Mad Cow Disease Appears in California

Potentially bad news for California Agriculture. Read the full story here at the LA Times.

The reemergence of mad cow disease, discovered in a California dairy cow, could have major implications for the state’s meat industry, even though officials have said that the human food supply is unaffected. Bovine spongiform encephalopathy hasn’t been found in U.S. since 2006 and was discovered in only three instances before then. But the disease has dealt a crippling blow to the industry in the past, especially when foreign countries refused to import American beef when mad cow was first uncovered in 2003. The U.S. Department of Agriculturetests about 40,000 cows a year in its effort to catch the disease. In California, private and public ranching takes up about 38 million acres, according to the California Cattlemen’s Assn. There are about 620,000 beef cows on 11,800 California ranches. The state also hosts 1.84 million dairy cows, according to information compiled by the California Beef Council. The sale of cattle and calves was a $1.82-billion industry in California 2008 and fifth among the state’s top 20 commodities. Beef cattle are raised in nearly every California county. Nationally, California ranks behind Texas, Kansas and Nebraska in total cattle numbers.

Is Meat Now "Pink Slime?"

We actually watched a report about this on Stephen Colbert's show of all places. It was nauseating and I don't even eat meat. Blech.

If you eat meat, read this article from the Huffington Post.

Washington Town to Become Horse Slaughter Capital?

Stanwood is right near where we live in Seattle and, sadly, home to Pigs Peace Animal Sanctuary which rescues all kinds of animals. I can only imagine how they feel.

From the Sky Valley Chronicle....

A new report in the Staug News of St. Augustine, Florida doesn’t mince any words when it comes to what’s afoot in the Stanwood area.

The story, by author and animal rights activist Ernest Dempsey calls Stanwood, Washington “Death Row for horses” because of the location not far away of a “major buying station, collection point and feedlot for U.S. horses destined to die and be butchered in one of Canada’s equine slaughterhouses for human consumption abroad.”

Dempsey says if rumblings of a new plan by the giant Canadian horse meat packing company Bouvry Exports-Calgary to reopen the Florence Packing plant on Florence Road for equine slaughter are true, Stanwood soon might become better known as the region’s “Butcher Shop for Horses”.

The rumor mill has it that Bouvry wants to reopen the plant to service more inexpensively developing markets for its product in Russia, China and other Asian nations.

Surprising NYTimes Editorial about National Egg Production

Surprising to me at least. The editorial advocates a national standard that establishes humane standards in all parts of the country.

McDonalds Makes Positive Move to Help Sows

I'm no fan of McDonalds, but any little bit of help is progress.

Here's an excerpt. For the full story, check out this link to the New York Times article.

The McDonald’s Corporation said on Monday that it would begin working with its pork suppliers to phase out the use of so-called gestational crates, the tiny stalls in which sows are housed while pregnant.

Animal rights advocates have singled out the crates, known as sow stalls, as inhumane, and several states have moved to ban or restrict their use not only in pork production, but also in the production of eggs and veal.

“McDonald’s believes gestation stalls are not a sustainable production system for the future,” Dan Gorsky, senior vice president for supply chain management for McDonald’s North America, said in a statement. “There are alternatives we think are better for the welfare of sows.”

EU Bans Battery Cages

To offset yesterday's crappy news about California, here's good news from the EU!

Full article on Food Safety News....

As of Jan. 1, 2012, egg-laying hens across many European countries will live with fewer discomforts: The European Commission has officially implemented its ban on battery cages, the notoriously cramped cages used by many egg farmers and criticized by animal rights proponents and veterinarians who call them cruel and harmful to the birds' welfare.

The law, finalized in 1999, comes after a 12-year "phase-out" period meant to allow egg farmers time to implement the costly transition away from battery cages. According to the Scotsman newspaper, replacing battery cages with more-hospitable "enriched" cages has alone cost U.K. egg producers an estimated £400 million ($613 million).

Most farmers in participating countries have opted for the enriched cages, installing roomier enclosures that allow hens to stretch their wings, roost on an elevated platform and nest in a designated nesting area. Others have arranged for barns or other free-range systems, but the law now clearly reserves hens a seat at a nest.

That opportunity to properly nest will do the most to improve hen well-being, said Ian J.H. Duncan, Ph.D., Emeritus Chair in Animal Welfare at the University of Guelph in Ontario and the President of the Animal Welfare Foundation of Canada. Duncan has been studying the effects of battery cages on hens since the early 1970s, when he worked at the Poultry Research Centre in Edinburgh, Scotland.

Beef Farm's Trucks Burned by Activists

I don't support the destruction of property or any physical threats against people who harm animals whether through medical testing or through conventional agriculture. It does nothing but make the targets more wedded to their positions and it garners sympathy from the general public. And, this happened in Fresno County which is in the San Joaquin Valley of California. I grew up there. Believe me, they are NOT helping their cause at all.

Full story here at the Fresno Bee.....

Animal rights activists are behind the burning of cattle trucks at Harris Farms in western Fresno County early Sunday, according to a statement released by a clearinghouse for activists.

The statement purports to describe how the fire, which heavily damaged 14 tractors and several cattle-hauling trailers, was set and says the attack was aimed at "the horrors of factory farming."

Harris Farms CEO and Chairman John Harris said in an email Tuesday that he and others with the ranch are "appalled by this senseless, but very alarming attack." He called it a terrorist action.

"I had suspected Animal Liberation Front may have been involved and now they are in fact claiming responsibility for it with multiple details," Harris wrote.

