scales available for Swine until 11:00 am Scales available for Cattle until 9:00 am 8:00 am SB Scales available for Jr. Sheep & Goats until 10:00 am AF Chuck Wagons Begin to arrive 9:00 am OSR Prospect Steer Weigh-in OCB Poultry Show Judging (Broilers, Turkeys, Specialty Breed and ANLS Show) 10:00 am OCB Poultry Showmanship OSR Market Beef Weight Cards Due and Processing AC Junior Swine Check-in Deadline 10:30 am AC Junior Swine Orientation 11:00 am AC Swine Wash Racks Closed until 12:30 pm SB Jr. Market Lamb & Market Goat Check-in Deadline 11:15 am SB Junior Sheep / Goat Orientation

11:30 am AC Junior Barrow Weigh Cards & Registration Papers Due AC Breeding Gilt Registration Paper Check and XB Gilt Weigh Cards Deadline 12:30 pm AC Feeder Steer Weigh-in 1:00 pm SB Jr. Breeding Sheep Check-in Deadline 1:30 pm OSR Prospect Steer Show followed by OSR Champion Prospect Steer Selection SB Junior Sheep & Goats Weigh Cards Due 2:00 pm AC ShowRite Feeds Clinic Open & Junior Cattle Check-in Deadline 2:30 pm TBD Chuck Wagon Judging 3:15 pm AC Swine Showmanship 3:30 pm OSR Prospect Steer Showmanship 4:00 pm OCB Stock Show University Clinic 5:00 pm PG Chuck Wagon Camp Meeting 6:00 pm SB Open Sheep 1st day Arrival Deadline 6:15 pm YB Arizona National Western Gala 9:00 pm All Barns Locked SUNDAY , DECEMBER 28, 2014 6:00 am Barns Open YB Exhibitors Breakfast OCB Specialty Poultry Release 8:00 am AF Chuck Wagon Breakfast 8:30 am AF Dutch Oven Cook Off 8:45 am OSR Junior Breeding Heifer Show 9:00 am SB Junior Sheep Showmanship AC Pedigree and XB Gilt Show GA AZ Working Ranch Horse Competition 10:00 am OCB Cattlemen’s College by UofA 10:30 am AF Dutch Oven Cooking Demonstration #1 11:00 am OSR Open Cattle Show Red Angus

“Once the mother moved to organics and her child grows, the fear-based marketing moves along with the growth of the child,” stated Schroeder.

Schroeder was critical of the way the food industry has responded, “The ‘traditional’ or ‘conventional’ ag industry has spent countless hours on the defensive refuting these messages rather than being on the offensive and engaging consumers in its own, positive message communications campaign.”

She advocated a more inclusive approach for food marketing, “Ultimately, if the traditional ag industry is going to see some positive traction among consumers, they need to change their view from ‘us

11:30 am OSR Open Cattle Show – Hereford AF Dutch Oven Tasting #1 AF Dutch Oven Cooking Demonstration #2 AF Youth Dutch Oven Contest SB Open Sheep Final Check-in Deadline OCB Cattlemen’s Day Lunch Noon YB Az Pioneer Stockmen’s Association Luncheon SB Junior Market Lamb Show 12:30 pm OSR Open Cattle Show – Brangus AF Dutch Oven Tasting #2 AF Dutch Oven Cooking Demonstration #3 1:00 pm OSR Junior Market Beef Show FE Li’l Buckaroo Rodeo #1 OCB Poultry Sale 1:30 pm OCB Commercial Replacement Heifer Sale AC Pedigree and XB Barrow Show AF Dutch Oven Tasting #3 AF Dutch Oven Cooking Demonstration #4 2:00 pm OSR Open Cattle Show - AOB followed by OSR Open Cattle Show – Brahman PG Cowbelle State Meeting 2:30 pm AF Dutch Oven & Youth Cook-Off Awards 3:30 pm OSR Fitting Contest 5:00 pm SB Jr. Market Goat Showmanship YB UofA Livestock Judging Reunion 9:00 pm All Barns Locked MONDAY, DECEMBER 29, 2014 6:00 am Barns Open 8:00 am SB Show Rite Goat Clinic 9:15 am SB Junior Market Goat Show 8:15 am AC Feeder Steer & Sun Classic Heifer Show 8:30 am OSR Open Cattle Show – Shorthorns 9:00 am YB Public Speaking Contest OCB Linder Feeds Clinic 10:00 am OSR Open Cattle Show – Percentage Cattle 11:30 am OSR Open Cattle Show – % Simmental Noon AF Chuck Wagon Lunch OCB Supreme Champion Market Selection 1:00 pm SB Junior Breeding Sheep Show TBD Judging Classic Workouts FE Li’l Buckaroo Rodeo Finals

against them’ to ‘it will take all types of agriculture working together to provide a safe and healthy food supply for nine billion people.’ There must be a holistic discussion around sustainable agriculture, not a fragmented conversation.”

