posted on January 1, 2004 09:20:02 PM new
Linda, I'm not sure what your point is about herd size and the 79 %. Please elaborate. Thanks!
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The Republicans are the party that says government doesn't work and then gets elected and proves it.
-- P. J. ORourke (Holidays in hell, 1989)
posted on January 1, 2004 09:32:42 PM new
profe - Sorry. What I had read was that small farmers/ranchers produce 79% of our US beef. That they usually have small herds, around 240-250 head.
posted on January 2, 2004 03:06:56 AM new
Reading some of these comments and seeing what the British did I have to point something out.
Taking reasonable risks is fine.
But we could learn a lot from the eskimos.
When the white teachers started using "fuzzy logic" in their teaching when it became popular the eskimo children frustrated them by refusing to "just take a guess" if they didn't know the answer.
They had already been conditioned by their parents that you DON'T "just take a guess" when you don't know for sure what to do. Their environment is so unforgiving that too many decisions involve betting the whole farm. When you may be lost and have to orient yourself or you are not sure the snowmobile is running right and decide wrong in the arctic it is not just an inconvenience or an embarressment - you are dead and maybe your whole family or community needs you and they are dead too if you mess up.
The British lucked out BIG TIME. They could easily have killed an entire generation of their people and depopulated their island as bad as aids is doing to Africa.
Planners and officials need to understand there are classes of risk. When a risk bets your whole nation and heritage against being wrong you don't worry about your hamburger costing 5% more and take that risk.
Mathematicians do not understand this as well as common people. That is why ordinary folks are scared of nuclear power. Nuke power can be made very safe. Look at how well the Navy has done with it. But they spend the money to make it safe. Utility companies on the other hand will cut every corner they can find to just squek by and meet the minimum regulations to maximize their profit - and the risk is contaminating and effectively destroying a huge area of hundreds of square miles that is usually a major city.
Common people with common sense divide that sort of risk off into the sub-set of risks that you eliminate as completely as possible because even if there is only one chance in 10,000 of it happening and you only take ten such risks in your life you are literally playing Russian roulette with a revolver with 1,000 bullet slots instead of 6. Most of us value or lives too much to volunteer to take any fatal risk unless the life time probability rises into one chance in millions.
Especially we do not take that sort of risk where there is no overwhelming need for a benefit as minor as a little cheaper hamburger.
If a study of statistics and probability makes you willing to accept risks that should never be assumed then you are an over educated fool.
posted on January 2, 2004 08:15:54 PM new
What I don't understand is that I have heard and read a lot about us trying to get Japan lift their ban but I have heard nothing about talks with Mexico to do the same thing. Considering that Mexico is actually the largest importer of US beef - why are we not talking to them?
Also - Why in the world did the Cattlemens Association blow the call so badly and let PETA buy up the domain Beef.com last week?
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If it's really "common" sense, why do so few people actually have it?
posted on January 2, 2004 08:51:30 PM new"Also - Why in the world did the Cattlemens Association blow the call so badly and let PETA buy up the domain Beef.com last week?"
posted on January 2, 2004 09:06:25 PM new
I read that Japan and South Korea are the two largest export markets for U.S. beef. South Korea imported more than $650 million worth of beef from the United States last year.
Japan reportedly refused to lift its ban, saying it will not resume imports until the safety of the food is proved. Japan imported $1.03 billion worth of beef and beef products last year, accounting for 32 percent of the U.S. beef exports. South Korea, Japan and Mexico accounted for about 89 percent of U.S. beef exports this year. South Korea imported $655.9 million of U.S. beef last year, according to the ministry.
Japan and South Korea are the most lucrative U.S. export markets, with purchases of U.S. beef totalling $1.45 billion in 2002.
The United States shipped 106,000 head of cattle to Mexico in 2002 and Mexico was the top buyer of U.S. beef last year in terms of volume. The ban in Mexico is significant because the country imports larger volumes of cheaper cuts - including parts more likely to carry the disease - and because of the ban on imports of live U.S. cows.
posted on January 2, 2004 10:16:31 PM new
Mexico buys mostly cattle from the US, not processed beef. This country exports only 10% of it's total beef production. It's not going to devastate the industry if these countries don't lift their bans.
