June 28, 2021 — Ottawa rolls out aid program to help farmers adopt cleaner technology
“We saw a business opportunity because of all the chatter in agriculture with the expense of drying grain,” said chief executive Lyall Wiebe. His pitch to farmers was simple: You’re sitting on your own fuel source.
August 4, 2021 — Burn your scarce and expensive cattle feed
h/t KP
Breitbart -Bacon May Disappear in California as Pig Rules Take Effect
At the beginning of next year, California will begin enforcing an animal welfare proposition approved overwhelmingly by voters in 2018 that requires more space for breeding pigs, egg-laying chickens and veal calves. National veal and egg producers are optimistic they can meet the new standards, but only 4% of hog operations now comply with the new rules. Unless the courts intervene or the state temporarily allows non-compliant meat to be sold in the state, California will lose almost all of its pork supply, much of which comes from Iowa, and pork producers will face higher costs to regain a key market.
How do you destroy the breadbasket of the world?
In December 2020, the Government of Canada released A Healthy Environment and a Healthy Economy – a plan which pledges to reduce emissions from fertilizer by 30% below 2020 levels.
It doesn’t even do what they want it to do.
Policies that discourage fertilizer use can actually increase GHG emissions. A reduction in grain production in Canada through less fertilizer use, would not only have a significant negative impact on soil organic carbon, but would lead to carbon leakage to other jurisdictions
Farmers are pissed, you starve their plants, you starve their livelihood which is an extremely low margin business to begin with.
The only reason why these options are economical is because the federal government has made the other options uneconomical and is throwing $165 million at the ones it likes.
But up until recently, some farmers were hesitant to make the switch [to drying grain by burning corn stalks, straw, dust from oat hulls and wood chips]. The government’s offer to cover half the price of the upgrade has apparently changed that.
Any ideas out there as to what the true carbon footprint is for burning wheat straw as opposed to natural gas to dry grain?
Governing agriculture by popular urban opinion – what could possibly go wrong? Meet Colorado’s Initiative 16;
A recent ballot initiative being proposed in the state of Colorado is a serious concern for farmers, veterinarians, and other animal welfarists. The initiative, originally called Protect Animals from Unnecessary Suffering and Exploitation (PAUSE), has appeared before the title board after it was filed with Colorado’s Secretary of State. After a successful title board hearing, it is now called Initiative 16 in Colorado. This means that once enough signatures have been gathered, Initiative 16 will appear on the Colorado voting ballot for the general public to determine.
It includes a definition of the “natural lifespan” of livestock: “a cow lives to 20 years, a chicken lives to 8 years, a turkey lives to 10 years, a duck lives to 6 years, a pig lives to 15 years, a sheep lives to 15 years, a rabbit lives to 6 years.”
Section 3 then goes on to incorporate this change by adding in another subsection (1.9) which reads as follows: “any person who slaughters livestock in accordance with accepted agricultural animal husbandry practices does not violate the provisions of subsection (1) of this section so long as the animal has lived one quarter of their natural lifespan based on species, breed, and type of animal and the animal is slaughtered in such a way that the animal does not needlessly suffer.” This would essentially mean that the age required for legal slaughter and harvest is greatly increased – which, in the case of cattle, would be a full five years according to the language in this proposed change.
Language expanding the definition of “sexual act with an animal” would also effectively ban artificial insemination, and other veterinary and husbandry procedures unless that person is “dispensing care to an animal in the interest of improving that animal’s health”.
How “interest” might be defined will keep veterinarians up at night.
Chad Vorthmann, executive vice president of Colorado Farm Bureau, said this initiative is, in his 20 years in Colorado, the worst initiative he’s seen filed, even in the shadow of Proposition 114 which requires Colorado officials to introduce and manage wolves.
“That was bad,” he said. “This is worse.
The animal rights fueled initiative still faces a process of appeals and other requirements before it can be certified for a public ballot. The original document can be downloaded here..
Western Canadian politicians are still deaf, dumb and blind to the fact that what came for oil and gas is coming for agriculture;
A push on the perceived urgency to deal with climate change is being promoted by John F. Kerry, special presidential envoy for climate, in an interview with “CBS This Morning,” February 19, 2021. He said “the scientists told us three years ago that we had 12 years to avert the worst consequences of the climate crisis. We are now three years gone, so we have nine years left.”
With climate change being the 800-pound gorilla in the room, one of the drum beats is to reduce animal agriculture’s contribution to greenhouse gases (GHG) by reducing the numbers of beef cattle. The Western Watersheds Project, a nonprofit environmental conservation group founded in 1993, is an advocate for a reduction in beef consumption in our diets. The reduced beef consumption would require fewer acres of land devoted to producing food and fiber for beef cattle. However, much of the land devoted to grazing is utilizing a resource that humans cannot consume (grasses).
It’s why the eco-Marxist Trudeau Liberals seem impervious to arguments that the escalating carbon tax will destroy western Canadian grain and beef production — it’s not a bug. It’s a feature.
