“Downer” cattle, cows that have taken ill and can no longer walk, have been banned by the U.S. Department of Agriculture from entering the food chain in an effort to prevent the spread of bovine spongiform encephalopathy, also known as BSE or mad-cow disease. Inability to stand is one of the classic symptoms of BSE in cattle.

Steve Mendell, President and CEO of Westland Meat defended his companies standards and indicated the disciplinary action had been taken against the responsible parties.

We are shocked, saddened and sickened by what we have seen today.  Operations have been immediately suspended until we can meet with all of our employees and be assured these sorts of activities never again happen at our facility.

A statement issued by newly appointed Agriculture Secretary Ed Schafer declared that Westland Meat’s contract with the federal school lunch programs will be suspended.

“I am deeply concerned about the allegations made regarding inhumane handling of non-ambulatory disabled cattle in a federally inspected slaughter establishment,” Schafer said. “We are confident in our inspection system and the food safety regulations that ensure the safety and wholesomeness of the food supply.”

Bonnie Powell of the food blog The Ethicurean  does not share Secretary Schafer’s confidence in the system.

“There are 97 million cattle in this country. In 2004, a busy year for the USDA, the agency tested 759,000 cattle and found three to be infected. That’s a sample rate of less than 1 percent. I don’t find that reassuring, and it’s just one of the reasons I don’t eat U.S. commodity beef.”

It is believed, but not proven, that BSE can be transferred to humans through consumption of infected beef. The disease in humans is known as a variant of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD). To date there have been 10 cases of BSE and one case of vCJD discovered in Canada, compared to three cases of BSE and three cases of vJCD discovered in the  United States.

But the effect of global climate change is not always as obvious as a hurricane, not always as clear as a flood.  It isn’t always about too much water.  As a recent series of stories shows, sometimes it’s about too little.In the deep south, a massive drought has had a catastrophic negative impact on agriculture.  Lake Lanier, which provides water for most of metropolitan Atlanta, is at its lowest rate in fifty years, sparking a state of emergency.  The typical squabbling has ensued — Georgia has no water management plan, and has only just now begun to implement usage restrictions — but the potential for catastrophe is real.

Meanwhile, a New York Times Sunday Magazine piece informs us that in the Rockies, the snow packs that feed the Colorado River are shrinking, as they melt away with global warming, and are not replenished by reduced winter snowfall.  As years go by, the amount of water entering the river will be reduced.  The results are already beginning to show.  Lake Mead, the reservoir that sits at the Hoover Dam, is half-full, and projections indicate that it will never be full again.

The Colorado River provides water for Colorado, Utah, Wyoming, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada and California, and a reduced flow would be disastrous.  The New York Times quotes Steven Chu, a Nobel Prize-winning scientist, as saying, “There’s a two-thirds chance there will be a disaster, and that’s in the best scenario.”

Turn on any television and you’ll see the current situation in California, where wildfires burn out of control, spurred by Santa Ana winds and rainfall two-thirds lower than normal.  Almost 100,000 square acres are ablaze, and half a million people have been evacuated from San Diego.

Closer to home, North Dakota has been in a years-long drought, costing many farmers their livelihoods.  Lake Superior’s water level appears to have stabilized, but only after falling precipitously.

The problem of global climate change does not lie simply in warmer temperatures.  It also lies in the way that the world’s biomes will be reshuffled. Richard Seager, a scientist at Columbia University, put it bluntly when asked about the west.  In an interview with the New York Times, he said, “You can’t call it a drought anymore, because it’s going over to a drier climate. No one says the Sahara is in drought.”

We have reached a point where the impact of global warming is undeniable to any but the most determined skeptic.  Some of the impact is inevitable; I fear that within our lifetimes, we’ll see the states in the mountain west facing severe water shortages, and demand for states like Minnesota, where we have a great deal of fresh water available, to share the wealth.  We must begin immediately to plan for that future, to ensure that we can help our fellow Americans without destroying our own state’s environment.  And humans must immediately begin to work to curb global carbon emissions.  We are already seeing negative effects from our previous lackadaisical attitude, and I fear that we are already too late to avoid catastrophe.  We must act soon to avoid apocalypse.

