Speak out for Animal Agriculture

The Madness Over Methane
Feb 27, 2009 12:43 PM

BEEF readers know food-animal agriculture is under attack. Animal rights and environmental groups are doing all they can to essentially pressure us out of business. And they aren’t limiting themselves to honesty, either. Forage digestion and methane production are a good case in point. Here are some interesting statements I’ve found recently in the press:
“A cow will eat 150 lbs. of feed/day, plus 20 lbs. of concentrates.” (Holy smoke! Cull her – yesterday!)
“37% percent of global methane emissions come from cattle." (I was able to find figures ranging from 6% to 37%.)
A cow will produce “300-500 liters of methane/day.” (Again, I saw figures ranging from 100-500 liters)
“Methane concentrations have increased by 100% since 1900.” (This is staggering! Even more staggering: When I was 13, my chest hairs increased by 800% in one month!)
“Agricultural livestock is hogging 30% of the earth’s land surface if you count the crops necessary to feed them.” (Uhhh. I don’t know where to begin on this one!) Now, don’t get me wrong. I do believe that we need to take care of our environment. But after spending several nights searching through methane information on the Internet, I’ve come to the following conclusions:
We don’t have a good method for measuring methane production.
I can prove or disprove any point by using Internet information. Here are a couple of points I think are trustworthy: First, according to the Environmental Protection Agency, domesticated livestock are the third-largest producers of methane, behind landfills and the oil and gas industries. Second, the more forage we have in our cattle’s diet, the more methane will be produced. If we’re to believe that methane production is on the increase, then are cattle truly the culprit? In the mid 1970s our beef cattle population peaked at 130 million head. In 1980, it was 111 million head, from which we produced 21 billion lbs. of beef. In 2007, our population was 97 million head, which produced 26 billion lbs. of beef. Thus, in the last 27 years, we’ve reduced these methane producers by 14 million head and increased total beef production by nearly 5 billion lbs.! I think we’re doing our part. What about dairy cows? Their population peaked in 1944, with 25.6 million head; each cow produced 5,300 lbs. of milk/year. Today, there are 9.1 million dairy cattle in the U.S., and they produce 17,000 lbs. of milk/head/year. So, with 16.5 million fewer dairy cattle, we’re producing 19 billion lbs. more milk. Hmmm. So, methane production is increasing, but we have drastically decreased our population of methane producers; all this while increasing production! But cattle are still being blamed for the increased methane production. On top of that, less forage is being fed to cattle today than just 20 years ago, let alone 40 years ago. So, not only do we have fewer methane producers, but each of them is producing less methane! I am confused! In the past couple of years, there have been several news documentaries on global warming; cattle and methane were mentioned in all the programs I saw. But did you know that Earth actually cooled in 2008? Strangely, this did not receive much media attention. Truth is, cattle production is the low-hanging fruit. Activists see us as easy pickings. We’ve made food production so efficient that increasingly fewer people are needed to produce it; the result is the majority of the population has very little idea of the origin of their food. Now those people are being duped into believing livestock producers don’t care about the environment or their livestock. We must mobilize, unify and become our own activist. -- Dave Sjeklocha, DVM, Sublette, KS

Animal Agriculture Attacks in 2008

Report Quantifies Animal Agriculture Attacks 02/25/2009
The Arlington, Virginia-based Animal Agriculture Alliance reports that during 2008, attacks on the global food chain from animal rights and environmental extremists jumped 42% - from 155 in 2007 to 220 last year. Much of the increase came from the Animal Liberation Front. Those attacks exploded 377 percent. Information compiled by the Alliance indicated there were 640 acts of sabotage, vandalism and arson in 2008, up from 467 the previous year. The overall level of animal rights extremist attacks in the USA on businesses that use animals - including medical research, consumer product safety, pets, circuses, rodeos, fur shops, hunting stores, farmers, ranchers, food retailers - surged nearly 40%. Destruction or defacement of property were the most frequently used techniques in their attempts to intimidate food chain businesses to shut down. Also, extremists claimed responsibility for the "liberation" of thousands of animals during the year, and millions of dollars in damage.

Tom Buis moves to National Ethanol

Hoosier to Lead National Ethanol Organazatgion 02/25/2009by Gary Truitt
A native Hoosier is the new head of the nation’s newest Ethanol organization. Tom Buis has announced he is stepping down as head of the National Farmers Union to accept a position with Growth Energy, “Ethanol has brought jobs to rural America and has finally allowed farmers to make a profit from the marketplace.” The native of Putnam county said ethanol represents the economic future of agriculture and rural America, “ This is the opportunity for rural American to stem the decline of the past 80 years and provide an economic tax base for rural communities and provide profit for farmers from the crops they grow.”
Buis said the top priority of Growth Energy is to increase the amount of ethanol blended into the US gasoline supply. Currently mandated at 10%, Growth Energy says the ethanol industry can not grow if that percentage is not increased, “This blend wall is actually stifling the growth and development of renewable fuels.”

