Author Topic: Proposed fee on smelly cows, hogs angers farmers  (Read 19557 times)

longeyes

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Re: Proposed fee on smelly cows, hogs angers farmers
« Reply #50 on: December 07, 2008, 08:26:39 PM »
I suggest we tax, heavily, whatever we find in Waxman's or Barney Frank's briefcase and car trunk.
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41magsnub

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Re: Proposed fee on smelly cows, hogs angers farmers
« Reply #51 on: December 07, 2008, 09:10:25 PM »
The Federal and various state governments already subsidize dairy farmers and dairy processors to keep the cost of milk down.

Milk and other dairy, consumed by children, that is. How PC is this now?

Nuff said.

May I refer you to the thread where PETA tried to get Ben & Jerry's ice cream to use breast milk?

fspitzdorf

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Re: Proposed fee on smelly cows, hogs angers farmers
« Reply #52 on: December 08, 2008, 11:09:03 AM »
I wonder how many farmers have this number of cattle?  I honestly don't know.

My guess is that it's aimed at huge factory farms.  These things are especially large and stinky for miles around.

I doubt it was meant to affect the average small to medium size farmers, wether or not it actually does is another matter.

Neighbor across the road has 350 head of dairy cattle, milked twice a day, putting out 80 - 100 lbs of milk / cow / day.  Farms about 1800 acres total and has at least 3 other farmers with smaller herds (his cows) doing custom milking and another farmer that does custom calving...  Custom calving being that all of the cows that give birth.. the calves are sent to another farm to be weened and either rotated into the herd or sold for beef.

You do the math @ $175 / head.

I would consider my neighbor a mid sized farmer in Southern Michigan and a puny farmer as you head West toward the Mississippi.

Tallpine

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Re: Proposed fee on smelly cows, hogs angers farmers
« Reply #53 on: December 08, 2008, 11:52:18 AM »
Quote
huge factory farms.  These things are especially large and stinky for miles around.

Right outside the little Texas town where my dad lives is a huge feedlot.  You can see the feed elevators from 20+ miles away.

And yes, you can smell it for miles around.  In that part of the country, it is the smell of money :P
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MicroBalrog

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Re: Proposed fee on smelly cows, hogs angers farmers
« Reply #54 on: December 08, 2008, 12:12:49 PM »
May I refer you to the thread where PETA tried to get Ben & Jerry's ice cream to use breast milk?

I think it was a deliberate joke put up by PETA.
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makattak

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Re: Proposed fee on smelly cows, hogs angers farmers
« Reply #55 on: December 08, 2008, 01:14:56 PM »
I think it was a deliberate joke put up by PETA.

Impossible. Liberal extremists have no sense of humor.

"No ma'am. We at PETA have no sense of humor we are aware of"

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K Frame

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Re: Proposed fee on smelly cows, hogs angers farmers
« Reply #56 on: December 08, 2008, 01:35:30 PM »
"I think it was a deliberate joke put up by PETA."

No, it wasn't a joke.

Nor was it a joke when PETA came out with their "Got Beer?" campaign aimed directly at getting college students to stop drinking milk.

And let's not forget Ingrid Newkirk's position on the subject...

"A rat is a dog is a pig is a boy."

That's right, a rat and a child are morally equal.

Everyone knows that the dog is superior to the others, followed by the pig. After that, who cares...
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Re: Proposed fee on smelly cows, hogs angers farmers
« Reply #57 on: December 08, 2008, 01:41:05 PM »
I suggest we tax, heavily, whatever we find in Waxman's or Barney Frank's briefcase and car trunk.

Latex, batteries, NAMBLA literature, and the complete DVD set for the TV show "Queer Eye"?

MicroBalrog

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Re: Proposed fee on smelly cows, hogs angers farmers
« Reply #58 on: December 08, 2008, 01:43:43 PM »
Quote
Nor was it a joke when PETA came out with their "Got Beer?" campaign aimed directly at getting college students to stop drinking milk.

Wait, ad campaigns are now required to persuade college students to drink beer? Not to drink a given kind of beer, but to drink beer in general?

I thought a conscious effort was necessary to PREVENT them from drinking.
Destroy The Enemy in Hand-to-Hand Combat.