Last year I wrote this fair blog (wait a minute, it was way better than fair) for the Star Tribune. We called it Deep Fried Joe, and it was fun. At least for me. But I don’t work for the newspaper anymore. After 31 years as a Strib reporter — the last 20 as the paper’s St. Paul columnist — I took a buyout with 75 of my colleagues and joined the growing ranks of non-reporting reporters.

Still, the fair beckoned. And Minnesota Monitor answered. So I’ve got a gig for 12 days and will explore the fairgrounds on behalf of readers everywhere, venturing from Machinery Hill to the horse barns, from Heritage Square to the Education Building. With stops at all ports in-between.My mission: Find things that I think are cool and pass them along for your consideration. Yes, I know this is largely a public affairs web site. And I don’t care. It would get staler than yesterday’s cheese curds if we spent the next 12 days stalking the glad-handing politicians who find their way to the fair each year like bees to the cotton candy booth. Sure, if Chris Coleman burns his mouth on a corn dog or his non-brother Norm gets lost in Ye Olde Mill, I’ll let you know. But mostly we’ll just have some fun.

Fair-lovers can use this  to help plan their annual treks to Falcon Heights; fair-haters can read all about it and be reassured of their good sense in skipping the crowds, the heat and the grease. Either way, it’s win-win.

I plan to post about five different times a day on weekdays, with a round-up of sorts for the weekends.

One of the interviews I have planned is with the mother-daughter author team of Kathryn Strand Koutsky and Linda Koutsky, whose coffee-table book “Minnesota State Fair; An Illustrated History” was just published by Coffee House Press. They’ll be at the fair signing autographs and I’ve got to ask them how them came up with 1,200 historic fair photos and 120 recipes to go along with their text. Last August I spent a couple hours in the fair’s archive dungeon and found maybe a dozen photos that I posted in the blog. And they found 1,200. God bless their searching hearts.

Last year I sampled most of the new fair foods: hot dish on a stick and the wild rice pronto pups were among the most talked about. I survived both. This year  they’ve got on tap such first-time fair delicacies as: apple fries, calamari, fried fruit on a stick, s’mores on a stick and sloppy joes on a stick. I won’t have the big Strib state fair expense account this year, but I’ll do my best to get to the bottom of the culinary quagmire that we know as fair food.

I’ll visit old friends, meet new ones, check out the fashion and the fads, the nose rings on cattle and kids, the rides and the riders.

So keep on checking in. Tell your friends. Tell my friends. Tell Al Sicherman’s friends.

For more details on directions, grandstand acts, free shows, admission and more, check out the fair’s web site at Minnesota State Fair.

See ya’ out here.

For more of Joe’s State Fair posts, click here

]]> http://minnesotaindependent.com/2218/step-right-up-its-wild-its-mind-boggling-its-fantastical-read-it-here-now/feed 0 http://minnesotaindependent.com/2119/pawlenty-to-request-drought-aid http://minnesotaindependent.com/2119/pawlenty-to-request-drought-aid#comments Wed, 01 Aug 2007 15:10:34 +0000 Jeff Fecke http://www.minnesotaindependent.com.php5-9.websitetestlink.com/?p=2119 Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty will ask for federal aid for farmers facing a loss of crops due to drought, according to a release from the governor’s office. Pawlenty, a Republican, made the statement after visiting Morrison county…]]> Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty will ask for federal aid for farmers facing a loss of crops due to drought, according to a release from the governor’s office.

Pawlenty, a Republican, made the statement after visiting Morrison county in north-central Minnesota.

“Minnesota farmers are among the best in the world at what they do, but they can’t make it rain,” Gov. Pawlenty said in a statement. “We will work closely with farmers and USDA officials to make sure that Minnesota farmers have all the available resources to weather this ongoing drought.”

Pawlenty’s satement said he would “promptly request an agricultural disaster declaration for any county that meets the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s threshold of more than a 30 percent crop loss.”  The governor had previously requested that the USDA’s Farm Service Agency begin a formal damage assessment of counties impacted by drought. 

Additionally, Pawlenty announced that two state loan programs would be made available to farmers affected by the drought.

Much of Minnesota is in the midst of a severe drought, and all but the northwestern part of the state is facing at least some drought conditions.  The drought has affected the state during the past two growing seasons, the first significant period of drought since 1987-89, according to the Department of Natural Resources.

