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Article 3/28/08 |
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Letter:
Cowboys, cattle ranchers should find new work
Bozeman Daily Chronicle
3/28/08
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Cows,
cowboys and cattle ranchers are obsolete. Only they don't
know it. A kilogram of grain-fed beef takes 100,000 liters
of water to produce; 30 times as much as a kilo of chicken
meat. Feed prices are now sky high because America is
burning grain in its cars. The same kilo of beef takes
14 times the fossil energy input as chicken. What's the
price of gas?
Our supply of hamburger at times arrives
contaminated. Beef itself is not a healthy food for those
prone to heart and vascular disease. Feedlots generate
enormous ground water, river and estuary pollution from
animal waste, hormones and antibiotics. Cows are susceptible
to brucellosis, for which there is no effective vaccine.
Many cattle ranchers say they can't operate profitably
without subsidies in the form of cheap grazing rights
on our public lands. Then, because they can't protect
their cows and calves out on the range, they want to wipe
out whole species of carnivores.
If I were in the cow business, I would
stop corrupting our political system, stop asking the
government to stifle the competition, stop lobbying the
DOL to kill more bison, stop stonewalling the life cycle
tracking of individual cows, stop raising artificially
fattened animals, stop shooting wolves and start looking
around for a new occupation.
Sell the ranch and retire. Open the
range to free roaming bison. Set up a wind farm. Lease
land to the Hutterites.
If I were in the cow business, I would
do some strategic planning, for the sake of my family,
before I miss the boat completely. When the market can
no longer hide the true price of beef, the only option
will be to turn toward Washington and pray for a taxpayer
bailout. By then, the investment banks will have beat
me to it.
Jay Moor
Bozeman
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