Cattle producers welcome support

[loric]

Cattle producers welcome support

(Calgary, Alberta) May 17, 2010 – Alberta Beef Producers (ABP) believes that the cattle producers of Alberta will appreciate the Age Verification Incentive Program announced by Agriculture and Rural Development Minister Jack Hayden today. In our view, this incentive indicates recognition by the Government of Alberta that the regulation requiring mandatory age verification in Alberta affects primary producers. The incentive also is acknowledgement that age verification information has value. In these tough economic times, producers welcome Alberta government support of our industry.

ABP believes that a good solution to the issues caused by mandatory age verification is to remove the regulation and allow the market to set the value of age verification. Voluntary age verification has always been supported by ABP and many producers as a valuable marketing tool.

The nearly 28,000 beef producers in this province have an organization which represents their collective interests – the Alberta Beef Producers. Run by producers for producers, ABP is dedicated to supporting a truly sustainable, competitive and profitable cattle and beef industry for the benefit of all Albertans.

[grassfarmer]

Another case of "fiddling while Rome burns"? A triumph for ABP in their battle to address the false causes of the cattle crisis rather than confront the real causes. $3 per calf for 3 years isn't going to make a significant difference to one cattle operation in this province. How about asking some hard questions on the 3,4 or 5 HUNDRED dollars PER ANIMAL that is missing from producers incomes instead??

[Happytrails]

Good response loric. Market driven age reporting with some government encouragement makes sense. HT

[littledoggie]

This sounds like the Alberta government trying to save face over a blunder made by the previous minister. Mandatory age verification is a gift to the packer - who may pass on value to the feedlot, but the buck stops there. The rest of Canada does not have mandatory reporting, and it looks like they plan on keeping it that way. So why is Alberta pursuing this?

[coppertop]

The current AB Ag Minister is trying hard
to clean up the mess he inherited from
buddy George. The compensation for tags is
a pittance but at least it is something.

[littledoggie]

The way they have it set up is when you go to buy your RFID tags, the retail store has you sign something and then the tags are given to you basically for free. The question is,
if the gov't buys the tags for you do they also own all your information that gets attached to the tags? At least it's being acknowledged that AV has value. But how will we ever know how much it's really worth?

[kato]

So does that mean that if you are getting replacement tags, that's free too?

Being from Manitoba I find this all more than a little frustrating. Our government would never do something like this to help us out.

BSE - found in Alberta. Manitoba cattle prices in the tank.

Mandatory ID in Alberta. Manitoba cattle prices discounted.

Producers paid govt. funds to encourage I.D. (sort of) in Alberta. Manitoba paid zero.

ID tags reimbursed in Alberta. Manitoba cattle producers pay for their own, in fact, the price went up on them.

All of these programs should have been federally initiated. They were not. It's like we're living in different countries.

[grassfarmer]

Yeah it's a mixed up old world Kato. The irony is most of the Alberta cowboys claim to like the free enterprise system with no Government control and handouts and despise the "socialist" systems of SK and MB. Yet they are happy to be at the front of the queue and encouraging Government payouts.
In Alberta the facts are negotiable as long as the ideology of "free enterprise" never wavers.