The bins were purchased from out of state to be used to create a grain-drying system for clients. Custom Ag argued that because they were used by the final consumer as a part of the system they should not be taxed.

Justice Paul Anderson in the majority opinion said, “We conclude that the premise underlying Custom Ag’s arguments is problematic because it fails to recognize that for the purposes of the use tax, the relevant question is whether Custom Ag purchased and used grain bins in Minnesota

It stands to reason that those politicians whose districts most benefit from agriculture receive the most political contributions from the agribusiness sector. But how can we prove that?

Thanks to the Environmental Working Group and opensecrets.org, Minnesota Monitor has been able to draw a few cautious conclusions. What we found indicates that political contributions to representatives of districts that rely heavily on agriculture do yield farm subsidies returned to those districts. But it’s not that simple.

more insideMinnesota has eight congressional districts. Two are mostly urban (4 and 5), three mostly suburban (2, 3 and 6), and three mostly rural (1, 7 and 8). Districts 3, 4 and 5 have virtually no agriculture. Districts 2, 6 & 8 have some agriculture. And districts 1 and 7 have strong agricultural-based economies, with district 7 relying almost entirely on agriculture for its economic base.

From the table below it is clear that districts 1 and 7 receive by far the lion’s share of agricultural subsidies, commanding fully $8.1 billion of the $9.3 billion doled out to Minnesota farmers between 1995 and 2005

Minnesota Monitor will be learning along the way as well, for this is an incredibly complex issue involving not just agriculture but issues of environment, energy, trade, rural economies, social responsibility, quality of life and much more. Put simply: Farms can exist without cities, but cities cannot exist without farms.

I’d like to say that we’re going to approach this subject in a logical, step-by-step fashion. But since farm policy is not set up that way, to try to put it in such a neat progression is very difficult, if not pure folly.

In many ways, farm policy resembles health-care policy in the United States. It is built upon a makeshift system that worked at one time but has since become obsolete. Still, it is embedded into the fabric of our society, and thus changing it is akin to performing surgery — a painful process even with generous amounts of anesthesia.

Is this any different from any other country in the world? No. All countries are struggling with 19th and 20th century farm policies while facing 21st century problems and needs.

more insideWhereas once farm policy in the U.S. affected primarily those within its borders, today U.S. farm policy touches every corner of the globe. Thus, when we make our farm policy decisions this year and in the future, we must be cognizant of their impact on the planet for generations to come.

Americans take for granted cheap food. For example, wholesale pork and beef prices have declined over 50 percent since 1970, adjusted for inflation. Meanwhile, energy costs, which are a huge factor in food production and shipping to market, have nearly doubled.

There are several reasons for the decreasing price of food. These include new technologies, hybridization, chemical and fertilizer advancements, larger farms (creating economies of scale), lower trade barriers and farm subsidies. While many of these are advancements, they also create costs that, while not apparent in the price of food, emerge elsewhere in societal balance sheets. For example, farm chemicals and fertilizers create huge environmental costs; lower trade barriers can undermine the economies of developing nations; and farm subsidies can create an artificial domestic economy by rewarding not only accounting proficiency but also farm inefficiency.

Today, we will deal with something basic to U.S. farming in the 21st century: subsidies.

Farm subsidies arose in the 1930s when farmers were truly desperate. The farm economy was collapsing along with much of the rest of the country. To keep the U.S. economy going, Congress and President Franklin D. Roosevelt instituted a broad spectrum of programs. These included encouraging farmers to stay on their farms.

Some 70 years later, as grist magazine has pointed out, subsidies have become a “Short-Term Solution That Stuck.”

Like any welfare program, subsidies can lead to entitlement, even addiction. In Minnesota and South Dakota, for example, we recently witnessed the effrontery that agricultural interests felt when the Federal Railroad Administration turned down a proposed $2.3 billion taxpayer-subsidized loan for the DM&E railroad.

Most economists agree that in order to reach true economic balance in the world, the fewer trade barriers we have the better off we will be. Yet moving from a system that is highly influenced by government policy can be very painful for those who have done well by that system. And dismantling trade barriers does not just mean eliminating duties, taxes and allocations. It means doing away with internal economic incentives as well.

