Day 093 - 28 Feb 95 - Page 58


     
     1        not have any digestive problems.
     2
     3   Q.   But you do not know where your particular cattle are coming
     4        from?
     5        A.  That is correct.
     6
     7   Q.   I am asking you about general conditions?
     8        A.  Well, there are no general conditions.  Those are the
     9        general conditions.  In the United States there are
    10        basically three major slaughterhouses or packing plants
    11        that control, basically, the movement or supply of beef in
    12        the United States.  Those are the big guys who control,
    13        they know the benefits of going through this or avoiding
    14        these kinds of problems.  It is the little guys, the
    15        farmers who have a little feed lot that do not have the
    16        expertise, that do not know this kind of research that do
    17        not use that.  So, in general it is the big guys, the big
    18        three in the United States.
    19
    20   Q.   Who are the big three then?
    21        A.  It is IBP, it is Cargill and Conagra, that is one, two,
    22        three.
    23
    24   Q.   What are they in control of?  They are not in control of
    25        all the individual feed lots?
    26        A.  No, but they have a very strong relationship with the
    27        feed lots.
    28
    29   Q.   With some of them?
    30        A.  With most of them. For example, the last one that I was
    31        at was supplying IBP, 45 per cent of the volume of IBP.
    32
    33   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  If a steer has a digestive problem from being
    34        switched too quickly to grain, does it stop feeding for a
    35        period?
    36        A.  Yes, it does.  It even happens in the wild when it is
    37        not necessarily grain that they have to eat.  It could be.
    38        It is carbohydrates that is the problem.  They can run into
    39        a tree with apples and eat the apples and suffer the same
    40        problems.  They can get into a -----
    41
    42   Q.   Very well.  So far as the farmer or whoever you choose to
    43        call him is concerned, it is counter-productive if he lets
    44        this happen?
    45        A.  Oh absolutely, yes.
    46
    47   MS. STEEL:   The most common of the painful digestive problems
    48        is rumenitis liver abscess complex which affects about
    49        eight per cent of all the grain-fed cattle, is that
    50        correct? 
    51        A.  I do not know.  I do not know where you are getting 
    52        your data from.  I do not know. 
    53
    54   Q.   Is it right that the National Research Council of the
    55        National Academy of Scientists estimates that sickness,
    56        injury and premature death of cattle represents an economic
    57        loss of $4.6 billion a year in the United States?
    58        A.  I do not know, but can you go one step at time again
    59        and tell me?
    60

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