Word: cattlemen
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...small town. Within its tidy sprawl of accommodation blocks, trailers, caravans and tents - powered by a shed-sized generator and watered by an artesian well - manager Terry Jones and her seven staff (plus Spike the dog, Pickles the wallaroo and a resident python) host a shifting population of local cattlemen and Aborigines, road workers, tourists and truckers. Isolated the place may be, says Jones, a former hairdresser, but it's never lonely: "We're all friends. You have to build good friendships out here, otherwise you'd just feel lost...
...problem. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has budgeted $193 million for its Verb campaign, encouraging young Americans to be active. "Eat less" is another matter. In the past, federal efforts to tell Americans to eat less meat have been foiled by lobbying from the Cattlemen's Association. Attempts to tell people to eat fewer sweets have raised the hackles of the sugar and corn-refining industries. Ultimately, the government winds up putting out such bland advice as "Choose two to three servings of lean meats" and "Moderate your intake of sugars" rather than a clear "Eat less...
...head of cattle, feedlot owner Norm Haaland is concerned but philosophical. From his second-story vantage point at TBone Feeders in Shepherd, Mont., he watches corn trucks rumble in to dump loads of feed. He is worried about the fallout from the mad-cow crisis, but his cattlemen customers are more concerned about the recent U.S. decision to allow imports of boxed beef from Canada as long as it comes from cattle younger than 30 months. "The big packers are making a killing up there, buying Canadian cattle from the feeders at hardship prices, then shipping it down here...
...tradition among cattlemen, of course, to grouse about the power of packers, who are constantly finding ways to cut costs--through mergers, automation and assaults on labor unions. But the three largest companies--Tyson Foods, Cargill and Swift & Co.--have their own woes. About $300 million in beef and by-products like liver and tongue (which American consumers generally disdain) are caught in the pipeline for foreign countries. In the far bigger domestic market, the packers are watching closely to see how consumers respond. Even then, it is unclear how a drop in demand would ripple through the industry...
...USDA directives will force processors to adopt certain safety practices, but the big three say those will have little financial impact. The companies insist they have already been doing much of what is now required. Industry leaders like Eric Davis of the Cattlemen's Association say they support the USDA moves. "We may not like what they tell us, but we'll follow the facts and go where we need to go," says Davis, who runs a cow-calf and feedlot operation in Bruneau, Idaho...