Usual suspects blast factory livestock farms

Two cliches come to mind, when I consider the Pew Trust and Bloomberg School of Public Health study on factory farming of livestock, whose results were just released: 1. closing the barn door after the horse is already out, and 2. recycling old bromides that already have been disproven.

Factory farming, particularly in chickens and hogs, and the feedlot finishing of cattle, are a reality and aren't going anywhere any time soon. Where were these people back in the 1950s, when it was still possible to do something about it?

The fact is, the idyllic small family farmer with a few chickens and a pig or two out in the backyard, is a thing of the past. If you think the pollution is bad from a factory chicken or pig farm, where all the odor and runoff is concentrated and can be easily treated, is bad, what was it like when it was spread all over the place, in little drops and dribbles here and there, with too little volume for any sensible treatment program?

The world's food requirements can no longer be met by pre-1950s idealism, by small farmers turning out a few head of livestock a year, none of them uniform, none of them fed the same way or raised the same way. The vast quantities of food the world requires today, which will only grow as the decades unfold before us, cannot be met with outmoded, old-fashioned methods, no matter how fond we are of nostalgically hanging on to them.

For centuries, man has dumped manure on his fields each year before the new crop was planted, and the natural leaching of the soil broke down all the impurities and no one worried about pollution. It was a food cycle, in which animals ate plants, and their waste went back into the soil to raise more plants. It worked fine.

The idealism of those not intimately familiar with, or involved in, agriculture never ceases to amaze. It is great to sit on a high hill and contemplate how things ought to be. It is entirely a different thing to actually do--to be forced to make a living growing food for a hungry world, the most practical way that it can be accomplished, on a scale that meets the need at hand.

Once again, the academic and the practical have collided, with murky results at best.

Bush warns of coming Farm Bill storm

President Bush held a press conference today, to quite justifiably blast the Democratic Congress for doing nothing to head off a recession or jumpstart the economy. Not to be too cynical, but of course they aren't--the worse things get, the better chance they have for a big win in the November elections.

The president reserved special mention for the bloated "compromise" farm bill, which continues big subsidies to wealthy corporate farmers and carries a massive price tag. Ag Secretary Ed Schaefer also blasted the bill in meetings with congressmen and senators and their staff negotiators. The clear implication is that Bush will veto the bill, if it comes to his desk in its present form. It would have been a much stronger presentation if he'd actually said that, but he did leave the clear implication.

The real problem is that the only "compromise" in the bill is to add enough money to take care of the pet projects both the House and Senate ag committees want, without really changing anything in the way agriculture operates. Big corporate interests like Archer Daniels Midland have poured enough millions into congressional campaign coffers to insure that no real reform of the system will pass.

This should result in a farm bill veto, and possibly a look at what a real Farm Bill should contain. More likely, it will lead to an extension of the present law until after the November election.

In the overall scheme of things, the Farm Bill is a very minor player on the the Congressional and presidential agenda, and its brief moment in the sun today. There are much bigger fish to fry, as they dispatch this controversy by doing nothing.

Mark my words.

Packer ignorance astounding on beef shipments

Yet another shipment of U.S. beef has been rejected in Japan for containing bone fragments. The rules are very clear in shipping beef to Japan and South Korea. It is to be boneless, period. No wiggle room, no tolerance, no bones.

Since it is well known that Japan and South Korea politically love to kick sand in the face of the big United States of America, handing them the shovel is not a good idea. Nonetheless, it almost seems to be a game for U.S. packers, to see how much bone they can slip through Japanese and South Korean borders. These countries have shut down importing beef from the U.S. numerous times for bone fragments, but slovenly U.S. packers continue to get it wrong.

They have no one to blame but themselves.

The latest incident involved a shipment from National Packing's Brawley, California plant to Japan. Of course it touched off a big political stink, allowing Japan for once to show its great kindness and generosity (ha!) by only banning that plant from shipping beef to them, rather than shutting down the whole shebang.

It defies credulity that U.S. packers are unable to inspect the relatively minor amount of shipments from its plants that are going to these two countries, to be certain they are in perfect shape, before they leave the plant. There should be U.S. government inspectors to look at them one more time at the dock on the west coast before they leave this country, to be absolutely certain that the meat is truly boneless. Government always screws up, so its lack of diligence is par for the course, but private firms that derive great income and prestige from exporting U.S. beef have no excuse.

It is astounding that U.S. packers are not able to pull their act together. U.S. beef producers, and American citizens as well, should demand better.

Arby's buys Wendy's--neutral for beef

The fast food biz is all agog about Tri-Arc Corp., owners of Arby's, buying Wendy's in an all stock deal. Wendy's has been on a steady downward slide ever since the death of founder Dave Thomas a few years ago. His daughters and early franchisees made a competing bid for the company, but the board of directors chose to sell to corporate raider Nelson Peltz and his firm.

Both companies are major purveyors of beef. Since 80% of the beef sold in America is ground, what happens in the fast food segment is always very important to the beef industry. I've always been critical of Arby's for bastardizing good roast beef. I remember the early days of the chain, when they sliced beef right off roasts to the bun. It was great. I couldn't get enough. Some 30 years ago, they went to plywood beef, pasting together little snippets of beef with gelatin into "roasts" and slicing that.

The flavor and texture have never been the same, so I eat turkey or ham when I go to Arby's. Wendy's, like most of the fast food chains, have quit cooking burgers on the grill and serving them hot off the grill onto the bun. Now they are cooked once a day, kept warm in a drawer and made into sandwiches when the customers order. The fresh taste is history. McDonald's, Burger King and Wendy's are all guilty of the same crime.

That said, Arby's has showed considably more marketing prowess recently than Wendy's, so from that standpoint it might be a positive thing for Wendy's. Arby's deli sandwiches are far superior to Wendy's attempt, and Arby's salads are far more creative than Wendy's. Arby's has tried creative ways to market beef, such as the pot roast sandwich, which was very good but didn't catch on, and a reuben sandwich, with the jury still out. If Tri-Arc brings such creativity to Wendy's, it will be a good thing.

Both Arby's and Wendy's have beef-driven menus and are heavy sellers of the product. That's good for the beef industry, and we want them both to be successful. There can be upward beef sales if they are successful, but at least the Wendy's deal probably is a neutral for beef sales and not something for the cattle industry to get too exercised about.

New Farm Bill action heats up

Democratic poobahs in the House and Senate have sprung into action, meeting behind closed doors repeatedly in the last two days, to patch together a Farm Bill, before the old one expires in a week.

There is a real possibility of a presidential veto, as the new bill is a budget buster, with over $10 billion in new spending for food stamps and other welfare programs. The latest version also cuts subsidies for ethanol, a stand becoming increasingly popular as food prices rise. There is no change in crop subsides or price supports, with no move at all back toward free enterprise in agriculture. That alone is thought to be enough to draw a Bush veto.

A severe ego clash between Senators Max Baucus of the Finance Committee and Tom Harkin of the Ag Committee has delayed action, but seems to be resolved with more spending in the bill to placate both. Minnesota Rep. Clayton Peterson, chairman of the House Ag committee, was also at odds with the two Senate power brokers and that's where the differences remain, before a bill sees the light of day Monday.

It is still an even bet that the old farm bill will be extended until after the election, particularly if Bush vetoes this one. This remains the most likely scenario, and would probably have not been challenged but for two factors:

First, rapidly rising food prices and worldwide complaints about it, left lawmakers needing to look like they were doing something, which passing a farm bill gives the impression of.

Second, predictions of a drought in the corn belt and other places could stunt crop yields and leave parched farmers in need of federal assistance that only a new farm bill can deliver.

The new farm bill doesn't do much to address either problem, but as they say in politics, "perception is reality." As long as they pass something with "farm" in the title, solons can go on the campaign trail and claim they did something, no matter how irrelevent and impotent.

Silly season breaks out on food prices

All the socialist types, who loath the principle of supply and demand in the best of times, are bloviating over high food prices, and all the world starvation they will bring to the poor.

The Secretary-General of the United Nations in New York, Ban Ki-moon, blasted high food prices today, which he characterized as a global crisis, in a speech in Vienna. Riots in Haiti and Cameroon have led to deaths, sparked by high food and oil prices. Asia is facing a poor rice crop, so rationing has already started. Sam's Club and other discount houses are limiting rice sales to four 20-pound bags per customer, as hoarding sets in.

(Do you know how much rice 20 pounds of uncooked rice is? If I cook a quarter of a cup of rice for a family of four, we wind up throwing half of it away. If you throw rice at the bride and groom after a wedding, just the few kernals birds pick up off the ground swell in their little stomachs enough that they explode and die. You mean we're limited to only four 20-pound bags? What a crisis.)

The only half-way legitimate comment that's been made is that corn going to ethanol, rather than food, is at the root of the crisis. Since the government subsidizes ethanol in the U.S., it is profitable to divert a lot of corn to ethanol. Grocery lobbyists are calling for an end to the subsidies. This is a government-caused economic dislocation, which has interfered with the principle of supply and demand, and raised food prices.

There's a lot of reasons for higher food and energy prices: bad weather, burgeoning population growth in Asia and Africa, idiotic leftwingers opposing genetic engineering for more efficient food production--but the thing that definitely is not a cause is a filthy plot by the haves to deprive the have-nots.

Totalitarians, socialists and other big government types will seize on any problem to blame the free enterprise system. They're using food prices for that purpose today.

Proposed fed rules add operating costs, not safety

The federal government has swooped in to the livestock industry with two new rule changes that will probably be costly to producers, and most likely, do very little, or nothing, to solve either real or imagined problems.

One is from the Food and Drug Administration, greatly narrowing the list of ingredients that may be included in meat animal feed. The industry has voluntarily quit putting animal parts in feed, ever since the BSE outbreak four years ago. This codifies that and raises the ante. It will greatly increase costs for feed mill operators, both in terms of more costly ingredients and greater time needed to watch over and test the feed before it can be sold.

You cna bet that these added costs will be passed on to feed purchasers such as feedlots, who may well not be able to recoup the added cost in higher prices for the cattle, when they sell them. In commodity products, like live cattle, higher operating costs are not a consideration in the price setting mechanism. Most likely, the beef industry will wind up absorbing the added costs out of profit margins.

The second new rule is at the slaughter house, where so-called "downer" cattle will no longer be slaughtered for human consumption. This blanket prohibition cuts out lots of non-diseased, perfectly good meat that will sell not at beef prices but at offal (pet food) prices. Again, its the producer who takes it in the shorts, as he gets less dollars out of his cattle that may well be perfectly healthy, but trip walking up the slaughter ramp.

Discretion and common sense are what needed to be applied in both these situations, not federal regulations. Bad press, both the result of staged protest events that do not happen as a matter of natural course, goaded regulators into taking "see how tough I am" stands, instead of evaluating each individual case based on its merits.

This is unfair to producers, with no added safety for the meat consuming public. What a shame.