Comments on: Record drought hits Costa Rica, Central America’s crops and cattle

By: Lav

Lav — Tue, 19 Aug 2014 00:44:00 +0000

Yes because droughts are very predictable…

By: toolman78

toolman78 — Fri, 15 Aug 2014 05:41:00 +0000

You do realize that those starving cattle were at on point probably just as well fed as mine were. And doesn’t take too much intellect to anticipate problems long before your pasture is depleted. Cattle auctions are held weekly or even twice weekly nearly everywhere I’m aware of. So, to answer your question, no, I’m not comparing cattle. I was comparing my action of selling my cattle before they ran out of food to that of those farmers who, rather than sell some cattle, would let them starve to death.

By: Lav

Lav — Fri, 15 Aug 2014 02:04:00 +0000

Did you really just compare your well fed cattle to those cows dying of starvation?

By: mhogan

mhogan — Tue, 12 Aug 2014 14:14:00 +0000

Well, you’re an expat. No subsidy for you because you don’t cry big enough tears. The consumers will be paying increases in meat and dairy.

By: toolman78

toolman78 — Tue, 12 Aug 2014 02:19:00 +0000

That’s new to me. Who’s going to be making those payments?

By: toolman78

toolman78 — Tue, 12 Aug 2014 02:17:00 +0000

The cattle auction in Santa Cruz just sold like 1500 head of cattle a couple weeks ago.Mine were part of that. I sold then when they were still well fed but nearly out of grass. I imagine that all through Guanacaste the auctions are going well. Sure this is driving the price down, but better to sell cheap than not at all. It’s not all of Central America that’s affected by the drought. It’s only a relatively small section. Plenty of cattle will get bought by ranchers who own land that isn’t suffering from the drought. Not to mention a lot of beef from Guanacaste get’s exported for cheap ground beef and that’s a huge market that won’t even get close to getting saturated..

By: Lav

Lav — Mon, 11 Aug 2014 17:26:00 +0000

Ummm who is going to buy them? The neighbour who doesn’t have any pasture or crops because they are also in a drought?

Brains on people, brains on.

By: mhogan

mhogan — Mon, 11 Aug 2014 15:09:00 +0000

No worries, they’ll be subsidized for their losses. If they were to sell off some livestock, can’t cry “help me”. Then we’ll all pay more anyway for meat and dairy.

By: toolman78

toolman78 — Mon, 11 Aug 2014 13:39:00 +0000

My question is, why are these cattle farmers waiting till their cattle lose weight, let alone starve to death? When they saw that their livestock was running out of pasture, why weren’t these ranchers selling at least parts of the herd to make the remaining pasture last longer? Forgetting about the obvious cruelty of it, it makes no economic sense either. And waiting till they starve to death is just wrong for so many reasons.