AlOLancaster Farming, Saturday, December 27, 2003 OPINION BSE In News Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE) is once again in the news, but this time is not discovered in Canada, but here in the U.S. Lancaster Farming learned Tuesday evening that USDA diag nosed a presumptive positive case of BSE in an adult Holstein cow in the state of Washington. Why is BSE in this country? Why, when feeding animal ruminant products is illegal in both the U.S. and Canada, we still have these BSE cases popping up? BSE sf mid have been eradicated a long time ago. Why do we still see it? The USDA needs improved enforcement of the anti-animal rumi nant legislation. An old saying still applies: DON’T MAKE ANY NEW LAWS UNLESS YOU CAN ENFORCE THEM. And they should enforce them well. The fines, if necessary, should be excessive and jail time severe for feeding blood meal, bone meal, and those types of products. Better yet, why doesn’t USDA go on the attack regarding BSE acti vely seek out the agent, rather than having it come to them? Why not make BSE elimination THE mandate? BSE is a public health problem. We need to have a secure food sys tem. Not only that, with BSE in the U.S., what will become of the stellar year for beef prices, of more than $lOO CWT? The feeder cattle mar ket could be in jeopardy if USDA doesn’t act decisively. Saturday, December 20 Monday, December 22 Adventures in Agriculture Plan ning Meeting, Northampton County Extension, Greystone Building, 6:30 p.m., (610) 746-1970. Thursday, December 25 Merry Christmas! F ' office cli ppy Farming office closed, Friday, January 2 Lancaster Youth Dairy Day (ages 8-18), Lancaster Farm and Editor: Farm families of Pennsylvania thank and applaud the General Assembly for passing legislation (House Bill 1222) on Dec. 18 that will discourage townships from adopting illegal farm ordinances. How To Reach Us To address a letter to the editor' • By fax. (717) 733-6058 • By regular mail. Editor, Lancaster Farming P.O. Box 609,1 E. Main St. Ephrata, PA 17522 • By e-mail farming@lancasterfarming.com Please note; Include your full name, return address, and phone number on the letter Lancaster Farming reserves the right to edit the letter to fit and is not responsible tor returning unsolicited mail X (Turn to Page A3l) * Farm Calendar ❖ i ' ssH, Home Center, Lancaster, 9:30 a.m.-2:30 p.m., (717) 394-6851. Saturday, January 3 AFBF (Farm Bureau) Conven tion, Hawaii, thru Jan. 17. Sunday, January 4 Ice Cream Short Course, Nittany Lion Inn, University Park, thru Jan. 10, (814) 863-2959. Lancaster A. Monday, Jandary 5 Maryland Dairy Meeting, Chest ertown Fire Hall, 10 a.m.-2:30 p.m., (410) 778-1661. Tuesday, January 6 National Potato Council Conven- ❖ Farm Forum ❖ The problem is that a few local officials have been legislating be yond their authority by adopting regulations that exceed existing state laws. During the nearly three-year discussion of the problem by law makers and the public, the mis representation by a few groups of both the issue and the remedy has been disappointing. Here are the facts. The legisla tion enables courts to require townships to pay a farmer’s legal costs after challenging an illegal ordinance if the officials know- ingly or recklessly violated state law when adopting it. Similarly, a farmer can be required to pay the township’s legal fees if a law suit is found to be frivolous. What can be more fair and rea sonable? Claims that the legisla tion removes or changes any 5J* * * (Turn to Page A 29) (Turn to Page A3l) To Celebrate The New Year With Your Family The beginning of a New Year is a great time to stop and remember the blessing we have enjoyed in the past year. With the heavy demands of our work and busy family schedules, time for reflection is in short supply in our society. This makes it all the more impor tant to simply choose to set time aside to evaluate where we are and where we want to be. Each New Year’s day we are given a reminder of how fast our life is moving. In my household, we are reminded by the fact that our first born will soon be graduating from college, representing a major transition in his and our lives. Life is short, so do your best to make the most of each opportunity with family, friends, and your com munity. While you are reflecting on your past year's activities, evaluate with your family whether your business activities supported your family goals or made it hard to reach them. If the consensus is that changes are needed, begin to explore what alternatives are available that could better meet both OUT OF THE MANGER Background Scripture: Luke 2:40-52. Devotional Reading: John 5:19-24. You may be surprised to leam that the birth of Jesus was not celebrated in Christianity until at least 400 years after his birth, and then only in scattered locations. The establishment of Easter pre ceded that of Christmas by several hundred years. Today, Christmas is by far the more popular Christian observance, although Easter remains the most important. The name “Christmas,” a contraction of Christ’s Mass, did not appear until the 12th century. As Christians, we need to under stand that both Christmas and Eas ter are part of a single life and can not be fully understood and appreciated when separated. It is hardly a secret that some of us would like to focus solely on the birth of Jesus and keep him in the manger. That is partly because we know that the story of Jesus the adult is one of acceptance and rejection, acclaim and bitter opposition, loyalty and Lancaster Farming An Award-Winning Farm Newspaper • PDA Friend of Agriculture Award, 2003 • Keystone Awards 1993, 199 S • PennAg Industries 1992 • PACD Media Award 1996 • Berks Ag-Busmess Council 2000 • Recognized for photo excellence throughout the years by the Northeast Farm Communicators your financial needs and your per sonal goals. If you have some ideas on new ventures you want to explore, seek some help in developing your plans. There are two major trends in ag riculture. One group of producers will be successful by seeking to be the low-cost producer of a particular commodity and produce it at a large scale. Another opportunity exists for those who seek to specialize in niche markets, where they will try to gain higher margins for a more special ized product. To be successful in that arena, one needs to understand mar keting and how this is different from producing a commodity. See the arti cle below for some thoughts on mar keting. In the