Cattle Raisers address animal disease issues

AUSTIN, Texas, March 28, 2001—Members of Texas and Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association approved policy today asking elected representatives and agencies at both the state and federal levels to help strengthen the United States’ capabilities to prevent, detect and control animal diseases.

      The action came in the form of resolutions approved during the final business session of TSCRA’s annual convention. The 124-year-old trade organization represents 13,500 beef cattle producers, primarily in Texas and Oklahoma.

      Approximately 2,000 cattle raisers and guests gathered in Austin, March 24-28 for the group’s annual convention, said John E. Dudley of Comanche, Texas, who was elected president of the organization during the business session.

      TSCRA implored all elected representatives to favorably consider any appropriations that can enhance the country’s ability to prevent and manage animal diseases and to oppose any budgetary reductions that could diminish such capabilities. TSCRA members also urged all state and federal agencies to consider health threats to the animal industries, wildlife and food supply of the United States when creating and enforcing travel and trade agreements and regulations.

      Dr. Linda Logan, executive director of the Texas Animal Health Commission, told TSCRA members that Congress is not allocating enough funding to keep the animal health infrastructure strong. Logan told members of the TSCRA Animal Health Committee that funding for the Veterinary Services division of the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service has decreased almost every year, with half the number of veterinarians on staff as in the 1970s.

      "Complacency has been our worst enemy," Logan said, adding that the diagnostics staff that would potentially deal with a crisis situation is both underfunded and understaffed.

      TSCRA members also approved a recommendation to Gov. Rick Perry to place the executive director or a designee of the Texas Animal Health Commission on the Texas Emergency Management Council. While the Texas Department of Agriculture and the Department of Health are both represented, currently TAHC, the agency responsible for protecting the health of Texas’ domestic livestock, does not have a position on the council.

      During meetings earlier in the week, Gov. Perry told TSCRA members he had been in contact with U.S. Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman to discuss the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s plan to coordinate a state and federal working group on foot-and-mouth disease. He also told producers he had written USDA to ask for more inspections with more intensity and thoroughness to keep the United States free of the disease. "We can’t afford not to," Perry stated.

      Cattle Raisers also resolved to work to pass a stand-alone omnibus Conservation of Private Lands Act that would strengthen personal stewardship of private property rights and responsibilities vs. regulatory approaches. Desired provisions would include:

• Restoring Natural Resources Conservation Service staffing to provide technical assistance on the ground to pre-1985 levels.

• Increasing research in soil, water, plant and wildlife science.

• Establishing short courses for both producers and agency personnel in soil, water, plant, livestock and wildlife management.

• Providing practice-based incentive payments for conservation based on developing, implementing and maintaining a comprehensive conservation plan over a 10-year contract period.

• Ensuring confidentiality of private business information between land owners and both state and federal governments, not subject to open records access.

      In other business, arguing that the United States can only create more employment and prosper with more savings, more capital and less confiscation of both, the association also reaffirmed its unequivocal support to the full and rapid repeal of the federal estate tax. "The estate tax is levied on those who have worked hard, saved well and, in most cases, already paid taxes on this wealth at least once and most likely twice," Dudley said.

      U.S. Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison also expressed her support for the elimination of estate taxes. "We passed the elimination of the death tax twice. We sent it to President Clinton twice and he vetoed it. This time we have a president in the White House who agrees with us . . . . Only 50 percent of the small businesses in this country make it to the second generation. Eighty percent don’t make it to the third generation. We must fix that. We want the family-owned farm and ranches to make it. We will eliminate the death tax and we will bring common sense back into our country."

      Texas Agriculture Commissioner Susan Combs told producers that the death tax is the No. 1 reason people sell land in Texas, which, along with urban pressure at the edges of rapidly growing cities, is causing land fragmentation. Combs also cited statistics from 1992-97 that show 2.3 million acres in Texas were converted from rural use to urban use.

      While the number of land owners has increased throughout the state, the size of the land area owned has fallen. This trend toward breaking agricultural lands up into smaller parcels and rapid development of the land into non-agricultural use has implications for water supplies, domestic food supplies and wildlife, she said.

      Andrew Sansom, director of the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, told Cattle Raisers, "The single greatest threat to terrestrial wildlife conservation is the continued breakup of private lands. The relationship may not be direct, but it is a secondary effect. Unless we find a way to arrest that development, it will not only be bad for wildlife, it will also have a financial impact."

       Sansom was referring to Texas’ multi-million dollar recreational tourism industry, including things like bird watching and wildlife photography, as well as the hunting industry.

      Texas and Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association is a 124-year-old trade organization whose 13,500 members manage approximately 2.7 million head of cattle on 58.9 million acres of range and pasture land, primarily in Texas and Oklahoma.

TSCRA-16-2001