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Re: Proposed fee on smelly cows, hogs angers farmers
« Reply #59 on: December 08, 2008, 02:10:32 PM »
I think it was a deliberate joke put up by PETA.

I think it was Peta is a deliberate joke put up by PETA.

Fixed.


Nick1911

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Re: Proposed fee on smelly cows, hogs angers farmers
« Reply #60 on: December 08, 2008, 02:58:36 PM »
Quote
The folks on the coasts probably think that they also truck in the feed to the farms... And I'm guessing they probably think the feed is made in factories...
 
IMHO, every high school class should have a "farm to meat packing plant" day. See where your food comes from.

<rant on>

The people I work with are of the type that have literally no conception of where the things they buy come from, beyond "the store".  When you buy a gallon of milk, you don't see the dairy farm, the milking machinery, the diesel trucks, the pasteurizing equipment, the logistic distribution companies, the oil and oil wells that fuel the process, the natural gas being pumped, shipped and formed into plastic jugs.

And, that's just on the surface.  All of this equipment was manufactured by people... Smart people with incentive to create.  People mined the iron ore, smelted it by burning mined coal to form steel, which had to be cast into forms - these forms had to be stamped, pressed, turned, milled, hardened and ground, then shipped to a factory where they are assembled into finished products.  All of this is required for a farmer to get a motor/ball bearing/piping/etc to keep his dairy operation running.

The sheer level of industry and manufacturing that keeps everything running is astounding.  People take it for granted, that they can always go get a gallon of milk at the grocery store for a few dollars.  But that milk does just appear - it takes land, energy, smart people and motivation for them to take risks.

This is why I firmly believe the best thing government can do is to let the free market work, and stay the heck out of the way of these entrepreneurs.  Of course, it won't. Government won't stop until there is no land to use, no energy to put to use, and no motivation to work.

</rant on>

roo_ster

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Re: Proposed fee on smelly cows, hogs angers farmers
« Reply #61 on: December 08, 2008, 03:12:19 PM »
Every member of the family should own "a farm." With the maximum number of critters.

I've been trying to talk my club president into introducing a "poison pigpen" resolution into our club's bylaws: If the club is forced out of existence, it will be turned over to pig farming.
 
Which the nice neighbors will _really_ not like.

You, Sir, are a freaking genius.


Mike Rowe of "Dirty Jobs" fame has done us all a service by casting light on dirty, unknown, but essential jobs.  Would that someone come up with a similar program for food production.

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Otherguy Overby

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Re: Proposed fee on smelly cows, hogs angers farmers
« Reply #62 on: December 09, 2008, 07:52:07 PM »
I've waited to read all this thread to make the following statement:

Is the tax prorated? 

There are a lot of people who only keep cattle for a portion of their life span.  So what plans has the government for this?

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Tallpine

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Re: Proposed fee on smelly cows, hogs angers farmers
« Reply #63 on: December 09, 2008, 11:39:23 PM »
I assumed this was an annual tax ???

A beef steer has a pretty short lifespan  :O

A good mama cow OTOH might last 9 or 10 years.

One cow per 40 acres don't smell much.  Though like I said to those of us in cattle country, manure smells like money.
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longeyes

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Re: Proposed fee on smelly cows, hogs angers farmers
« Reply #64 on: December 09, 2008, 11:50:16 PM »
We don't have civilization; what we have is pampered ignorance.

Our lack of general awareness of How Life Is is a sign of arrested development, not true evolution.  No wonder we are increasinglyl screwed up.
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KD5NRH

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Re: Proposed fee on smelly cows, hogs angers farmers
« Reply #65 on: December 12, 2008, 07:07:59 AM »
Neighbor across the road has 350 head of dairy cattle, milked twice a day, putting out 80 - 100 lbs of milk / cow / day.

$0.375/day/cow if he's delivering the milk to a bulk user himself. (not likely)  $131.25/day if all produce every day.  Just under $4k/month.  $24.61/hr before expenses if he's doing all the work himself, with no benefits, and somehow doing it in 40hr work weeks.  He could do better to bag groceries at the local supermarket, and yet this is the guy they're trying to tax out of existence because of his "greed."


fspitzdorf

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Re: Proposed fee on smelly cows, hogs angers farmers
« Reply #66 on: December 12, 2008, 11:08:18 AM »
$0.375/day/cow if he's delivering the milk to a bulk user himself. (not likely)  $131.25/day if all produce every day.  Just under $4k/month.  $24.61/hr before expenses if he's doing all the work himself, with no benefits, and somehow doing it in 40hr work weeks.  He could do better to bag groceries at the local supermarket, and yet this is the guy they're trying to tax out of existence because of his "greed."



