From: altar@beaufort.sfu.ca (Ted Wayn Altar)
Subject: Re: Cow Agribusiness News
Organization: Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, B.C., Canada
Date: Mon, 25 Jan 1993 17:16:56 GMT

Russel at eerbl@cc.newcastle.edu.au writes:

>When we start to see TV documentaries depicting sympathetically and
>imaginatively the lives of farm animals, then I will go "hooray for 
>technology".

I have to concur with that.  The objectification of the living
animal into mere deck of cellophane-wrapped "meat" is certainly
something that needs to be overcome.  Technology has been
effectly used to help achieve this remarkable separation of the 
living animal from what we see nicely packaged in supermarkets.

Anyway, here is some news from the net that you might have
seen.  Changes are occurring and in the end change they must.
                                            Cheers,
                                                  ted
=================================================================
Status: RO
 
Excerpt from "Jim Carrier's West" a regular column in The Denver (CO)
Post 1/17/93
 
No one expects wholesale herding of cattle and sheep off Uncle Sam's
land (by the new administration) - not this year. But a combination of
new laws, higher fees and stiffer enforcement of regulations could
mean substantial reductions in herds on big chunks of the 250 million
acres now grazed by private ranchers.
 
Possible areas are: deserts of Arizona, Utah, Southern California,
Nevada and SW Colorado.
 
A stock show (currently on in Denver) is titles: "The Environment - a
serious challenge to Livestock Producers."
 
"Agriculture has lost some of its political clout, particularly in
this administration with such an emphasis on environmentalism and
being green and converting the rest of the world to thinking green,"
said Alison Berkes, a Washington, DC, attorney who will speak at the
seminar.  "Agriculture traditionally has had the image of being anti-
green and not liking the environment and not wanting to comply."
 
Bruce Babbit, interior secretary, will hopefully understand westerner
needs.  He will become the largest rancher in the world, with control
of 164 million grazing acres as well as water project and endangered-
species enforcement.
 
"I don't think the administration is going to support any regulatory
or legislative moves to price the 29,000 public-lands ranching
families off the land," said Reeves Brown, executive VP of the
Colorado Cattlemen's Association. 
 
Babbit has called the Bureau of Reclamation a "dinosaur" and the
Endangered Species Act "the single most inventive and trailblazing law
of this century."  That law and the Clean Water Act, could include
language that would consider cattle a nonpoint polluting source, said
Berkes.
 
Babbit told National Cattleman's Association that grazing is a
privilege not a right, and the grazing fee "a big issue." Likely to be
raised but not in 1993.
 
Other factors are also working against the cattle industry:
 
Al Gore favors regulation to protest the environment. But regulation
requires money, and he may hot have money to properly evaluate grazing
land.
 
The Clean Water Act will be administered by the EPA. Ranchers may even
have to analyze their manure before it runs off. 
 
Beyond Beef says the beef industry's dollar checkoff system is use to
promote beef with public grazing, claiming an unfair subsidy.
 
No net loss of wetlands, abandoned by Bush is on the Clinton-Gore
agenda.  
 
Fewer than 2% of Americans are in agriculture, and even old friends
like the chemical industry are starting to turn on stockmen as having
escaped regulation.
 
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