BSE testing

[Econ101]

Randy: Providing a way was found around the liability insurance issues and a smaller packer started testing.......who could better afford the financing of testing .......a high thru-put plant with a higher margin or a smaller higher slaughter cost plant? My whole concern is that any testing beyond surveillance needs will plunge our entire industry into a totally unnecessary and unrecquired expense that will be there for ever. Margins are already too tight in our industry and the cow-calf producer to whom any extra costs are pushed down to will lose that much more value out of their product!

To erradicate a problem like BSE, you first have to understand the transferrance mechanisms. After that you might have to spend a little money up front for erradication efforts over a time period, but then you can go on surveillance afterwards. Sometimes these up front costs are a lot less than the future costs of not dealing with the problem honestly.

When I get a splinter, I like to hurry up and dig it out. This problem has been festering long enough. It is time to get the splinter out, no matter how much it hurts in the short run. This industry will be better off in the long run.

But if you have a splinter in one finger do you cut off the rest to solve the problem?

No. Your splinter has festered and created quite a problem already. It should not have. As I said before, it looks as if they got the economics wrong on fixing your splinter. It already created gangreen that you have had to deal with. Not a good example to follow at all.

BSE is one splinter, but captive supply and market fraud is another. You will have to get them both fixed before you will be whole. Ignoring one still leaves a splinter.

 

[Big Muddy rancher]

To erradicate a problem like BSE, you first have to understand the transferrance mechanisms. After that you might have to spend a little money up front for erradication efforts over a time period, but then you can go on surveillance afterwards. Sometimes these up front costs are a lot less than the future costs of not dealing with the problem honestly.

When I get a splinter, I like to hurry up and dig it out. This problem has been festering long enough. It is time to get the splinter out, no matter how much it hurts in the short run. This industry will be better off in the long run.

But if you have a splinter in one finger do you cut off the rest to solve the problem?

No. Your splinter has festered and created quite a problem already. It should not have. As I said before, it looks as if they got the economics wrong on fixing your splinter. It already created gangreen that you have had to deal with. Not a good example to follow at all.

BSE is one splinter, but captive supply and market fraud is another. You will have to get them both fixed before you will be whole. Ignoring one still leaves a splinter.

We are running a very agressive survalence . Test higher numbers then required and the right class of cattle. As for the captive supply that is some thing OT and R-Calf dreamed up to hold against the Canadians. And you have jumped on the band wagon with NO proof.


FACTS WITHOUT THEORY IS TRIVIA, THEORY WITH OUT FACTS IS BULLSHIT.


Hey I finally found the right place to use that line.

 

[rkaiser]

So what are the Facts about testing for export marketing purposes BMR?

cowsense wrote:
Randy: Providing a way was found around the liability insurance issues and a smaller packer started testing.......who could better afford the financing of testing .......a high thru-put plant with a higher margin or a smaller higher slaughter cost plant? My whole concern is that any testing beyond surveillance needs will plunge our entire industry into a totally unnecessary and unrecquired expense that will be there for ever. Margins are already too tight in our industry and the cow-calf producer to whom any extra costs are pushed down to will lose that much more value out of their product!

You are correct about the volume of scale once again cowsense. I will be the first to admit that Cargill will do it the cheapest, once it becomes the norm. And it will become the norm some day. Stopping testing is simply a delay tactic to gain as much as possible until the innevitable. BSE is not going to go away. This feed ban crap will not rid the industry of the problem. The problem has always been there. We are simply now finding it. There will always be ANOTHER cow. Even Prusiner himself admits that BSE can occur without transmission. Do you honestly think that now that survailance testing and all the forces driving testing in the marketplace are going to disappear? The world is on to something here cowsense. BSE has created beuracracy and opportunity and that will never stop.

Unnecessary, unrequired. Nice opinion. And I beleive it in my heart as well. However, you are convinced by a different force than me. You are convinced by the corporate ethics of Cargill and Tyson, and I am convinced that BSE is non transmissible (unless you consider a metal component), and certainly not able to jump the species barrier.

Why would I support testing then? Because BSE has made no producer in any country of the world one red cent, while every other aspect of the industry has found a way to capitalize on the issue. It's time for producers to capitalize. It's time for producers to realize some profit from a course that will never stop unless all parties involved stop treating BSE as BSEconomics. And I can tell you right now cowsense, THAT will never happen.

Want to keep beleiving that Cargill has it right cowsense? That's up to you. And you will likely support them as well when THEY choose the time that THEY start to test for BSE. :wink: