The Castrated Cattle Business
By Jim Mundorf
The first quarter of 2024 is coming to an end and if you look back at what has transpired in the cattle business it’s hard not to be embarrassed. This culminated last week when it was exposed that cattle lobbyist are now having the taxpayers pay “no less than $15,000,000” for electronic ID ear tags for cattle. This money will only be used if the USDA rule mandating the use of EID tags gets finalized.
Click here to hear how these tags will be used.
This comes after the NCBA has been pushing for an EID tag mandate for years, culminating at their convention last month where they tried to sneak a policy through that would mandate the tags for all cattle. Fortunately market reporter Corbitt Wall was able to use his daily Feeder Flash market report to explain to producers what was happening at the convention and what these mandates would mean for the entire industry. While the industry should have been thanking Corbitt for keeping them informed an NCBA affiliate was trying to get all of his sponsors to drop his show. A week later Corbitt read what seemed to be a written apology to the Angus breed because he had said something someone didn’t like. Me and my one year old daughter listen to Feeder Flash every morning over breakfast, and while we don’t always agree with everything Corbitt says, we have yet to be offended. I would be willing to bet my one year old has thicker skin than whoever demanded that apology. I haven’t talked to Corbitt or anyone at DV Auction, but I have a feeling his apology had a lot to do with him exposing the EID tag mandate for what it was. I maybe wrong, maybe there are Angus breeders out there that are as soft as tissue paper, but after seeing all this go down, I felt like it made the entire industry look like they’ve had their nuts cut off.
I thought about how all of this makes the cattle business look. How the outside world is watching this, and I’m wondering what they are thinking. Thomas Massie’s tweet exposing the cattle lobby for demanding taxpayers pay for ear tags that will be used enact totalitarian controls over cattle producers, has been viewed 1.6 million times now. A few words came to mind, one that starts with p, and another with a b, but I felt like castrated was most acceptable. And this has nothing to do with men or women. We all know women who have plenty. Many thought the Governor of South Dakota Kristi Noem had some of the biggest in politics, but she has proven us all wrong by signing away the property rights of her citizens for support from the Summit Carbon Pipeline.
All of this after USDA numbers came out showing that we have lost 107,000 cattle farms and ranches in the past 5 years. The U.S. cattle herd is the smallest its been in 70 years. There are ranchers in the Texas panhandle who are in desperate need of help after the wildfires. So what do the so called “industry leaders” do? They demand taxpayers pay for ear tags.
While all of this makes me scared to death about where things are headed, I am hopeful that the people in this industry who haven’t been cut, the men and women who do the work, will tell the corporate lobbyists where they can shove their EID mandate, and show the world that the cattle business still has a pair.
NCBA’s press release endorsing the Minibus bill and the, “no less than $15,000,000” for EID tags.
NCBAs Keynote speaker Myles Allen’s recent work.
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