The clearinghouse that distributed the statement claiming credit for the arson is the North American Animal Liberation Press Office, which says it has no direct dealings with underground groups or illegal activity.

Suit Filed Over Cows Killed to Drive Up Milk Prices

If the dairy companies were doing this, well, that's cold!

Excerpted from the Seattle P-I....

A Seattle law firm is taking on dairies, claiming that a price-fixing scheme has consumers paying too much for milk.

The class-action lawsuit accuses companies of slaughtering thousands of cows just to decrease supply.

Animal rights group Compassion Over Killing was the first to uncover the alleged systematic slaughter of healthy dairy cows in California. The group turned to Seattle attorney Steve Berman, who filed the suit claiming more than half a million U.S. dairy cows were slaughtered over seven years to artificially reduce the supply of milk and drive up prices.

"The cooperatives got together and instituted what we'll call a killing program; they retired cows," he said. Berman said the milk producers called it "dairy herd retirement", but he insists it was a way to cheat consumers and line their own pockets.

"Using their own numbers, we calculated conservatively that (they) raised the price of milk over a seven-year period by $10 billion," Berman said.

Berman said all milk products - everything from cheese to butter - got more expensive. His firm sued Cooperatives Working Together, its members are dairy companies and trade groups.

Animals as Inputs in Accounting

I'm studying for the CPA exam and am working through Becker's online course review for the business section. Here's an example of "joint costs" that says all you need to know about animals as nothing more than inputs in a manufacturing process.

"The meat packing industry takes a single input, a steer, and produces many different final products. Each product must be assigned a cost including the different cuts of meat for human consumption, different food products for animal consumption (pet food) and basic ingredients for glue."

South Dakota Governor Wants Livestock Research Facility

This looks like its for farming of livestock, not medical research, but that's bad too. Research on animals is research on animals.

From the High Plains Journal...

Gov. Mike Rounds wants a biotech animal research facility built in South Dakota.

The Argus Leader reports that Rounds announced Sept. 28 his intentions to build such a facility in the state during the Livestock Biotech Summit at the Sioux Falls Convention Center.

The summit on genetically engineered animal technologies drew about 200 people from as far as South Korea and New Zealand.

Rounds says a biotech facility is important in creating disease-free animals.

Rounds says the proposed project is in the conceptual phase. He asked industry experts at the conference to give their input on how the center should be developed.

Ag's Reaction to Ohio Deal with Humane Society

Yesterday, I raised the issue that some may think the Humane Society copped out by making a deal with Ohio agriculture and NOT bringing new animal welfare regulations to the ballot. Well, it looks like, on the other side, big agriculture and others of that ilk feel like Ohio ag itself made a deal with the devil by entering this agreement.

The Conflict Between Animal Welfare and Agribusiness

This article pretty much sums up how the two agendas are simply at cross-purposes. Compassion is perceived to hurt profits.

It spotlights the Humane Society, but I think it's a pretty universal comparison.

CBS News Runs Series on Factory Farms

This occurred a week or so ago. Katie Couric did a story on the use of antibiotics on factory farms in the US and the potential harm to humans. Unfortunately, I missed this series as we don't watch network television. A friend of mine said it was quite good. According to her, there was a message that removing the use of antibiotics would actually improve these poor animals' welfare.

Here is an article about the series. Of course, the question remains as to whether these animals should be in these factory farming conditions in the first place, regardless of antibiotics' use. And, of course, the focus is on the impact on humans. But I'm glad they took the time to look at this. Apparently, it was NOT flattering to big ag.

Social Justice Groups and Big Ag

The other day I was looking at the list of organizations that were part of Californians for SAFE Food, the coalition that opposed Proposition 2 in California (the proposition passed last November). The group was accused of being a front group for the ag industry. And, in fact, many of the organizations were agricultural/agribusiness groups. However, I was struck by the number of social justice groups that were also part of the coalition. These groups included the California Congress of the NAACP, the Congress of California Seniors, the National Latino Congress and the California Conference Board of the Amalgamated Transit Union. What does this mean?

To me, this means that social justice groups believe that big ag and their interests are allied.

I used to think this was understandable. But now I think that’s sad, sad, sad.

I think these groups believe that if big ag’s costs rise, then food prices will automatically increase. That was one of the arguments made against Proposition 2. Proposition 2 will not go into effect until 2015, so there is plenty of time to innovate and comply in a cost effective manner. Second of all, if prices do rise, they are not rising simply to cover new costs but to also maintain profit margins. Because profit, not social welfare, is what motivates these guys.

Last week, I read an interview with a poverty activist who argued that people who are into community/local food and p-patches are middle-class naïve yuppies. Local food and individual farming is not the way to feed the world’s poor. You must have mass production. You must have big agribusiness. But I would argue that local growing and self-sustenance is what has maintained societies and the poor for millennia. It’s when land began to be consolidated into corporate ownership and people began leaving the land and entering urban areas, that we all became dependent on corporate behemoths for our food supply. How much poverty is in Haiti as a result of farm land being covered in reservoirs or turned over to big agribusiness?

I think that the choice between people and the environment/animals are false choices. But this is what big agribusiness does, just like the pharmaceutical industry. “Do you put people first or the environment? It’s one or the other.”

Anytime a corporation presents that option, I am suspicious and I believe that many social justice groups have fallen for this. They are ignoring the big picture and giving big agribusiness false credibility by joining their causes.