I find it interesting that two of the entertainment world's most glamorous women recently demonstrated an interest in becoming small ruminant producers. Nicole Kidman wants goats and Elizabeth Hurley wants sheep .... and cows ... and pigs!
During a recent interview with Russell Crowe, Kidman said she plans to buy a farm in Nashville with her husband, country crooner Keith Urban. "It's a great town, and it's actually been a great place for me to go and just be myself," she said. "We're gonna get a farm, and I really want a goat ... just to possibly contribute to helping me make goat's cheese, which is my favorite cheese." Crowe quipped that she was going to need more than one goat!
Elizabeth Hurley has bypassed the china and silver on her wedding registry and opted instead for an odd gaggle of gifts.
To celebrate her marriage next weekend to Arun Nayar, Hurley is asking guests for live animals to help populate the couple's farm in Gloucestershire, England.
"It's the best thing I've ever done. It's the only place I want to be," Hurley said on the "Richard and Judy Show." "When we get our organic status, we're going to farm properly, and we're going to have a herd of cows and proper sheep and proper chickens. And we're going to have Gloucestershire Old Spot pigs."
Now, don't get me wrong - I'm really excited about these ladies mentioning their farm animal fascinations in a public forum. As a goat industry observer and participant, I have long bemoaned the bucolic, rustic and often offensive image that many of the uninitiated have of goats.
In a recent column for the Parsons, Kansas-based Farm Talk magazine, Mark Parker wrote "Out with the image of a goat chewing a tin can in the front yard of a hillbilly shack, in with a rapidly expanding - and economically viable - segment of American agriculture. If goats aren't big business right now, they're certainly on their way." Nicole Kidman mentioning on an internationally-viewed talk show that she wants some goats can only help to further enhance that image.
Thanks, Nicole. Maybe we can help you start your caprine dairy herd. And if anyone from Great Britan happens to be reading this modest missive, how about sending a couple of goats over to Liz as well!
I was recently in San Antonio for the American Sheep Industry Association (ASI) annual meeting and I have to say I probably enjoyed SA more than any other city I've been in of late. Our meeting hotel was just a couple of blocks away from the Alamo, so that enhanced the experience greatly. I've been fascinated with the Battle of the Alamo since I was about 12 (and no, that's not the year it occurred!)
As much as I did enjoy the Alamo and the River Walk, I actually managed to squeeze in a few meetings while there. Most importantly, American Meat Goat Association (AMGA) president Marvin Shurley and I were joined by Robert Swize and Bob Duke from the American Boer Goat Association (ABGA) in our efforts to try and pull sheep and goat producers together on the national level under ASI's banner. I've been serving on ASI's goat committee for a couple of years now and we continue to search for an efficient and cost-effective way to integrate goat producers into the ASI membership. I won't bore you with the details, but it's not an easy process. Talks continue and hopefully we'll soon come upon a solution that will help the goat industry as a whole to demonstrate a unified front when communicating with the USDA, congress or whoever else might have an influence on our industry. With ASI's splendid record in Washington, it seems much more sensible to partner with them than to "reinvent the wheel." We're not to a concensus as yet, but the talks are continuing. Here in Kentucky we seem to be making a little more headway in uniting sheep and goat producers (and all those folks like myself who dabble in both species.) The new Office of Sheep and Goat Development is on track, with interviews currently being held to find an Executive Director. As soon as that individual is in place, we should be off and running. Once again, Kentucky is leading the way when it comes to innovation in the small ruminant industries.
The most difficult thing about the trip was getting the daily updates on the steadily worsening condition of Stephenia's father. I flew back to Kentucky on Saturday evening, January 27, and we were notified that it was just a matter of time on Sunday, January 28 - Tex's 94th birthday. Monday morning I drove Steph to Paducah to be with him and she was there when he quietly slipped from life shortly after midnight Wednesday, January 31 .
He was a humble man, but a truly great one. After my father died in 1989, Tex stepped into that considerable void. But then, I had always thought of him in a paternal manner so it was like going through that loss of a father all over again when he passed. I can only say that I'm grateful to God that He allowed me to have Tex in my life and I'm grateful to Tex for the gift of his beautiful daughter in addition to his treasured friendship.
I may be venturing out on some thin ice here, but I just can't leave this one alone.
According to USA Today, "The Food and Drug Administration is set to announce today that meat and milk from cloned animals are "indistinguishable" from that of conventionally bred animals and safe for human consumption. After a 90-day public comment period, sale of such meat and milk could become possible."
OK, so what's the point? The draft of a paper to be published Jan. 1 in Theriogenology, a scientific journal on animal reproduction, says "None of the studies … identify any remarkable nutritionally or toxicologically important differences in the composition of the meat or milk," but it goes on to note that the process is not very efficient and it requires up to 100 tries to go from egg to live birth. Clones have an increased risk of premature death and birth defects.
Cloning also is too expensive to be used to produce individual animals for slaughter, according to the journal article. Instead, it's expected that cloning will be used mostly to make copies of animals with outstanding characteristics such as high milk production, excellent meat marbling or quick growth. Those clones would then be used to breed animals for market.
Hold it. Isn't this what we already do as producers? Don't we specifically select the best of the best to retain for replacement and breeding stock? And while we're at it, don't we also look for traits like survivability so that the animal has a longer productive life? From where I sit, we already have the benefits with none of the incumbant costs and potential genetic train wrecks that are the products of these "technical advances."
Big business keeps trying to industrialize farming to make it more efficient and cost effective, completely ignoring any underlying moral or cultural issues. I, for one, like to see my food being grown conventionally and locally. Maybe it might cost a little less in the long run to mass-produce genetically programed super critters in factory farms, but the potential impact on the environment and on species diversity is chilling. And no matter what the FDA says, we don't know the long-term effects of consuming meat, grain or vegetables that have been genetically tinkered with. Research like that could take years, cost millions and end up telling us what we already know - it's not nice to fool with Mother Nature.
