Agricultural News
Congressman/Rancher Frank Lucas Instructs Rules Committee on Blizzard Loss in South Dakota
Tue, 15 Oct 2013 08:35:32 CDT
An early blizzard in the Dakotas caught ranchers off guard earlier this month, killing as many as 75,000 head of cattle. Many ranchers' operations are in tatters, and with the federal government shut down and no disaster assistance available without a farm bill, their short term prospects appear bleak.
Congressman Pete Sessions invited Agriculture Committee Chairman Frank Lucas to address the Rules Committee about the disaster this past Friday. We are featuring some of Chairman Lucas' remarks before the Rules Committee on today's Beef Buzz.
Lucas, himself a rancher, told the Committee "My understanding is it was a combination of the worst possible weather events for livestock outside-a series of soaking rains, a dramatic drop in temperature, followed by ice, followed by snow. So, whether you're a 1200-pound cow, or a 600 pound calf, or even something younger than that, when you're soaked to the bone, you're subjected to incredibly low temperatures-below freezing-and the wind chill factor, you can't generate enough heat to dry out and stay warm. And you freeze to death."
"It is a tragedy in many ways. Understand that many of these are breeding stock operations. These are cattle-the bulls, the cows-the genetic pool has been in families for generations and generations and generations. There are pedigrees on a lot of these cattle that go back farther than most of our fellow citizens can identify who their ancestors are. So there's that loss. There's a loss of much of production into the human food chain."
"In the farm bill we have language that addresses livestock disaster losses. In the previous farm bill, because of budget issues, the programs were funded for four years of the five-year farm bill. So, it expired. We addressed those kind of issues in this farm bill."
The Beef Buzz is a regular feature heard on radio stations around the region on the Radio Oklahoma Network- but is also a regular audio feature found on this website as well. Click on the LISTEN BAR below for today's show- and check out our archives for older Beef Buzz shows covering the gamut of the beef cattle industry today.
WebReadyTM Powered by WireReady® NSI
Top Agricultural News
More Headlines...
