Get mad at corporations, not cows and ranchers

[acmavm]

Article Published: Sunday, January 04, 2004

guest commentary

By Chris Frasier

<snip>

Christmas dinner on our family ranch lacked its usual cheer. While our plates were full, our minds were ruminating on the mad cow scare in Washington state. Since learning that the cow was infected in Canada, we've been able to enjoy holiday leftovers, but we know our troubles are far from over. Our cows may not be mad, but our customers sure are.

<snip>

This fact has been lost in all the hype over "mad cow" disease; it was international corporations, not farmers, that rendered cattle into protein pellets. When BSE first cropped up in England a decade ago, it was because feed companies had saved a few pennies per bag by lacing their grain with animal byproducts. English farmers had no reason not to trust the stacks of neatly labeled paper bags at the feed store, so they packed them home to their cows. Today the media portrays these farmers as heartless tyrants who fed meat to their cattle.

Meanwhile, the corporations that peddled this feed are hiding behind enormous promotional budgets. Archer Daniels Midland pays big for its image as "supermarket to the world." Lest anyone forget, this is the same company the FBI busted for felony price fixing in 1996. They weren't gouging foreign governments or some other corporate titan, but family farmers, by fixing the price of livestock feeds.

These grain merchants continue to fatten at taxpayer expense. According to the Cato Institute, ADM receives more money in government subsidies than any corporation in recent history. Their criminal record doesn't keep them from splitting nearly all our nation's farm business with Cargill, the only other significant player in American grain markets. ADM's president, James Randall, made no bones about his company's disregard for the food supply when he told his shareholders, "Our competitors are our friends. Our customers are the enemy."

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"Our customers are the enemy"??????? This guy needs to be taken out and fed ten pounds of infected beef.

[DrWeird]

1. Ranchers? You mean those lazy good for nothing...

welfare queens who steal my hard earned dollars and sit around all day listening to country music on their boomboxes and squirting out meth babies?

[luisao]

2. USDA = Meatpacking Industry

The allegedly public serving USDA has been doing mostly PR for the beef industry ever since the discovery.

Check out an excellent recent Mother Jones article--something like "USDA Captured by Meatpacking Industry."

[Cloud]

3. I agree

Isn't the number one rule of business to keep your customers happy?

I know as a customer myself I do not want infected beef in my refrigerator.

Which is why I have been eating a whole lot of chicken and fish lately. :)

This whole mad cow scare would probably never have happened if they would just feed cows what they naturally eat. Cows are not carnivores.

[camero]

4. chicken is not even completely safe

They are allowed to use the same practices for chickens as they supposedly were not able to do for cows.

I agree that they should feed the cows what they are used to eating which is grass.