Growth Energy President, General Wesley Clark, said they are negotiating with auto makers to get their support for the change, “The problem is not with new cars but with some older cars and smaller engines.” He said the evidence indicates that there is not damage caused by increasing the blend higher than 10%. Clark added that the renewable fuels mandate in the recently passed Energy Bill can only be achieved if the blending rate is increased.
Growth Energy also announced that former Iowa Congressmen and OMB director Jim Nussle has joined their board of Directors as they prepare for a intensive lobbying effort in Washington to break down the blend wall. Clark did not indicate what blend percentage they were shooting for but said it would be substantial.Referring to his departure from NFU, Buis said, "Representing America‘s family farmers, ranchers and rural citizens has been a privilege and an honor. I‘ve had the opportunity to meet farmers from all corners of the country and am continually impressed with their optimism, hard work and dedication to feeding, and now fueling, our nation." His successor will be chosen by Farmers Union delegates at the upcoming national convention March 8-10 in Washington, D.C. Buis was elected NFU president in 2006 and again in 2008. He has been with the organization since March 1998, previously serving as vice president of government relations. Before moving to Washington, D.C., he was a full-time grain and livestock farmer in Indiana with brothers Mike and Jeff, who continue to operate the family farm.

Purdue Soy and Corn Competitions

Purdue Soy and Corn Competitions have Record Participation 02/22/2009Andy Eubank
The Indiana Corn and Soybean new uses competition at Purdue University is heating up. On a recent trip to the campus Ryan West, New Uses Director, found thirteen teams of students on track to complete the competition in March. That’s an 8-team improvement over the best year ever, last year. West is excited about this year’s crop of projects made of corn and or soy. He said, “We’ve seen some very interesting ideas and it will be interesting to see if students will be able to pull off some of their ideas. They’re making progress in the lab with everything from a complete car waxing system using corn and soy to ice melt.”The prize money is up quite a bit this year. A team using soy could win $25,000 and the top corn prize in its first year is $10,000. West told HAT they needed to up the ante to compete with other Purdue competitions. “One example of that is the Burton Morgan entrepreneur contest where students write a business plan and come up with a business model for an invention, a product. They don’t actually have to make it and they don’t have to do packaging or any of those types of things. But we do. So we’re excited about the holistic nature and various exposures that these students get. A lot of them are engineering students who don’t think about marketing and packaging, and they may never work in marketing and packaging in their entire life. But it’s good to know that the product they may be working on has to get packaged and marketed somewhere, so we see a lot of benefit there.”
In late March the Indiana Soybean Alliance and Indiana Corn Marketing Council will hold a joint banquet and awards ceremony to honor the winners. All teams will have their projects on display and guests that night will be able to vote for another award, the People’s Choice.Projects will be evaluated and given a tier. For the soybean competition there are three tiers. Multiple teams may be in the same tier. Students on a soybean team that receive a first tier ranking will win $25,000, a second tier teams win $10,000 and third tier teams win $5,000. Students who finish all elements of the soybean competition that did not receive an award will receive a participatory award of $2,000. One winner will be awarded $10,000 as the top ranking team in the corn competition along with a $1,000 second place prize.

Legislative Session comments

The Feb. 21st Legislative update session saw all three legislators discuss various bills with over 20 patrons from the community. Farm Bureau President discussed the Ag bills that affects Putnam County noting disfavor with HB1074 and HB1075 which has a more favorable counterpart in the SB221. HB1468 was another bill of note that intends to protect against puppy factories but includes items at the end of the bill that would greatly effect 4-H Livestock exhibitors in the state. Here is that section of the bill.
4) "Neglect" means to:
(A) endanger an animal's health by failing to provide the animal with food or drink, if the animal is dependent upon the person for the provision of food or drink; or
(B) restrain an animal for more than a brief period in a manner that endangers the animal's life or health;
(C) tether an animal by the use of a rope, chain, or tether that:
i) is less than three (3) times the length of the animal;
(ii) is too heavy to permit the animal to move freely;
Other issues discussed were the restructuring of county government, online voter registration, property tax caps, township trustees, and several other important topics.