By the way, stonecold613: it's borders, boarders are those people that are helping you pay the rent
___________________________________
The Republicans are the party that says government doesn't work and then gets elected and proves it.
-- P. J. ORourke (Holidays in hell, 1989)
posted on January 2, 2004 10:36:05 PM new
Thank you for the clarification - when they news channels were talking about numbers they didn't bother to mention that most of the meat going to Mexico was still alive : ). Isn't the importation ban however still detrimental to those breeders? How many live cattle do we export anyway? Also Profe - maybe you can explain why Mexico is importing live cattle? Is breeding not keeping up with consumption? Are more people starting new or expanding herds? Is it less expensive to import and then slaughter as opposed to importing the meat? I know it's off topic but I am curious and it's an interesting subject.
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If it's really "common" sense, why do so few people actually have it?
posted on January 3, 2004 06:06:13 AM new "By the way, stonecold613: it's borders, boarders are those people that are helping you pay the rent"
"Stonecold", Another one of my "admirers" here, spells "border" that way. Isn't that interesting?
By the way, Your "coffee" smells stale and nasty like old grounds that have been "repercolated"...maybe why you always sound so irritable and at times, hysterical.
posted on January 3, 2004 06:43:38 AM newThis country exports only 10% of it's total beef production. It's not going to devastate the industry if these countries don't lift their bans.
Boy....that news is sure going to disappoint helen....and maybe a couple of others here.
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stonecold - Pay no attention to helen's paranoid delusions. I've never seen you acting "so irritable and at times, hysterical."
You know the saying....if one is doing something themself [or has done so in the past], they tend to believe others do so also. Try to ignore it....it's strickly a cry for attention.
Banning Sale of 'Downer' Meat Represents a Change in Policy
Identical Measure Was Blocked in Congress Just Weeks Ago
The Agriculture Department's announcement yesterday of a ban on the sale of meat from ailing "downer" cattle marked a policy turnabout for the Bush administration, coming only a few weeks after the department and allies in the powerful meat lobby blocked an identical measure in Congress.
Faced with the first case of mad cow disease in this country, the White House and the USDA were scrambling to restore public confidence in the nation's meat supply, encourage foreign governments to resume beef imports and head off a possible political crisis for President Bush.
The ban announced by Agriculture Secretary Ann M. Veneman was the answer, and it represented a repudiation of years of industry efforts to limit government intervention in slaughterhouse operations and in shaping the nation's response to the threat of mad cow disease.
"We're going to support the actions of the secretary," said a subdued Chandler Keys, vice president of government affairs of the National Cattlemen's Beef Association, acknowledging that producers had not anticipated such a broad government response. "We're going to have to manage through it as an industry. We think the industry will rise to the challenge."
For years, the politically potent and well-financed cattle and meatpacking industries have held sway in the debate over the practice of slaughtering and marketing non-ambulatory, or downer, cattle. They repeatedly blocked efforts by urban Democrats and a handful of moderate Republicans to end the practice -- which provides producers with millions of dollars of profits each year but also represents the biggest potential source of contaminated meat.
An estimated 190,000 sick or injured cattle are shipped to slaughterhouses annually, and only about 5 percent of them are tested for serious illness such as mad cow disease. Just last month, Republican congressional leaders deleted from a pending spending bill a measure banning the slaughter of downer cattle.
Rep. Gary L. Ackerman (D-N.Y.), a longtime advocate of legislation to ban the slaughter of sick or injured cattle, said the industry has "shot themselves in the hoof" by resisting a necessary safeguard to the food system. With the industry now facing a crisis of consumer confidence and the temporary loss of European and Asian markets, he said, the Agriculture Department "has seen the light, but that's only because they've been struck by lightning."
The ban announced yesterday also gave a lift to animal rights activists and consumer groups who had been consigned to the fringes of the mad cow debate. "We've been pushing this for years," said Wayne Pacelle, senior vice president of the Humane Society of the United States. "I do believe that this can restore consumer confidence in the government's regulatory authority as it stops one of the worst abuses that occurs in the modern livestock production system."
