Talking about…Cow chipping, Ethanol, Ractopamine, Poultry & Terrorists, Big Mac

"My son is going to do the little tractor pull over there, but my girls are too shy. But we definitely have to take part in the cow-chip throwing contest. Then we can go back and say 'This is what people in Kansas do.'"
(Source: Emporia Gazette [KS], August 19, 2007)
Stephanie Harvey of Addy, Washington, talking about all the fun she and her family were having at Emporia’s Annual Beef Fest.
PS: Stephanie, you’re a home-town girl! I hope you’ll tell folks in Washington that Kansans do more than toss around a few cow chips.

"One of the reasons is ethanol. Of course, those who produce ethanol will tell you it's not, but these new uses of corn mean there will be more demand for corn."
(Source: Houston Chronicle/Food Business News, August 20, 2007)
Eugenio Aleman, senior economist at Wells Fargo, talking about the reasons behind a ‘significant’ increase of between $8 and $20 per week in the price two thirds of all Americans report they’re paying for groceries.
>PS: Joe Outlaw, co-director of the Agricultural and Food Policy Center at Texas A&M, said about 14% of the U.S. corn crop is used to produce ethanol as an environmentally-friendly alternative and gasoline supplement.

"Because the drug has not been approved for use in China, the country has a zero tolerance. It can be given to the animals right up to slaughter which means trace elements of the drug can remain after slaughter."
(Source: The [Springdale] Morning News, August 20, 2007)
Lynn Heinze, spokesman the U.S. Meat Export Federation, explaining the ractopamine problem that closed the Chinese market to products from 11 U.S. pork plants.
>PS: Heinze said the drug is approved in more than 20 countries and believed to be manufactured illegally in China.
>PPS: They can send our children toys covered with lead-based paint but we can’t send them pork with trace amounts of ractopamine, a feed ingredient that ‘redirects energy and nutrients away from fat deposition and toward lean (muscle) tissue deposition?’ OK, let’s ship them some good, old-fashioned fat back.

"What terrorist would focus on propane tanks on a chicken farm? It's ridiculous. Poultry farms are not near population centers. An exploding propane tank would do little harm to the chicken houses, much less any other buildings on the farm, much less anybody else."
(Source: BusinessWeek, August 21, 2007)
Bill Satterfield, Executive Director, Delmarva Poultry Industry, wondering about the intellect behind a Department of Homeland Security proposal that would require most poultry farms to register their propane tanks.
>PS: Maybe DHS has uncovered a terrorist plot to attack our chicken flocks?

"You can live in Beijing or Brooklyn and you can enjoy as your favorite snack a Big Mac attack. Maybe you didn't grow up watching the same cartoons, maybe you didn't grow up speaking the same language, maybe you grew up next door to each other and never said hello, but you suddenly have a point of reference — this warm, yummy, bad-for-you, sometimes-naughty thing."
(Source: MSNBC / Associated Press, August 24, 2007)
Rachel Weingarten, pop culture expert, talking about a 40 year old international cultural ‘artifact.’
>PS: A ‘naughty’ sandwich? Is a trip to McD’s a journey to sin and degradation?

"We have no doubt we will have to continue to explain why a cattleman should continue to be able to sell cattle to whoever he wants," said
(Source: CBS News / Associated Press, August 25, 2007)
Jay Truitt, a lobbyist for NCBA., talking about maintaining the status quo on trading rules.
>PS: Smaller ranchers (make that R-CALF) want to do something about the increasing consolidation of the beef packing industry which they claim kills their chances at making a fair profit.

Farming for votes: Campaign 2008Campaigning in Greenfield, Iowa, Rudolph Giuliani was asked “Have you spent any time on a farm?”

“Have I ever worked on a farm? No. I mean, I’ve visited a farm. But you know there are no farms in New York City.”

“People in Staten Island feel like they are part of their own community,” he said. “You get the same feeling you get in smaller-town America.”
(According to Wikipedia, in 2006 Staten Island had 477,000 people. It’s bigger than Cleveland or Kansas City and about the size of Atlanta, making it the 33rd largest city in America.)

To help small farmers, Barack Obama said the federal government should invest in cellulosic ethanol and encourage farmers to produce more corn. Speaking in New Hampshire, he said. "I do think it's crucial to encourage the ethanol industry as a way of building up infrastructure.”.