Money for BSE

I see the President's budget is coming out with money for <acronym title="Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy">BSE</acronym> efforts. $60 million dollars total. That's a lot of money in my book. A little over half that money will go towards establishing a National ID system for cattle. I will tell you right now, not one dime of that money will end up with us at the bottom that have to identify our cattle(not that I think it should). It will go to those politically connected individuals and orginazations that want to establish and administer it.<br />n<!–more–><br />n<i>The cattlemen's association (<a href="http://www.beef.org/">National Cattlemen's Beef Association</a>) has developed its own plan for implementing a nationwide system, which it hopes to persuade the federal government to adopt and fund.</i><br />n<br />nThere is a lot of things that bother me about the National ID system for cattle that there are talking about, but the <acronym title="National Cattlemans Beef Association, shills for the big meat packers">NCBA</acronym> getting involved really scares me. They try to claim that they represent all facets of the cattle industry but I don't buy it. I, like many cow-calf operators, belive the <acronym title="National Cattlemans Beef Association, shills for the big meat packers">NCBA</acronym> to be controled by the big packers and feeders and use their influence in Congress to help themselves and not the average Joe Cattleman. This is the whole reason the <a href="http://www.r-calfusa.com/">R-Calf</a> orginazation was formed. This orginazation was formed by ranchers to look after the intersts of the average Joe Cattleman and they have done a real good job at it.<br />n<br />n<i>Gary Wilson, an association member who has worked on the ID plan, said the group has already developed standards that would identify every cow that's sold and be able to track its movement.</i><br />n<br />nThis bothers me some too. Why do we need to identify every cow individually? The amount of work this will cause me is staggering. My cows calve in an approximatley 2500 acre pasture with no supervision by me. The only cows I watch calve are the first calf heifers since they are the ones that will more than likely have trouble. If I am not there for each cow to calf how am I supposed to identify them? I was kind of hoping a herd ID system would work and the cattle would only have to be ID'd by herd. This would not be so burdensome for me.<br />n<br />nWell, however they do it I will have to figure out how to implement it. I just hope the <acronym title="National Cattlemans Beef Association, shills for the big meat packers">NCBA</acronym> stays out of it. If they get their hands in it the system will benefit the packers to the detriment of the ranchers and I don't want to see that.<br />n<br />n<b>Wisdom is meaningless until your own experience has given it meaning and there is wisdom in the selection of wisdom. Bergen Evens </b>