The first quarter of 2024 is coming to an end and if you look back at what has transpired in the cattle business it’s hard not to be embarrassed. This culminated last week when it was exposed that cattle lobbyist are now having the taxpayers pay “no less than $15,000,000” for electronic ID ear tags for cattle. This money will only be used if the USDA rule mandating the use of EID tags gets finalized.
All of this after USDA numbers came out showing that we have lost 107,000 cattle farms and ranches in the past 5 years. The U.S. cattle herd is the smallest its been in 70 years. There are ranchers in the Texas panhandle who are in desperate need of help after the wildfires. So what do the so called “industry leaders” do? They demand taxpayers pay for ear tags.
While all of this makes me scared to death about where things are headed, I am hopeful that the people in this industry who haven’t been cut, the men and women who do the work, will tell the corporate lobbyists where they can shove their EID mandate, and show the world that the cattle business still has a pair.
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