A downer or non-ambulatory cow is unable to stand. Some animals break legs or injure themselves either on farms or on the way to slaughter, but others may be sick or paralyzed. Bovine spongiform encephalopathy -- mad cow disease -- turns brain tissue spongy and causes animals to stagger and fall. There is no known cure.
The discovery last week of mad cow disease in a downer milk cow in Washington state suddenly brought hard questions for both the federal government and the meat industry about the regulatory system and safeguards for warding off the threat of mad cow disease.
Sen. Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.) in 2000 and 2002 asked the General Accounting Office, Congress's investigative arm, to check feed companies' compliance with a Food and Drug Administration regulation prohibiting protein pellets made from the remains of cattle and other ruminants from being fed to cattle. Twice the GAO found serious lapses.
In 1997, the Center for Science in the Public Interest began calling for stronger controls to prevent brain and spinal cord tissue from contaminated meat separated from beef bones through a decade-old technology called "advanced meat recovery," or AMR. The USDA's own survey this year found that 35 percent of product samples tested in 2002 contained "unacceptable nervous tissues." Yesterday, Veneman announced further restrictions on the tissues that can be included in AMR products.
Democrats said the recent failure to enact a ban on the slaughter of downer animals highlighted the tight linkages between the Bush administration, congressional Republicans and the meat lobby. In 2000, the livestock industry contributed $4.7 million to political campaigns, of which 79 percent went to Republicans.
"Every time you talk about something the government could do, you had opposition," Durbin said. "First the group being regulated was opposed, then the lobbyists and congressional committees and agencies in the federal government. Anything I tried to do was blocked."
The congressional committees overseeing agriculture programs and meat inspection are also dominated by lawmakers from cattle states such as Texas, Nebraska, Kansas and Oklahoma.
Complaints were largely ignored by the public and news organizations when they occurred, but they have been receiving close scrutiny now. And industry spokesmen, who used to dismiss opponents with the throwaway line "there's never been a case of mad cow disease in the United States," were having trouble finding a different argument.
Since 1992, the industry has consistently opposed legislation to ban the practice of sending injured or sick cattle to the slaughterhouse. The chief advocates of the legislation, Ackerman and Sen. Daniel K. Akaka (D-Hawaii), initially were drawn to the subject out of concern for animal rights and worry about the possibility of diseased meat reaching supermarkets, restaurants and schools. Indeed, the USDA banned the use of downer beef in the public school lunch program, but until yesterday the agency allowed that meat to be processed and sold to the public at large.
This year, Akaka and Ackerman thought they might have the votes, legislative aides said. A Canadian cow had died in May from mad cow disease, presumably increasing the possibility that Congress would look more favorably on new controls. The Senate approved the measure on a voice vote as part of an Agriculture Department spending bill for fiscal 2004, but it failed on the House floor, 202 to 199, after a vigorous debate July 14.
Cattle industry advocates, including House Agriculture Committee Chairman Robert W. Goodlatte (R-Va.) and Rep. Charles W. Stenholm (Tex.), the ranking committee Democrat, argued that maintaining the old system was essential because it offered the only possibility of a USDA veterinarian spotting an animal with mad cow disease. "If we require that downed animals are euthanized on the farm and never get to that point in the processing system, we are going to drive this whole process literally underground," Goodlatte said.
But Ackerman and Rep. Marcy Kaptur (Ohio), the ranking Democrat on the Appropriations subcommittee on Agriculture, warned that the industry was being shortsighted in fighting the measure, and that it would take only one case of mad cow disease in the United States to send the industry into a tailspin. "How does it help them when you destroy consumer confidence?" Kaptur asked yesterday.
