Latest Stories | The Triple A Livestock Report
Animal Health Black Ink Book Reviews Caren Cowan Cowboy Heroes Estrays Farm Bureau Minute Global Economy In Memoriam Jingle Jangle Lee Pitts N.M. Federal Lands News N.M. Livestock Board NMCGA Presidents Letter Obituaries Old Times & Old Timers On the Edge of Common Sense Riding Herd Scatterin' the Drive To The Point View From the Backside
Category: Beef Checkoff

— by Lee Pitts

In the last three years, the World Trade Organization has ruled four times that our country of origin labeling law violates international trade rules. You remember the WTO don’t you? That socialist advocacy group that hates capitalism and the wealth it has created, except of course, when they can get their greedy hands on some of that wealth.

How many times must we fight this COOL battle? The answer, of course, is until Canada, Mexico, the NCBA, and the Big Three multinational packers get what they want: to be rid of COOL.… Read the rest

 

— by Lee Pitts

Sometimes you have to really dig to find a story. And then sometimes it finds you.

In the past few weeks I’ve received several phone calls from people associated with the beef checkoff. This alone is a minor miracle because I haven’t exactly been on speaking terms with these folks. Suffice it to say, I’m not on the Christmas card list of the NCBA or the Beef Board.

The Right To Know

Believe me, I really did not want to wade into the checkoff mess again as it has only brought me grief and an enemy’s list a mile long.… Read the rest

 

— by Lee Pitts

For me, the hardest part of being a writer is not writer’s block, not knowing what to put on a piece of paper. It’s not knowing what not to write. For example, do you reveal an industry dirty little secret as part of a journalistic endeavor to inform the readership, knowing that you could also be giving ammunition to the enemy? Or do you keep quiet, even if it’s a ticking time bomb?

A Lot To Lose

After our story and a follow-up, an advertisement appeared on Reuters/PR Newswire electronic bulletin board in New York’s Time Square that was critical of beta agonists.… Read the rest

 

— by Lee Pitts

You’re trying to do the right thing, using EPD’s, DNA, $5,000 range bulls, and all the tools at your disposal to produce the best beefsteaks money can buy. But what the consumer really wants is a good old fashioned hamburger, which, by the way, can be made with any old dairy cow, Mexican Corriente, Australian fat, or any combination thereof.

The American rancher has made great strides since the 1970s when they were experimenting with a bevy of breeds in a rush to produce quantity, not quality.… Read the rest

 

— by Lee Pitts

Anytime a group of cattlemen get together at a convention bar or hanging on the pipes at an auction market on sale day the conversation invariably turns to the idiotic bureaucrats in Washington DC and how messed up our country is. While very true, not a word is said about the pure unadulterated greed and ineptitude displayed by one of our own industry organizations. The leadership of the NCBA would not seem a bit out of place in the halls of a corrupt Congress or at a White House cabinet meeting.… Read the rest

 

Bogus Beef
— by Lee Pitts

Cattlemen and cowboys expect competition from pork producers, poultry pluckers, lamb-lords and tasteless tofu tillers, but I’m quite sure no one ever saw Bill Gates, Google or Silicon Valley as beef’s major adversary. But thanks to the man who cleaned up on Windows, and other geeks and nerds just like him, someday we will view the technocrats of Silicon Valley as a bigger threat to our well being than all the wolves, bureaucrats, Sierra Clubbers, Obamanites and the BLM combined.

Read the rest
 

Climate Justice
— by Lee Pitts

Just when you think the world can’t get any nuttier something comes along that proves that it can.

Have you ever heard of climate justice? To me climate justice would be if ranchers who are trying to feed their families and the world, would be able to turn the rain on and off like a faucet.

You’d have climate justice if it didn’t snow while you were trying to pull a calf and if there was no black ice on the roads for truckers.

Read the rest