What happened to age verification with this falls calf run in Saskatchewan

[15444]

Sounds good Sadie. Give us an update on what you learn.

[grassfarmer]

Answer is simple SADIE, only a few markets like Japan currently require age verified. The US doesn't so if we want to continue to supply only that market we don't really need to age verify. Age verification is the key to getting beef off this continent - to Asia and to the EU.

[SADIE]

grassfarmer---I agree with you that Japan and maybe a few other foreign countries want AV. Japan supply needed is still very small so that can be filled by Alberta beef producers so you guys go your thing and make the big $$$.

My calves will go on offer when I feel they are ready to be presented and I they will have an RFID eartag applied when they are shipped but I will not age verify them. I will spend my other time doing other farm management chores and even some grain production or off farm income.

That is how it is down on the farm in Saskatchewan.

[burnt]

Grassfarmer, I completely agree with Profarmer's statement that consumers need to "starve a little". Not for the purpose of making them grateful for anything, but that they should actually learn the value of the food they have available. When consumers can freely spend one hundred bucks on a dinner for two they had better not complain about the price of a T-bone.

Our society has had it so good for so long that they (we) have developed a sense of entitlement that would embarrass the decadent Roman empire.

The only thing I would differ on is that I think that rather than starving a little, their learning would be directly proportionate to the amount that they starved . . .

But somehow I think that many of today's consumers would spend their last food dollars on a Big Mac combo rather than a package of ground beef.

[greybeard]

In a free market system if a product or service is in demand a value is assigned or a premium is paid.
I socialist systems bureaucrats stifle productivity by loading on ever increasing levels of red tape and paper work until the system eventually requires government subsidies to survive.
Is mandatory age verification making us more competitive in the COMODITY beef market or is it a niche market?

[kato]

It's a niche market that's had the premium that usually goes with a niche market taken away from it. It's taken away a premium that would have given a smaller independent processor an edge that could have made a real difference. The advantage that could have come from this premium has been destroyed, to the benefit of larger processors.

[kato]

I should add...

The large processors don't even really seem to care about age verification, but of course they're happy to have potential competition lose a potential advantage. Who wouldn't be?

[grassfarmer]

Very good post Kato I would agree with you entirely - at least you can see what the potential benefit was.

Greybeard you seem to have the same misunderstanding of the "socialist" system that most western Canadians have. Bureaucrats and paper work increase as any country develops - it's what civilisation does to keep people employed once they progress beyond the point of having to physically mine coal, make steel etc - it's a replacement for the post mechanization dearth of jobs. The US has as many bureaucrats as anyone else so are they a socialist country?

[Ruken]

Wow, good discussions here folks! Feedlots in alberta purchase calves for as cheaply as they can. It's the free enterprise option. They can also pay extra if they need to as well. Un AV'd calves will not fit certain markets at slaughter time so they pay accordingly for them at entry. Like it or not.
The real reality is that AV is a PR excercise for certain trade ministers in certain foreign countries to open their market to us. It gives them another "reply" when they get bombarded by their oposition whether Canadian beef is safe or not. (Think the likes of Ignatief) All said, it increases the opportunity for Canadian beef to go overseas. Does that help the traders in the futures markets? Absolutely. Do the feedlots sell into the futures market? Yes again. Considering that greed for profit exists in the free enterprise model, does that affeect the cow calf people? Of course it does.
And, even if it never would offer a premium, the fact that it exists to track reportable diseases, makes traceability worth while. Does AVing fit into that? Yes it does. Someday, when AV is 15 years old and the fellows from the CFIA come to your farm, hopefully you will have done your job and will know the ages of your cows and will only have to dig a hole for the ones that are of susceptable age, not the whole lot...

[Ruken]

15444?

Do you also cheat on your taxes?

Probably do. It's amazing how the brain can do summersaults and contortions to arrive at the conclusions that it wants.

Keep it up. I hope to read that you've received a $10000 fine for cheating the system.