Such change cannot be achieved overnight — nor should it be. A balancing of agricultural production and trade needs to take place over years, perhaps decades, perhaps even generations. Short-term solutions will not do.

That said, I will close with a simple table showing which congressional districts in Minnesota, North Dakota and South Dakota are receiving the most farm subsidies. Keep in mind that the current officeholders in those districts are not necessarily responsible for this largesse, as these subsidies have come about over many decades. Thus, current lawmakers should not be blamed for these policies; rather, they should be encouraged to explore ways to make U.S. farm policy beneficial not only to Americans but also to citizens worldwide.

Coming up: Who’s getting the big subsidies and how much are they investing in their U.S. representatives and senators?

The DM&E’s request for a zero collateral, low interest, taxpayer-guaranteed loan is sort of like a baseball team owner asking taxpayers to build him a stadium on the premise that it will generate economic benefits and increase tax revenues. As we have come to learn, the jury is very much out on that argument.

more insideSupporters of the loan have pointed out that massive amounts of state and federal dollars have built this nation’s interstate highway system. True. Fortunately, the American people as represented by the state and federal governments have retained ownership in that system. In other words, they have something tangible for their tax dollar investment.

If a bank wants to loan money to a business or a homeowner, it understandably expects collateral in return. That’s called good business. The same rules should apply to the government, which represents its investors, the people whom it serves. A government loan, like a bank loan, must make good business sense.

Agricultural interests are notorious for being collectors at the public trough. According to the Environmental Working Group, farm subsides reached $164.7 billion for the period 1995-2005. Of that amount, $5.6 billion went to farmers in South Dakota and $9.5 billion went to farmers in Minnesota

The grain bins were bought by Custom Ag to resell to their customers as a part of the final product they sell. Attorney Chad Felstul, representing Custom Ag, argued that the bins were part of a grain-drying system, and not long-term grain storage bins. The statute specifically exempts grain dryers but not grain bins; and while it does list some specific systems, like milking systems and automatic feeding systems and leaves the door open to other like systems, it does not list grain-drying systems. The crux of the case falls on the definition of grain bins and grain dryers.

Attorney Rita Demeules for the commissioner argued that the state was only looking to tax what was specifically taxable under law, the actual grain bin, and not any of the venting or drying pieces. The only thing everyone seemed to agree on is that Custom Ag would have a much better case if the law was clearer or said “grain drying system” and “grain storage bin”.

Custom Ag received these bins, along with other equipment to build products to sell to outside clients and, since their purpose as purchased was for use as grain bins, Demeules said, they should be taxable. Contractors who import items that are taxable and convert them to items that are not taxable are charged a use tax, even though when they sell the item it does not have a sales tax on it.

Custom Ag Services website.

In case you’ve never driven through a farming area, a quick google images search will give you a good idea of what they’re talking about.

[Custom Ag Service of Montevideo, Inc., Relator vs. Commissioner of Revenue, Respondent

Lots of Minnesota related news today, so this will be a series of short takes in several parts:

Robert Novak reports on the 2008 Senate race and the 1st Congressional District race in his Feb. 1 edition of the Evans-Novak Political Report. Conclusions? Novak terms Coleman “perhaps the most endangered incumbent senator in 2008″ and says that Gutknecht won’t be running to regain his seat as he is selling “his well-located Capitol Hill condo and leav[ing] everything behind — including all of his furniture and even his Select Comfort bed.”

more insideBush wants to cut off farm subsidies to those earning more than $200,000 in adjusted gross income. Democrats have been proposing such a ceiling for years; Paul Wellstone was a particularly vocal advocate of subsidy reform. Yet this puts Minnesota congressman Collin Peterson, chair of the House Agriculture Committee, in a precarious position. Peterson, a conservative Democrat, has long been a champion for farmers at all income levels, and has unabashedly said he supports earmarks, which he claims his primarily rural district needs in order to get funding for its miles of open country roads.

This would put him in somewhat of a conflict to his fellow congressman, newcomer Tim Walz, also a member of the Agriculture Committee. Walz’s district relies heavily on an agricultural base as well, and part of his successful campaign strategy in 2006 was to call for accountability in congressional earmarks.

Knowing these two men