By Mike Barnett

Your profitability as a farmer or rancher ranks low on the list of concerns of those who consume your products. I call them customers.

I’ve noted this fact in a survey or two and was reminded of it the other day when a Facebook friend posted some tidbits he had read from an article in the excellent publication Livestock Weekly.

According to the article, consumers believe the priorities for those farmers and ranchers who genuinely try to make a living from agriculture should, from first to last, be:

• Affordable food
• Safe food

By Gene Hall

Regardless of how you feel about the hatchet job ABC News foisted upon a perfectly honorable and legitimate company, Beef Products Inc. (BPI), and the meat business itself, the resulting court case is interesting. BPI has sued ABC News. I don’t know if they can win, but at a minimum, this should embarrass the network.

ABC is defending itself on first amendment grounds. As a former reporter, I understand that free speech and a free press have to be almost absolute in this country, but there are limits. I blogged about this awhile back.

By Mike Barnett

 Mind boggling. The need for water in Texas carries huge numbers and even bigger implications if we do nothing.

 I spent a day at a seminar on the Texas Water Plan, the plan that guides us to meet our 50-year water needs during a repeat drought of record. Some of you old-timers might remember that ’50s drought well. It was devastating. The drought last year brought home the fact that water is a precious resource in Texas, and if we are going to meet the needs of agriculture, municipalities, industry and a growing population, we better get to work.

By Mike Barnett

The certainty for Texans of fresh, unlimited and cheap water is being flushed down the toilet as the recent (and current) drought has left many cities high and dry in a search to provide for their residents.

A growing realization that we must act now to ensure future supplies has cities like Brownwood considering a water treatment system that will recycle what goes down the bowl through the faucet in the kitchen sink.

By Gene Hall

One of my favorite writers is Peggy Noonan, once a speechwriter for Ronald Reagan, now columnist for the Wall Street Journal. She recently wrote a piece called “A Nation that Believes Nothing.” Part of it is too political for our purposes, so I won’t link to it. The piece is notable, and sad, for the premise that we are citizens who do not trust our institutions, or each other. It’s not that we don’t believe “in” anything. It’s that we don’t believe people in authority. True, some have earned our mistrust, but we always overreact.

By Gene Hall

Bad news, meat lovers: We’ll all be vegetarians by the year 2050 because we’ll run out of water to produce livestock. That’s the theory in this article on Yahoo.

 These sweeping and absolute statements can be a lot more about someone’s agenda than futuristic forecasting. When you see something like this, you should ask, “Who doesn’t want anyone eating meat?” Or, “Who wants a grant to study livestock and water supplies?”