While this sounds nice, it is unrealistic when the organic and anti-GMO groups are trying to legislate mandatory negative food labels. The culture of fear that surrounds our food today is making millions for some, while confusing and misleading consumers. I find it a bit ironic that the groups who denigrate big food companies as being greedy and self-serving, are themselves making millions by fear mongering and misrepresenting their products’ benefits.

OSR Junior Beef Showmanship 2:00 pm OCB Grand Canyon Classic Breeding Swine Sale 2:15 pm YB Youth Exhibitor Skill-A-Thon 2:30 pm OSR Open Cattle Show – Angus 3:00 pm AF Chuck Wagon Awards AC Sun Classic Heifer Sale AC Feeder Steer Sale (after Heifers) 3:30 pm SB Open Sheep Show – Wool Breeds 5:00 pm OCB Master Showmanship 6:30 pm YB Outside the Ring – Junior Family Experience 7:00 pm OCB Release all Poultry (Market Poultry Champions Stay) TUESDAY, DECEMBER 30, 2014 6:00 am Begin Release of Open Cattle 7:30 am CNH Junior Judging Contest Registration CNH Collegiate Judging Contest Check-In 8:30 am LP Collegiate Livestock Judging Contest LP Junior Livestock Judging Contest 9:00 am SB Open Sheep Show – Meat Breeds 10:45 am SB Open Sheep Supreme Ram & Ewe Selection 11:45 am OSR Open Cattle Supreme Bull & Female & Cow Calf Selection 1:30 pm AC Junior Auction Buyer Reception 2:00 pm AC Junior Market Auction AC Food Drive Announcement 4:00 pm CNH Junior Judging Contest Awards 6:00 pm All Livestock Released Western Legacy Jackpot Show Move-in until 7:30 pm 7:00 pm YB Collegiate Awards Banquet Wednesday, December 31, 2014 5:45 am OSR Western Legacy Jackpot Cattle Check-in until 7:30 am 9:30 am OSR Western Legacy Jackpot Cattle Show 7:00 pm All Livestock Off Grounds WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 31, 2014 5:45 am OSR Western Legacy Jackpot Cattle Check-in until 7:30 am 9:30 am OSR Western Legacy Jackpot Cattle Show 7:00 pm All Livestock Off Grounds

“America’s Favorite Livestock Newspaper”

December 15, 2014

By Frank DuBois

es.

NEPA is a money bank for the enviros and is preventing scientific management of our forests and endangering nearby communities.

The new majority in Congress needs to fix this.

Protesting PETA My column covers prairie dogs, wolves, wilderness, VIP vacations and horrible school lunches

Prairie Dogs & Interstate Commerce ontrary to some other court opinions, a federal court in Utah has held the authority of the USFWS to regulate the “take” of threatened species under the ESA does not extend to an intrastate species. The case is People For The Ethical Treatment of Property Owners vs.

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. In 2012, the Feds issued a special rule for the Utah prairie dog that only exists in Utah. The rule allowed a “take“ of the species on private property where prairie dogs “create serious human safety hazards or disturb the sanctity of significant human cultural or human burial sites.” The People For The Ethical Treatment of Property Owners sued saying the USFWS lacked the authority to regulate a purely intrastate species on non-federal land. The court agreed, ruling the “take” of the species does not substantially affect interstate commerce. Courthouse News reports that several appeals courts have ruled the feds do have that authority, but for now land owners in Utah don’t have to get a federal permit to work or develop their property.

C

Wolves In early November four environmental groups and Dave Parsons, retired Mexican wolf recovery coordinator, filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court against the Feds alleging they have not provided a complete recovery plan for the Mexican gray wolf.