7 full time employees... to both milk and take care of the herd as well as do the rest of the cash crop and feed farming.  Milk truck (dairy association owned) arrives every morning... 7 days a week. 

They grow their own feed (Corn silage and alfalfa mix) as well as supplement with distillers grain and long stem hay and so on and so forth.  Dairy diets vary by cow age, point in lactation cycle, etc... Cost to fill the silage bunker with corn silage alone ran $23,000 this year.  Plus the 3 cuttings of alfalfa that went in there... Not to mention seed and fuel costs, fertilizer and NH3 costs, and so on and so forth...

Only saving grace of most farmers at this time with out of sight input and fuel costs is that commodities were high and allowed for some good forward contracting.  Milk prices have been up but have pulled back some now. 

There isn't a new piece of equipment on this farm... Everything is well maintained and most of the tractors are late 60's / early 70's vintage equipment.  Keep costs down and spend the money where it's needed most..

They keep their heads above water and do alright in the end... Smart folk (College Educated even) who run a tight and even keeled ship, 3rd generation on the place.



Tallpine

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Re: Proposed fee on smelly cows, hogs angers farmers
« Reply #67 on: December 12, 2008, 11:53:31 AM »
We had a rancher friend in Colorado that told me that his newest tractor was a 1950-something.

For "bale wagons" he bought old 2-ton trucks and stripped the cabs off of them.
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cassandra and sara's daddy

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Re: Proposed fee on smelly cows, hogs angers farmers
« Reply #68 on: December 12, 2008, 05:56:24 PM »
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/12/12/AR2008121203026.html?hpid=moreheadlines
WASHINGTON -- The nation's farms no longer have to report to authorities the toxic, smelly fumes released from manure.

The Bush administration late Friday completed a regulation exempting farms from reporting releases of hazardous air pollution to federal, state and local authorities. The rule applies specifically to the gases from manure that are often responsible for odor problems.

The Environmental Protection Agency said that the changes will allow responders to focus on spills and releases that require their attention. But environmentalists say the rule will make it difficult to track air pollution problems at farms.

Large farms with hundreds of dairy cows or thousands of pigs will still have to report to local and state authorities.
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Re: Proposed fee on smelly cows, hogs angers farmers
« Reply #69 on: December 13, 2008, 09:13:37 AM »
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/12/12/AR2008121203026.html?hpid=moreheadlines
WASHINGTON -- The nation's farms no longer have to report to authorities the toxic, smelly fumes released from manure.

The Bush administration late Friday completed a regulation exempting farms from reporting releases of hazardous air pollution to federal, state and local authorities. The rule applies specifically to the gases from manure that are often responsible for odor problems.

The Environmental Protection Agency said that the changes will allow responders to focus on spills and releases that require their attention. But environmentalists say the rule will make it difficult to track air pollution problems at farms.

Large farms with hundreds of dairy cows or thousands of pigs will still have to report to local and state authorities.


Anyone think this may be changed after the new administration is installed in January?

grey54956

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Re: Proposed fee on smelly cows, hogs angers farmers
« Reply #70 on: December 14, 2008, 11:40:10 PM »
Quote
"It makes perfect sense if you are looking for ways to cut down on meat consumption and recoup environmental losses," said Bruce Friedrich, a spokesman in Washington for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.

This is pandering to the Far Left, plain and simple.  This kind of stuff is going to happen on a regular for the next 2-4 years as the various Far Left special interest groups line up with their non-denominational, non-offensive winter holiday wish lists in hand.
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lupinus

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Re: Proposed fee on smelly cows, hogs angers farmers
« Reply #71 on: December 15, 2008, 05:33:31 AM »
I'd propose if they are that worried about it they are welcome to collect all the methane for power generation and keep the proceeds.

Recycle, aint that what the greenies are all about?
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