@ConceptualJames — One of the harder things to do with the doctrine coming from the left right now is to stop thinking of it as “insane” and start realizing it is meant to be strategic toward a terrible purpose.
… and a new computer.
My twelve year old desktop died last night, and that leaves me with a twitchy old laptop as backup. Blogging will be slow at my end until Lance can perform transplant surgery on the old box, or failing that, I have to buy a new one. Ugh. Not so good.
Until then, you’re in the capable hands of the guest bloggers and our new constitutional subordination to the “national interest”. Rage on.
Full speed ahead on new #CarbonTax fuel standards,@JonathanWNV tells reporters: draft regulations are due in days. https://t.co/FWeM6NX2Gp #cdnpoli @EnvironmentCA @OilGasCanada pic.twitter.com/K4f0hKhWn7
— Blacklock's Reporter (@mindingottawa) September 15, 2020
Related: So much for O’Toole
Scot Dutcher is standing in the gap between solid investigations of legitimate animal mistreatment and those that are misguided. As a former staffer at the Colorado Department of Agriculture’s Bureau of Animal Protection, Dutcher was involved in cases involving alleged livestock mistreatment.
After 15 years assisting law enforcement in various cases, he has a deep understanding of the state’s animal care statutes as well as the criminal and civil animal neglect statutes.
He has created AgNav Consulting to work with law enforcement agencies investigating livestock neglect, to provide training to law enforcement and key farm and ranch employees. Training topics run the gamut from recognizing and determining an animal’s body condition score to basic animal nutrition, to humane euthanasia. Providing training to law enforcement to identify which allegations are legitimate is key, and training regarding the necessary evidence in a legitimate investigation help both producers facing bogus charges and law enforcement faced with differentiating between the two.
On-farm assessments are a service Dutcher can provide, offering feedback to owners or managers regarding the placement of no trespassing signage, gates, and things, like sick pens, for example, that would be better located out of sight from a public road. Making simple changes to avoid being a target of extremists can be an effective first step for many operations, especially in Colorado, a state he said is second perhaps only to California in the number of active animal rights extremists and activists.
When hiring employees, Dutcher said a simple Google search can provide a look into any connections or interactions an individual could have to animal rights groups, especially on social media. If no data appears at all, that could also be a red flag.
h/t Carrie
Genetic Literacy Project: The application of glyphosate to crops has increased about 15-fold since Roundup-ready crops were introduced in 1996. What has happened to the rates of [non-Hodgkin lymphoma] over the past 25 years? As shown in the figure below, while the use of glyphosate increased markedly, the incidence of NHL has remained flat, and mortality from NHL has decreased.
A couple of years ago, I met David Zaruk at a Society for Risk Analysis meeting, where we were both presenting. I was aware of David’s blogging and investigative journalism, but meeting him gave me a greater appreciation for the breadth and depth of his work. For those of you who do not know David, he is present in cyberspace as the Risk-Monger who blogs about risk and science communications issues. His blog has featured cutting-edge exposés about the distortions in risk communications perpetuated by the advocacy of non-governmental organizations (NGOs). Previously, I have recorded my objections to the intellectual arrogance of some such organizations that purport to speak on behalf of the public interest, when often they act in cahoots with the lawsuit industry in the manufacturing of tort and environmental litigation.
David’s writing on the lobbying and control of NGOs by plaintiffs’ lawyers from the United States should be required reading for everyone who wants to understand how litigation sausage is made. His series,“SlimeGate” details the interplay among NGO lobbying, lawsuit industry maneuvering, and carcinogen determinations at the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC). The IARC, a branch of the World Health Organization, is headquartered in Lyon, France. The IARC convenes “working groups” to review the scientific studies of the carcinogencity of various substances and processes. The IARC working groups produce “monographs” of their reviews, and the IARC publishes these monographs, in print and on-line. The United States is in the top tier of participating countries for funding the IARC.
Understandably, the IARC has been concerned that the members of its working groups should be viewed as disinterested scientists. Unfortunately, this concern has been translated into an asymmetrical standard that excludes anyone with a hint of manufacturing connection, but keeps the door open for those scientists with deep lawsuit industry connections. Speaking on behalf of the plaintiffs’ bar, Michael Papantonio, a plaintiffs’ lawyer who founded Mass Torts Made Perfect, noted that “We [the lawsuit industry] operate just like any other industry.”[2]
David Zaruk has shown how this asymmetry has been exploited mercilessly by the lawsuit industry and its agents in connection with the IARC’s review of glyphosate.[3] The resulting IARC classification of glyphosate has led to a litigation firestorm and an all-out assault on agricultural sustainability and productivity.[4]
Be sure to read the Slimegate blog posts, and pass them along to your MP and MLA if you still believe in such things.
I’m convinced that the widespread anti-Monsanto social media campaign of the past few years was battlespace prep by tort lawyers intent on grooming the jury pool.