In late November (and on the same day I’m writing this) the USFWS released their Final Environmental Impact Statement to their proposed rule revisions governing the Mexican wolf. Near as I can tell their preferred alternative would a) triple the number of wolves, b) allow the initial release of wolves into the Gila National Forest and the Magdalena District of the Cibola National Forest, and c) expand the recovery area in New Mexico and Arizona to include all land south of I-10 to our border with Mexico.

Further, the USFWS lab has confirmed through DNA analysis that a female wolf inhabiting the north rim of the Grand Canyon is one of the Rocky Mountain wolf variety. In a released statement, the USFWS said the DNA results “indicate this wolf traveled at least 450 miles from an area in the northern Rocky Mountains to northern Arizona.” This species is fully protected by the Endangered

Species Act. And finally, the Ruidoso News reports a possible wolf sighting just north Ruidoso. A man and his wife were walking in a subdivision and witnessed two wolves attack and drag a mature doe into the Bonito River. The man, one Alan Thomas, president of the local home owners association says it was a “vicious attack” and in a sign of things to come said, “I’m not naive enough to think there aren’t predators in this part of New Mexico, but seeing two wolves appear out of nowhere and grab a huge deer right off the pavement in broad daylight was a sobering reminder to be ever vigilant when walking, jogging or bicycle riding.”

New Mexico is about to become a very “wolfy” state, with the fully protected Rocky Mountain gray wolf north of I-40 and the experimental population of the Mexican gray wolf south of I-40. This will start to impact more and more residents, even higher education. The UNM Lobos fit right in, but the NMSU Aggies really doesn’t fit with our new “wolfy” status and they are due a name change. I would suggest the NMSU Trappers.

In October two PETA workers, driving a PETA van, entered the yard of one Wilbur Zarate and from his porch absconded with the family’s pet Chihuahua. There had been other animal disappearances in the neighborhood and that would have been the end of the story except for one thing: a security camera on the property captured it all. PETA euthanized the dog which had been a gift to Zarate’s nine year-old daughter.

However, the Accomack County Commonwealth’s Attorney Office has refused to prosecute. A rally has been held and over 2,000 folks signed a petition requesting he change his position, all to no avail.

The prosecutor says there was no criminal intent since there had been reports of stray dogs in the area.

According to official Virginia state records, PETA has killed almost 32,000 pets. Anyone who has followed PETA over the years knows exactly wha t their intent was.

Interior IG probes VIP trips The Inspector General for the Department of the Interior has begun a review of senior Obama

administration officials using a vacation lodge in Wyoming’s Grand Teton National Park. In a Nov. 6 memo to Park Service Director Jon Jarvis, Deputy Inspector General Mary Kendall said her office would be conducting a review of his agency’s “management and operation” of the park’s Brinkerhoff Lodge. That review “will include an examination of management policies and practices associated with the operation of the Lodge, to include identifying what guests have used the Lodge without payment and for what purpose.”

Need a vacation that includes lodging with liberals? Just call Obama and then hope Michelle is not in charge of the menu. Otherwise its roots and shoots for breakfast.

Michelle’s military – too fat to fight?

I’ve written before on how the Pentagon is teaming up with Michelle Obama to push her antimeat school lunch program. Now a group of retired generals and admirals are saying childhood obesity is a threat to national security and have issued a report titled Too Fat To Fight which claims that a quarter of 17- to 24-year-old Americans are too heavy to join the military. The other 75 percent is not a big enough pool for you?

Instead you are calling for “for school districts to limit the sale of junk food and for national legislation to enforce those limits and to fund better school lunch options.”

Page 15 In other words, more funding for Michelle Obama’s Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act. These generals should remember we have an all volunteer military and our kids are not exactly buying in to Michelle’s diet. Her quest for healthy school lunches has sparked a backlash from the very people who are served the grub in cafeterias across America.

A campaign has gone viral where students take photos of their lunches and share them on Twitter using the hashtag #ThanksMichelleObama.

I would suggest to our friends in the military that you leave parenting on nutrition up to the parents.

And since your own report admits there is a weight problem with folks already in the military, solve your internal problem before you start barking orders at others and finally, Super Size your tanks, not the government.

I’ll close with some good news.

Rep. Rob Bishop of Utah will be the next Chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee.

He’s a friend to federal lands ranchers. I’ve also just learned that Jason Knox will be his Chief of Staff. Jason is also a friend who has attended NM Cattle Growers meetings.