The Agriculture spending bill eventually became part of a larger spending package, and the fate of the Senate-passed measure on downer cattle ultimately was left to House and Senate Republican leaders, according to Kaptur and other Democrats who said they were excluded from the decision making. A House GOP aide insisted the Democrats were part of the deliberations. The provision was dropped from the final version.
posted on January 3, 2004 07:26:28 AM new
Fenix, I'm no expert on the cattle business, but I know there are several answers to your question about Mexico's imports. First, you're right, demand exceeds supply. Live cattle, and I'm using the commodities market definition of live cattle here; cattle that have achieved slaughter weight, 850-1000 pounds, are imported by Mexico because of demand. It's less expensive for Mexico to do it's own processing than to buy US processed beef. Mexico exports to the US also, so it's complicated. There is, or was, an active feeder cattle trade across the border to the US. Feeder cattle are weaned calves, usually about 6 months old, who come off the range and are sold to feedlot operations where they are fattened and conditioned for slaughter. It's often less expensive for US feeder operations to import Mexican feeder calves than it is to buy them off of American ranches, especially for border states. Texas and New Mexico have lots of big feeder calf operations. My cousins' ranch in Sonora sells feeder calves across the border. They also buy breeding stock from the US, and sell breeding stock to US ranches. I don't think breeding stock is considered in the figures that are used for beef and cattle imports and exports, but I might be mistaken.
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The Republicans are the party that says government doesn't work and then gets elected and proves it.
-- P. J. ORourke (Holidays in hell, 1989)
posted on January 3, 2004 08:09:43 AM new
Oh boy, so I mistakenly slipped an A into the word. Still doesn't explain why the blowhard Helen isn't really smelling the coffee.
posted on January 3, 2004 08:34:20 AM new Oh boy, so I mistakenly slipped an A into the word. Still doesn't explain why the blowhard Helen isn't really smelling the coffee.
This has been a very interesting, and uncharacteristically civil thread until recently. So far all you've done is insult. I guess we'll just have to step around your leavings, if you insist on dropping them.
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The Republicans are the party that says government doesn't work and then gets elected and proves it.
-- P. J. ORourke (Holidays in hell, 1989)
posted on January 3, 2004 08:44:36 AM new
Prof... So basically - Mexico is sending its youthful calves here to be fed and cared for and then calling the fatted protegy home to feed the citizens at home? Wait till Twelve hears about this one
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If it's really "common" sense, why do so few people actually have it?
posted on January 3, 2004 09:00:12 AM newProf... So basically - Mexico is sending its youthful calves here to be fed and cared for and then calling the fatted protegy home to feed the citizens at home? Wait till Twelve hears about this one
Hah!...not exactly. Those feeder calves that are sent here are being fattened and are slaughtered primarily for the US market, although some of them end up returned to Mexico as boxed carcasses. On our original topic, what's scary is that once calves make it to the feedlot operations, it's very difficult to track their origin. They all get mixed in together. Ear tag standards differ widely state to state and country to country. The most effective way I can see to control this new problem is to test them all at the slaughter house. As we have learned from this sick dairy cow, not ALL cattle come from feedlot operations, although most do. For anyone fearful of Mexican anything, there's a chance that some of the beef in your freezer was born on the ranges of Sonora, Coahuila, or Tamaulipas, and there is absolutely NO WAY your grocery store butcher knows where it came from. Buen apetito!
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The Republicans are the party that says government doesn't work and then gets elected and proves it.
-- P. J. ORourke (Holidays in hell, 1989)
posted on January 3, 2004 09:02:43 AM new
fenix - It's all part of NAFTA. Just like the Canadian rep's statement I posted. He said you can't tell an American cow from a Canadian cow. They go back and forth between our borders.
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And just where is twelvepole anyway? He's had girls singing to him and we haven't heard a peep out of him. Hope all is well with you twelve.
posted on January 3, 2004 10:13:32 AM new
Stone - you are mixing catchlines.... this is not allowed. If you are Stone Cold then it's just because you said so. The whole "smell" gimmick is The Rock you silly boy.
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If it's really "common" sense, why do so few people actually have it?
posted on January 3, 2004 11:22:22 AM new
I just read that people who start talking in code, might have mad cow disease, but I'm not referring to anyone here, or anything.
posted on January 3, 2004 11:41:41 AM new
LOL KD - Nope...no case of humans suffering from MCD here in the US....so ...so far you can't pin that one on us.
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