Free Republic

Call this one of the newest and innovative the ways your government has come up with to battle greenhouse gas emissions. Indirectly it could be considered a cheeseburger tax, but one of the suggestions offered by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in its Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (ANPR) for regulating greenhouse gas emissions under the Clean Air Act is to levy a tax on livestock. The ANPR, released early this year, would give the EPA the authority to regulate greenhouse gas for not only greenhouse gas from manmade sources like transportation and industry, but also “stationary” sources which would...

It's the little cow with a big future. Rising supermarket prices are persuading hundreds of families to turn their back gardens into mini-ranches stocked with miniature cattle. Registrations of the most popular breed, the Dexter, have doubled since the millennium and websites are sprouting up offering “the world’s most efficient, cutest and tastiest cows”. For between £200 and £2,000, people can buy a cow that stands no taller than a large German shepherd dog, gives 16 pints of milk a day that can be drunk unpasteurised, keeps the grass “mown” and will be a family pet for years before ending...

Smithfield — A judge has told a Johnston County farmer that he cannot open his farm to Muslim families planning to slaughter lambs as part of an annual religious celebration. The judge issued a 10-day injunction Friday, meaning that about 250 Muslim families in Wake County will have to make other arrangements for slaughtering lambs they bought in advance of the three-day Festival of the Sacrifice, which begins on Wednesday. Kenneth and Eddie Rowe have tangled before with the state over the mass slaughter of lambs on their 300-acre farm. They said they have been conducting the slaughtering in their...

Corn and potato crops may soon provide information to farmers about when they need water and how much should be delivered, thanks to a University of Colorado at Boulder invention optioned to AgriHouse Inc., a Berthoud, Colo., high-tech company. The technology includes a tiny sensor that can be clipped to plant leaves charting their thickness, a key measure of water deficiency and accompanying stress, said Research Associate Hans-Dieter Seelig of CU-Boulder’s BioServe Space Technology Center. Data from the leaves could be sent wirelessly over the Internet to computers linked to irrigation equipment, ensuring timely watering, cutting down on excessive water...

Switch To Corn For Ethanol Could Affect Drink Prices By STEPHEN KOFFWASHINGTON — This just might call for a new Jimmy Buffett song. The price of drinking could climb as farmers who grow blue agave, the cactuslike plant used for tequila in Mexico, and barley for beer in Germany, switch to corn and other biofuel crops to meet growing demand for ethanol. Prices have already gone up for beer in Germany, and American beer could follow if barley production keeps declining here. "If the beer companies and malt companies need it to make their products, they're going to have to...

Boise, Idaho (AP) -- A judge on Friday blocked new rules governing how ranchers use 160 million acres of federal land, saying a federal agency had given in to pressure from the livestock industry. The Bureau of Land Management violated the Endangered Species Act, the National Environmental Policy Act and the Federal Land Policy and Management Act in creating the rules, U.S. District Judge B. Lynn Winmill ruled. The judge said the BLM's rule revisions would have loosened restrictions on grazing on public land nationwide, limited the amount of public comment the BLM had to consider and diluted the BLM's...

EL SEGUNDO, Calif., July 21, 2005 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Seeking more protection for ground forces without enhancing risk to aviators, the U.S. Air Force has engaged Raytheon Company (NYSE: RTN - News), a leader in radar and data exploitation technology, to devise a way for aircraft, from a safe distance, to detect, track and target hostile forces in motion on the ground. "The U.S. owns the airspace but today's conflicts quickly move to the ground," Nick Uros, vice president for Raytheon's Advanced Concepts and Technology group, said. "We want to keep the war fighter in the air and on the ground...