This is Bob Bragg with the farm news and views report for the week of December 23. Farmers and ranchers received some good news late last Friday when Congress passed a short term spending package that avoided a government shutdown and also included ten billion in direct payments for farmers, $21 billion in agricultural disaster aid and a one year extension of the 2018 farm bill, and about $100 billion in disaster assistance to help farmers in areas that have been impacted by recent hurricanes in the southeast. However, this legislation will only be in effect until March 20, 2024, leaving Congress only 90 days to find consensus on a long term budget, something they haven't been able to agree on for over a year, according to several agricultural organizations, farm and ranch businesses could be hit especially hard if Congress fails to agree on a viable budget before the March deadline, if a government shutdown would happen In March that would close USDA, rural development, Natural Resources Conservation Service and state and local farm service agency offices keeping farmers from being able to sign up for USDA services.
It would also halt acre reporting, keep farmers from making farm loan applications and payments, and this list of shutdown services would go on. The last and longest shutdown was from December 22 of 2018 until January 25 of 2019 during the first Trump administration. That shutdown reportedly cost the US economy over $11 billion.
Since Christmas is just around the corner. It's an ideal time to talk about reindeer, the only deer species that have been domesticated. That happened several 1000 years ago in northern Eurasia, and they're still being used as beasts burden and raised for milk meat in their hides in Norway, Finland, Sweden, Russia, China, Mongolia and Canada, Greenland, Alaska and other areas of the United States. A small herd is also maintained in Scotland, the males are called bulls or stags, while a female is a cow and a baby is a calf. These domesticated deer are called reindeer, while their wild cousins are known as caribou.
The females are the only deer species that have antlers that are used for protection from predators and in the winter to clear snow from their sources of food.
Reindeer milk is one of the richest and most nutritious milks produced by any terrestrial mammal containing 22% butter fat and 10% protein, compared to whole dairy cow milk that contains only three to 4% fat.
Reindeer calves can run as fast as their adult counterparts within hours of their birth at speeds of up to 50 miles an hour, and travel 30 miles a day during migrations. Unlike other deer species that have pointed hooves, reindeers have broad foot pads that allow them to traverse on snow in the winter and on soft tundra in the summer.
So I suppose that author Clement Clark Moore chose this animal for good reason when he wrote his 1822 poem, A Visit From St Nicholas, that's better known as the night before Christmas,
I suppose that he couldn't visualize a team of eight oxen, a span of mules, or an eight up hitch of draft horses flying through the air, landing on roofs and standing quietly while the rotund St. Nick made his way down chimneys all over the world.
To quote climate Clark Moore, Happy Christmas to all and to all, A good night.
