Cattle Numbers Down & Immigration Reform

Cattle Numbers Down & Immigration Reform

Cattle Numbers Down & Immigration Reform plus Food Forethought. I’m Greg Martin with today’s Northwest Report.

Not since 1952 have U.S. cattle supplies been this low. USDA’s 2013 Cattle report says the nation’s total cattle inventory dropped another two-percent during 2012. The herd totaled 89.3-million head and marks the lowest January 1 inventory of all cattle and calves since 1952. USDA’s Livestock Analyst Shayle Shagam.

SHAGAM: It implies we are continuing to head toward very tight supplies of cattle. There’s an underlying feeling of uncertainty. It’s obvious the producers recognize that if you have the opportunities to expand your herds, this is the time to do it.

Idaho’s Representative Paul Labrador recently spoke to a Meridian town meeting and told attendees that while he doesn’t believe in a pathway to citizenship for illegal immigrants the cost to our society to just kick 12 million people out is something that we’re not going to be able to stand. Labrador says the system is broken, denying employers the willing workers they need from the low end of the wage scale in agriculture, manual labor and hospitality to the highly paid engineers at Micron.

Now with today’s Food Forethought, here’s Lacy Gray.

Well, another Super Bowl has come and gone. Some people tuned in for the game, some for the half-time show, and some just to see the ads. Super Bowl ads are often funny to the point of slapstick, and sometimes they’re just downright bizarre, but very rarely are they poignant. This year the Dodge Ram Truck commercial was the exception to that. The late great Paul Harvey’s voice could be heard reciting the poem “So God Made a Farmer” while pictures of farmers and farmers yet to be played across the screen. Harvey recited the poem for a Future Farmers of America convention in 1978, but that was like preaching to the choir. This time it was heard by millions of people who perhaps don’t know about the daily toils of “real farmers”. And you know what, the majority of those people are saying it was the best ad of the Super Bowl. Of course there are those die hard anti-agriculture fanatics out there who, even though they don’t have a clue as to what farmers really do, are dissing the commercial and will continue to diss farmers and the ag industry. Someone really should remind them they shouldn’t talk with their mouths full.

Thanks Lacy. That’s today’s Northwest Report. I’m Greg Martin on the Ag Information Network. 

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