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.

"Happy Cows" Campaign in California Under Fire

California dairy farmers have an ad campaign that cows are just darn happy on their factory farms. PETA is not convinced.

This article about the situation appears in the Merced Sun-Star which is from my home county of Merced!

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.

US Government Continues Subsidizing Meat Industry

Hard to wean people off animals when the US government is propping up the industries, and especially when so much of it ends up on school lunch trays (laying the foundation for this nation's obesity problem in my opinion.)

I also have problems with subsidies to big agribusiness. It's just another bailout, but nothing new. We've been propping these guys up for decades. Too bad it continues under Vilsack and Obama.

The federal government continued its effort to boost agricultural commodity prices today by announcing it will purchase an additional $25 million worth of pork.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture also said it will buy $60 million of turkey, $2 million of lamb and $29.7 million of walnuts.

Last week, the USDA bought approximately 200 million pounds of nonfat dry milk to help the dairy industry.

The purchases are in addition to the ones the USDA makes annually for federal food programs.

The food will go to federal food nutrition assistance programs, such as school lunches.

Pork farmers have been losing an average of $20 on each hog marketed since October 2007, according to the U.S. Pork Producers. And economists have said dairy producers are losing an average of $3 per cow per day.

Dairy Industry Fights Back with Well-Being Initiative

While flipping thorough my issue of Tribuna Portuguesa, from Modesto, CA, I came across a plea to readers from a contributor asking that they consider joining the National Dairy Animal Well-being Initiative. There are many dairies in Central California and many Portuguese own them. So, I was intrigued to find out more.

It is a real initiative. Based on the contributor's article mentioned above, it looks like an attempt by the dairy industry to fight public perception of its attitude towards animal welfare and the environment. Any teeth though is removed by making this a VOLUNTARY program.

Here are some highlights from the Initiative's web site.
Note the response that "If we work together we can protect our freedom to operate by successfully managing this issue." Ah.

Q: What is the National Dairy Animal Well-Being Initiative?
A: The National Dairy Animal Well-Being Initiative is a producer-led effort to build consumer trust and confidence in the dairy industry’s commitment to animal well-being. We want to protect our freedom to operate by demonstrating that we recognize our ethical obligation to care for our animals and that we have programs in place to meet that obligation. We want to create an umbrella of well-being principles and guidelines that will provide uniform validation of our commitment regardless of which dairy well-being program a producer uses.

Q: Who is on the Coalition doing this work?
A: The Coalition is a broad based group of volunteers from across the country representing every facet of the dairy industry. It includes producers, processors, co-ops, allied industry, academics, associations and others. More than 60 people have been involved in the work of the National Dairy Animal Well-Being Initiative since late 2005. The Coalition is not part of any specific association or organization, but a group that reflects the diversity and strength of the U.S. dairy industry.

Q: Why is this important?
A: Animal well-being is increasingly important to our customers and other dairy industry stakeholders who grant us the social license we need to operate. Today, dairy animal well-being is not a top of mind consumer concern. We want to maintain the level of consumer trust and confidence in dairy producers.

The Initiative gives you a chance to control your destiny and protect your freedom to operate by demonstrating that the dairy industry is committed to doing the right thing when it comes to animal well-being. It also provides you the opportunity to protect your markets and preserve market access by proving your commitment to animal well-being to customers and other stakeholders by participating in an animal well-being program that incorporates the national well-being principles and guidelines.

Q: Why should I participate?
A: We need all producers to demonstrate the dairy industry’s commitment to animal well-being. Today, dairy animal well-being is not a top of mind issue for consumers. We want to provide our customers, policy makers and other stakeholders who grant us the social license to operate, the assurance that we are meeting our ethical obligation to care for our animals. If we work together we can protect our freedom to operate by successfully managing this issue.

Q: Isn’t this just giving into the activists?
A: No. The creation of the National Dairy Animal Well-Being Initiative demonstrates the dairy industry’s awareness of the need to communicate our commitment to animal well-being to our customers and consumers. Dairy producers have a long tradition of providing good care for their animals. We want to control our own destiny by creating a program that proves our commitment and allows us to honestly and accurately portray what happens on the farm.

Photo by Dawn Endico.