meantime, start off the New Year by supporting the livestock and horticultural industries by enjoying a hearty meal of pork, sauerkraut, and mashed potatoes! To Understand What Customers Want James G. Beierlein, professor of agricultural economics at Penn State, tells us that until recently in agricul ture, the demand for food seemed endless. Most people were thankful to find enough to eat. Because of this, marketing in agriculture focused on moving the most products through the system as efficiently as possible. Customer needs did not really matter since people where just glad to get something. About the middle of the 20th century, supply caught and passed demand for most items in U.S. agriculture. When this happened, what it took to be successful changed. Now cus tomers had choices and did not have to settle for what they could find. Americans developed sophisticated tastes for exotic foods (ethnic foods), became more health conscious (cho lesterol, fat, and so on), and used food to help express their social con cerns (dolphin-safe tuna fish). Producers also learned that cus tomers were not in love with the products they buy but with the satis faction received from the products they buy. If the food products are not prepared for sale in a way that helps them gain this satisfaction, they buy something else. treachery and Jesus died the death of what society would hold to be that of a defeated, discredited man. Christmas, however, is not just a story that got off to a good start and then went bad. As Allan Hauck puts it, “In the total perspective, Calvary and Bethlehem complement each other. Calvary represents the fulfill ment and the final goal of the Incar nation. The Cross is the reason for the Incarnation and the Cross would not have been possible without the Incarnation.” Out Of The Manger Also, many of us would like to keep Christ in his manger because we have observed that, for some, the birth of a baby may be the highest moment in life. Birth is a time of exultation and high hopes, many of which are never realized, and some of which are dashed in disappointment. In the minds of some, the trouble with kit tens, puppies, and little babies is that they quickly grow up into cats, dogs, and human beings! Or, as one woman put it, “1 love babies, but not children, especially when they grow into teen-agers.” None of us, however, can repeal the life cycle; much as we might like to, we cannot keep our babies from becoming children and growing up into adults. That is the way God de signed us and Jesus was no excep tion. And, although we hold Jesus to be the Son of God, we must not rob his childhood and youth of his hu manity. Jesus was not spared the trials and tribulations of childhood and adolescence because the light of God was shining deep within him. He was not a god, nor even an adult human being, hiding in the body of a child and teen-ager. Before the New Testament was closed, there The beef industry has seen a rise in beef consumption recently. This in crease comes in part from packaging beef in ready-to-eat forms that re quire just a quick warm-up in a mi crowave oven. Studies have shown that customers want meals that take less than 30 minutes from start to serve. No matter how great the meal is, if is it is not in the right form to meet the customers' needs, it does not sell. Beierlein points out the marketing secret to better success is to focus on customer satisfaction, not on making a better product. This difference is important. Many businesses have failed because they focused on mak ing a better product rather than re membering they are satisfying cus tomer needs. The proper marketing goal of every firm is to meet the needs of its customers more efficiently, effective ly, and completely than its compet itors. The level of their profit is di rectly related to how well they do this. The profitable satisfaction of cus tomer needs should be the driving force behind everything a business does. This approach will succeed when every part of the business ac cepts this notion. The biggest chal lenge is to accept this reorientation of the way your business looks at itself. The business should exist because it plays a role in the profitable satisfac tion of it customers’ needs. Every body on your farm works in custom er service. Your customers can buy from many sources be sure you give them many reasons to buy from you by offering the right products, at the right price, and at the right time. If you don’t, your competitors will. Quote Of The Week: “There is no institution more vital to our nation’s survival than the American family. Here the seeds of personal character are planted, the roots of public virtue first nourished. Through love and instruction, discipline, guidance and example, we learn from our mothers and fathers the values that will shape our private lives and our public citizenship. ” Ronald Reagan were many other competing writings circulating among the churches, in cluding some apocryphal gospels glo rifying Jesus with accounts of super natural powers exercised by him even as a child. Fortunately, these gospels did not make the cut into canon. They would have distorted the hu manity of Jesus therefore his rele vancy to us for the sake of pres enting Jesus as God in children’s clothing, an interpretation renounced as heresy. Listening And Asking Johann Heinrich Hofmann’s pop ular painting, “The Finding of Christ in the Temple,” is a distortion of Luke’s account, for it depicts the youthful Jesus standing erect in the midst of the elders gesturing as though he were teaching the teach ers. But in Luke 2:40-52 we see a more balanced depiction. Luke tells us that, when his family returned to Je rusalem seeking him, they found him “sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions” (2:46,47.) Yes, the elders “were amazed at his understanding and his answers,” and Mary was stunned by his re sponse to her and Joseph, but the picture Luke paints for us is that of an open-minded youth, respectful of the teachers in the temple courtyard, and yet enough of an adolescent to confound his parents. It was as a real child and youth that “Jesus in creased in wisdom and in stature, and in favor with God and man” (2:52). Lancaster Farming Established 1955 Published Every Saturday Ephrata Review Building 1 E. Main St. Ephrata, PA 17522 —by— Lancaster Farming, Inc A Steinman Enterprise William J Burgess General Manager Andy Andrews. Editor Copyright 2003 by Lancaster Farming