I had a rancher tell me that he believes the USDA inspector is x-backing cattle that do not need to be x-backed. He also asserted that he believes the reason comes from the fact that the inspector knows the names of the cattle owners before x-backing. He is an r-calfer and he believes that he is being discriminated against.
He talked with the sale barn manager and the sale barn manager agreed. Now when his cattle are x-backed he takes them home and sells them next week with no problem or at a different barn.
This was a case of a USDA inspector knowing who cattle belong to before health inspections at barns are conducted. It also shows potential problems with too much information being given to buyers, as a national ID system would possibly allow.
The problem is having the buyers know who the sellers are before the bids are placed. The bidders can adjust their bids, not based on the quality of cattle, but on whether or not the buyer wants to discriminated against the producer based on politics or other strategic reasons that packers may have.
With GIPSA being run the way it has been run for the past 5 years by JoAnn Waterfield, can anyone say that there would have been an attempt to make sure an investigation was done? How can you have an investigation of the USDA when the head of the USDA wants to control the information (as Johanns wanted to control Phyllis Fong's investigation into the bse postitive)?
We are seriously eroding the checks and balances in this government in our court systems, our regulatory agencies, and our elected representatives.
This is one of the things that General Zinni was hitting upon last Sunday on Meet the Press. He brought up the same allegation I have brought up......When you put loyalty over integrity, you run into problems with corruption and incompetence. Zinni said that is what happened in the Iraq War. It seems to be happening too much in our current govt.-----Just ask Tom Delay.
He talked with the sale barn manager and the sale barn manager agreed. Now when his cattle are x-backed he takes them home and sells them next week with no problem or at a different barn.
This was a case of a USDA inspector knowing who cattle belong to before health inspections at barns are conducted. It also shows potential problems with too much information being given to buyers, as a national ID system would possibly allow.
The problem is having the buyers know who the sellers are before the bids are placed. The bidders can adjust their bids, not based on the quality of cattle, but on whether or not the buyer wants to discriminated against the producer based on politics or other strategic reasons that packers may have.
With GIPSA being run the way it has been run for the past 5 years by JoAnn Waterfield, can anyone say that there would have been an attempt to make sure an investigation was done? How can you have an investigation of the USDA when the head of the USDA wants to control the information (as Johanns wanted to control Phyllis Fong's investigation into the bse postitive)?
We are seriously eroding the checks and balances in this government in our court systems, our regulatory agencies, and our elected representatives.
This is one of the things that General Zinni was hitting upon last Sunday on Meet the Press. He brought up the same allegation I have brought up......When you put loyalty over integrity, you run into problems with corruption and incompetence. Zinni said that is what happened in the Iraq War. It seems to be happening too much in our current govt.-----Just ask Tom Delay.