Legislative Update Session

The next session is Saturday, Feb. 21 at 8 a.m. in the Putnam County Farm Bureau boardroom. Here is a recent update on what is happening with the Ag Bills.
Farm and Rural Legislation Moving in Indiana Legislature 02/19/2009by Gary Truitt
The Indiana General Assembly took action this week on several pieces of legislation that impact agriculture and rural Indiana. The House Agriculture Committee passed two bills that deal with permitted livestock operations. HB 1074 requires a background check on individuals seeking a IDEM permit for a CAFO. The bill is similar to one moving through the Senate. The Senate bill SB 221 has the support of IDEM, Indiana Farm Bureau, and most Indiana livestock groups. It is expected that this bill, and not the House version, will eventually become law.HB 1075 would place a limit on where livestock facilities could be located. Bob Kraft, with Indiana Farm Bureau, says this bill passed out of the ag committee and is now before the full house, “The bill was amended to require a 2 mile setback from State Parks and Reservoirs.” Originally the legislation would have implemented a 2 mile setback from any body of water in the state. Kraft said while this is an improvement it still blocks livestock locations from many sitesin the state. During the committee hearing on the bill, Michael Platt with the Indiana Pork Producers testified that livestock operations pose no more of a threat than housing, industrial, or business operations that would be located close to these parks and waterways. If it passes the House, it may face a tougher road in the Senate. This week State Senate did pass the resolution that makes property tax caps part of the state constitution, but Kraft says it faces an uncertain future in the Democratically controlled House, “We at Farm Bureau are hopeful it does die in the House. We don’t like the caps, and we don’t think they are fair.” Kraft would like to see the issue put off until next year, allowing for more study of the long term ramifications of the policy change. Another issue that failed this week was a bill that would have required small rural schools to merge with larger school corporations. The Governor’s plan to do away with township government also failed this week. Many rural residents had concerns about both of these measurers.

Meat is good for you !!!

Beef Considered to be 'Good Calories'
Feb 17, 2009 12:26 PM, Source: The Beef Site
Book praises beef in healthy diet.

Red meat is often blamed for heart disease, obesity and a host of other diet-induced conditions.
But scientific journalist Gary Taubes says carbohydrates and low-fat diets may be the real culprit. He shared the results of a “12-year obsession with finding what’s real and what’s not” with cattlemen and industry representatives at last fall’s Feeding Quality Forums.“Beef has gotten a bad rap the last 50 years. Just red meat in general is an integral part of a healthy diet,” he said.His book, Good Calories, Bad Calories, flies in the face of conventional nutritional advice.“I spent years studying how people picked the evidence they like and ignored the evidence they didn’t; what’s sort-of wishful thinking or bad science and what can really be supported by evidence,” he said.Taubes now tours the country lecturing on the information he uncovered in his research.“There is an alternative hypothesis out there and I’ve been doing everything I can to get the researchers to take these ideas seriously,” he said. “The medical schools and the obesity research centers, from their point of view I’m just a journalist – what do I know? I wrote the book so people could judge for themselves.”His work outlines all of the studies relating to diet and heart disease, along with the evolution of the current dietary recommendations.The beef industry became an unintended target in the diet-heart conflict, he said.“We started out with this simplistic hypothesis: fat raises cholesterol raises heart disease. The experts locked themselves into a perspective from the 1970s,” he said.The reality, Mr Taubes said, is “the more carbs, the higher triglycerides and the more carbs, the lower HDL (high-density lipoprotein or the ‘good cholesterol’). Saturated fat doesn’t even fall into that equation.”“As the science evolved, it meant the advice had to change, but if you change the advice you’re saying, ‘Look, we made a mistake when we told you to go on a low-fat diet 30 years ago.’"The real danger is that in a quest for a low-fat diet, people have ditched proteins and elevated the amount of carbohydrates they consume.“When you eat carbohydrates, your body basically dumps glucose into your bloodstream. Glucose is a sugar,” he explained. “Your pancreas responds by hyper-secreting the hormone insulin. Your muscles don’t like all this insulin, so they become resistant.”One the of hormone’s functions is to signal your liver to convert carbohydrates to triglyceride fat. It also causes you to store more fat in fatty tissues, he said.“Everything goes wrong as you elevate insulin. The healthiest possible diet is one that has the lowest insulin,” Mr Taubes said. “The one nutrient that doesn’t stimulate insulin secretion is fat. If you want to keep insulin low, you eat what the Inuit, the Eskimos, ate 100 years ago, which is a diet that’s like 75 per cent fat and 25 per cent meat.”He concluded with a statement that many in the health science community would embrace:“What makes you fat makes you sick,” Mr Taubes said. “Whatever makes you fat increases your risk of heart disease, diabetes, Alzheimer’s and most cancers.”The trick is deciphering what types of food really make you fat.The Feeding Quality Forums, held in North Platte, Neb., and Amarillo, Texas, were sponsored by Pfizer Animal Health, Certified Angus Beef LLC (CAB), Feedlot magazine and Land O’ Lakes Purina Feed.