LMD Dec 2021

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Riding Herd Saying things that need to be said. December 15, 2021 • www.aaalivestock.com

Volume 63 • No. 12

The Map Makers BY LEE PITTS

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hat the spotted owl was to the logger, climate change will be to the rancher. Just as the spotted owl virtually shut down the logging industry, decimating small logging towns in the process, so too will climate change kick cows off all public land and make it even more difficult for private landowners to navigate the morass of new rules and regulations and higher estate and property taxes put in place by Biden and his merry band of socialists. Most ranchers know the onslaught is coming, they just aren’t aware of when and where the next shot will come from. Most ranchers probably haven’t even heard of one tool the enviros are counting on to rid the west of cattlemen and their cows. It’s called “climate mapping” and it’s akin to “redistricting” where the political party in power redraws maps to ensure that one of their kind will be elected and reelected ad infinitum. Only the losers in this case will be cattlemen.

Dumbing It Down

NEWSPAPER PRIORITY HANDLING

In January 2010, Donald Jensen, of Utah State and Andy Keller, Ph. D. created the very first climate map. They did so by accumulating data from 56,000 weather stations around the world. A climate map can use one, or any number of variables like precipitation, humidity, and changes in temperature over a specified time or a specific area. A climate map may use data that covers the entire planet, a single continent, a state, county or even a town which is then used in a classification system based on averages which are

An education seldom hurts a man if he’s willin’ to learn a little something after he graduates. then assigned a color on a cliThe U.S. Climate Atlas conmate map. tains multiple maps based on a A collection of such maps dataset which uses daily obseris called a climate atlas. These vations of temperature and premaps can easily be used to cre- cipitation from over 10,000 staate a slanted viewpoint and can tions in the U.S. This daily data be very effective in convincing is then summarized in monthly congresspersons, who either values which are then used to don’t know how to read, or don’t create colorful maps. The U.S. have the time to read the legis- Climate Atlas includes maps for lation they pass because they’re too busy campaigning for reelection. Green groups Eastern politicians can take one look at a colorimmediately saw the ful climate map and think they have all the justificapotential for climate maps tion they need to turn the west into one big private to handcuff farmers and park for their constituents to visit during vacation. (Although there’s ranchers ...” not as much western wonder to see because national any particular month and year forests have been mismanaged from 1895 to present. There by the feds and are now burned are also more complicated and to a crisp along with the wildlife in-depth climatology maps repthat lived there.) resenting average values from

1991 to 2020. Green groups immediately saw the potential for climate maps to handcuff farmers and ranchers and in convincing the general public that agriculturalists were wasting W-A-A-A-Y too much water just to produce something as ludicrous as food. To give you an idea of all the minutiae to be found in the U.S Climate Atlas, the continental U.S. is broken down into 344 climate divisions and temperature and precipitation values are computed daily for every one. Keep in mind that these numbers can vary based on where the weather stations that collect such data are placed. These divisional values are then “weighted” by area to compute statewide, regional, county and local datasets which are then used to create maps in bright colors that are much easier to understand for voters and their legislators who can just Google® “climate map” and see visible proof of climate change that even a third grader might understand. Never mind that the data that is inputted may be “weighted” to portray a skewed view of things. In other words, they’ve dumbed down climate change to a group of colorful maps that are meant to create fear amongst the pop continued on page 2

Coyote Populations Continue to Grow Throughout U.S.

Inflation is Hurting Rural Americans More Than City Folk — Here’s Why

K-State expert says trapping is best way to resolve interactions with livestock

BY IRINA IVANOVA / CBSNEWS.COM

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f it seems like there are a lot more coyotes mingling in human spaces these days, it’s because…well, there are. “When we look at abundance trends, the population of coyotes has increased threefold since the fur market crashed in the late 1980s,” said Drew Ricketts, a wildlife management specialist with K-State Research and Extension. Depending on time of year, the Kansas Department of Wildlife and Parks estimates between 150,000 and 300,000 coyotes live in Kansas alone. Coyotes are found in every U.S. state, except Hawaii. They are also being seen increasingly in more heavily populated areas. Ricketts notes that wildlife cameras have eyed coyotes in such cities as Chicago, Portland and Denver. Researchers in Chicago found that coyotes even learned how to use traffic control signals: “They were waiting until lights turned green before crossing the street,” Ricketts said. “They have learned to navigate an urban landscape.” “One of the things that has allowed coyotes continued on page 4

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rices are rising across the U.S., driving up the cost of food, housing, heat, cars and many other essential items. But inflation isn’t hitting everyone equally. Data shows that Americans with less education and those living in rural areas are feeling the pinch most acutely. Among Americans without a college degree, more than half say inflation has caused them financial hardship, compared to 30 percent of college-educated adults, according to a new Gallup poll. For people earning less than $40,000 a year, 71 percent said they felt the sting of higher prices — three in ten said the hardships were severe enough to affect their standard of living. Among those making $100,000 or more, the figures were reversed — 71 percent of six-figure-earners said inflation hadn’t caused any hardship, Gallup found. A recent analysis from Bank of America also underlines how inflation is disproportionately affecting lower-income and rural people. Rural Americans have seen their spending power drop 5.2 percent on an annualized basis, compared with 3.5 percent for urban households, the recontinued on page 4

by LEE PITTS

Barely Legal

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here’s lots of talk about how the beef industry needs more small processing plants to combat the power of the Big Four beef packers. Becoming a small beef packer is the best way I know to lose your shirt in the shortest possible time. I’ve known two guys who tried it and they both lost a million dollars. To build a new small plant will cost you $1.2 million which will only process 20 head per week! Plus the meat has to be inspected by a federal inspector. The fact that we have no price discovery in fat cattle is because of contract production like they have in the pork and poultry industries. Contract production got us into this mess and it can get us out, only it’s not the contract the Big Four want you to sign. I’ve known since I was a freshman in high school how to compete with meatpackers. My ag teacher liked to start FFA members out with a lamb project where they’d feed one or two lambs a diet of alfalfa hay and cull lima beans, which were plentiful in our area, and take the lambs from 60 pounds to 100 pounds. Our chapter had a waiting list of locals who loved the final product and in 40 years there was NEVER a complaint about the quality of the lamb and no one got sick due to unsanitary slaughter conditions. We got around the rule that says the final product had to be federally inspected by exposing a loophole in the law big enough to drive a semi through. Folks with business degrees from Harvard and Wharton like to call what we did a “workaround”. You see, I didn’t really own the two 60 pound lambs I fed, watered and cleaned up after every day. No, they were owned (wink, wink) by two people on our chapter’s waiting list who craved the lamb. There was even a page in our FFA project books for any such contracts that we entered into. My customers had full visitation rights if they wanted to see how their lamb was being raised. Talk about transparency! I’d deliver the lamb carcass that we killed in our school’s farm shop to a local butcher who then cut it up according to the specifications of the own-

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