Here’s wishing everyone a Merry Christmas and a Very Prosperous New Year!

Frank DuBois was the NM Secretary of Agriculture from 1988 to 2003, is the author of a blog: The Westerner (www.thewesterner.blog spot.com) and is the founder of The DuBois Rodeo Scholarship.

Columbine-Hondo Wilderness Senator Martin Heinrich has announced the Columbine-Hondo Wilderness Act has cleared the Energy and Natural Resources Committee and awaits action by the full Senate. The legislation would designate as Wilderness 45,000 acres in the Carson National Forest in Taos County. Heinrich says the acreage has been managed as a Wilderness Study Area since 1980.

Forest Service litigation The Society of American Foresters has published a new study providing litigation statistics for 1989 to 2008. During that time period, 1,125 lawsuits were filed in federal court over federal land management. The Forest Service won 53.8 percent, lost 23.3 percent and settled in 22.9 percent (that means the Forest Service “lost” 47 percent of the time and money was awarded to the enviro attorneys). The Forest Service was more likely to lose or settle cases in the last six years of the study. Of the lawsuits, 78.9 percent sought less resource use within the National Forest System. Eighty two laws governed the Forest Service’s land management decisions, according to the study.

Plaintiffs alleged that the Forest Service violated the National Environmental Policy Act in 71.5 percent of cases, the National Forest Management Act in 48.8 percent of cases, and the Endangered Species Act in 17.6 percent of cas-

Cowboy Christmas Carol T

his is the story of Tiny Slim Crachett, a genuine reprobate Who squandered his money and wasted his love until it was almost too late.

He was just your typical cowboy, honest, brave and sincere And he lay on his bunk one Christmas Eve night belching up nachos and beer When a vision appeared at the foot of his bed. He stared at the apparition, “Must be that microwave pizza I ate,” he blinked and shifted position.

“I ain’t no pizza you commonbred fool! Your brain’s as dull as your knife.

I am the ghost of Christmas past, and cowboy . . . This is your life!”

The scruffy old ghost looked down at the cowboy, “I’m here for a couple of things; To find some reason to salvage your soul and, in doin’ so, earn me my wings.

“I’ve jotted some notes from the big tally book regarding your skipping on bail.

It says that your mother posted the bond. Is it true that she went to jail?”

“Well,” said the cowboy, “it was just for a year. I had to move in with my aunt!

But I got her a job when she made parole pullin’ hides at the rendering plant.”

“Yer worse than I thought! It’s a hopeless case and me, with my wings on the line.

I’ve checked through yer records for somethin worthwhile. There’s really not much I can find.

“You rattle around in your sister’s ol’ truck with no visible means of support If sorry and worthless came bottled in pints you’d be good for a quart!

“You gypo some cows and ride a few colts, do day work if all else fails.

Shoot pool and drink beer, rope three days a week, trade chronics at all of the sales “Your past is a trip through the cat box of life, a sorid collection of wrecks.

You’ve broke enough hearts to frighten DeBakey and written so many bad checks “Were they laid on the ground in a line end to end they’d reach further than you could point!

Though time is a teacher, you’ve failed the grade. I can’t see a thing that you’ve loint “But what the heck, it’s Christmas, A time of goodwill so I’m willin’ to skip the above If we can find a single good deed you’ve done that shows kindness and love.”

“Humm . . . kindness and love . . .?” thought Tiny Slim Crachett, his mind beginning to race, “Once a rumor got started that Mother’s old farm was covered with toxic waste.

“For the sake of my mom, I rallied the press. To a man they took up her cause!

Greenpeace rowed up and camped on the lawn, the feminists all burned their bras!

“I handcuffed myself to the Frigidaire! And went on a hunger strike!

But alas we failed. She was forced to sell at less than I would have liked.

“Thank goodness I’d just got my real estate license ‘cause the place brought near ‘43’ Though it cost the ol’ lady twenty’two thou for commission and realtor’s fee.

“So there’s my good deed. As simple as that you can count on me in a pinch.

Our problem is solved, I’m home free and clear and your wings are a lead pipe cinch!

“So, let’s drink a toast to Mom and the angels, and you, though you’re a late bloomer, And hope they never find out it was me who started that ugly rumor!”

Livestock Market Digest

Page 16

December 15, 2014

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