24 Jan 2005
What happens when Bossy dies?

If I had a front loader and a really big compost pile, this would be a capital idea. Mostly because there's only one renderer left in the state of Indiana, and it can take up to a week for them to get here and pick up a carcass.

That could get a bit stinky in the summer. But what's even worse is that Boone County seems to be their last stop of the week: when Wulfie died and the dead wagon came to get her, he already had a full load on board. It was like something from Monty Python - you know - "Bring out yer dead!"

You have no idea what a half a ton of dead cow hoisted with a power winch and dropped onto 10 tons of rotting swine and sheep smells like. Especially when some of the latter burst under the newly added weight. The dogs refused to come out of the house when he was here ... and I vowed never to complain that my job on the farm was gross and disgusting, no matter how covered in chicken shit I get, or how many sheep afterbirths I have to manually pull out of the ewe. I could have a worse job. I could drive the dead wagon.

It may sound morbid, but with rendering plants disappearing, more farmers are looking to composting

(link) [The Montpelier Times-Argus]

00:00 /Agriculture | 0 comments | permanent link

Mad cow helps R-CALF's pitch

I will have to confess to becoming less and less of a "free trader" as I see more and more of the policy's overall effect. For instance, when they open the Canadian border up for cattle imports again, my salvage value on my cattle assets will drop by about 70% - that's a $5000 loss (on paper). It won't effect me too much, because I'm so small: we only own 10 head. But if I was a little larger, with large lines of credit against those cows, or if I'd been trading cattle to build my herd (as larger producers must, all the time), this could be a devastating blow. I'd have feeder calves that I paid, say $400 a head for a few months ago that'll soon be worth about $150 each.

This will happen because of the tremendous inventory of cattle that's been held north of the frontier for the last several months due to the mad cow scare. Supply and demand, you know.

But even worse for large producers, this will hurt their ability to export beef: Japan and the EU both have bans in place on Canadian beef, and when our herds start mixing freely again, that'll be a perfect excuse to extend those bans.

There's a lot of unintended consequences to policy decisions in agriculture: I just wish somebody in Washington would wake up.

Leo McDonnell used a story about apples to warn his fellow cattle producers meeting here about free trade.

(link) [Omaha World Herald]

00:00 /Agriculture | 0 comments | permanent link