Had to pour myself a beer and a clam for this one boys and girls. It is no wonder that good men like Cam Ostercamp quit butting their heads against the brick wall we call our industry leadership after experiencing days like this.
I truly feel that I have been practicing patients and trying not to lay blame on anyone in the last while as we continue to move forward with our plans to open the Balzac beef packing plant and allowing producer participation as well as ownership.
As I said in the last thread I posted on, we are not stopping and it will be your choice to participate or continue to go with the flow. So tempting to write something more sarcastic at the end, bottom, or greased up backside of that last sentence.
Today was another one of those days for dealing with the elected officials that govern our industry and the employees who they direct.
Our company has attempted to work with these industry officials three times in the last few weeks and I have already mentioned how one of these efforts was met with rejection in the form of an application for market research funding under the CCMDC or legacy fund. This fund consists of an earmarked 170 million dollars to regain markets lost after BSE. If you ask the CCMDC folks about how much is left, it ain’t much. If you ask them where it went; well it went to re open borders to Canadian Beef of course. Was there any money available for a company who met with more than one group in China that could take every ounce of beef from Cargill and NB in Alberta ---- Nope. Strike one.
We also requested a list of Hong Kong and Chinese importers that we could work with to start our samples flowing into China. This request began with the Alberta government and they directed us to Canada Beef Inc. who also has a huge influence on the CCMDC marketing fund. After a few days of waiting, we got the list. 4 importers in Hong Kong. Holy shitcakes, that must have taken a pile of the 170 million to acquire. We decided to ask the Chinese / Hong Kong government for a list and got 5 or 6 pages – sorry can’t remember the exact number right now with 30 importers on each page. Strike two.
Last week we picked up a box full of the new/ old CBEF, Canadian Beef and Veal handbooks. These are some glossy fancy shit folks. I don’t know how many of your hard earned check off dollars went in to these babies, but those were well spent dollars. At the same time, we asked for an electronic version that we could have translated by our people for our Chinese customers. We even found out that the document was already translated and available at the Hong Kong office. A little hard for us to jump back on the big bird and fly over to Hong Kong to grab some and then drop them off out the Air Canada cargo door as we flew over our customers offices in China. So we asked for the electronic version so that we could email it. Rejected……… both the English and Chinese versions. The excuse that the secretary gave us after the executives would not pick up the phone and talk to me was that we might copy the copy written version and use it for ourselves. My question for myself and everyone reading along at this point is “who am I”? Or who are “ourselves”? Oh my God. That document should not only be available to me but should be on face book and twitter and every other social and private media outlet in the world promoting Canadian beef. Strike three.
I won’t make you suffer through any more of this sufferin succotash and besides I need another beer. I would like to end with one last bit about the check off that funds these folks we have been dealing with. I am mandated by law to still pay the $1.00 to these industry leaders and it is automatically deducted from any cattle I sell by public auction. When I sell my bulls or purebred stock privately, I do not pay the $3.00 and then ask to get reimbursed and thus the $1.00 mandatory payment stays in my pocket.
I know it is not a lot of money but I really hope that someone from CCA or a lawyer sent by CCA shows up at my bull sale asking for their 50 bucks some day. I will kick his ass out the sale barn door on our live feed internet broadcast video.
Have a lovely evening everyone. Cheers.
I truly feel that I have been practicing patients and trying not to lay blame on anyone in the last while as we continue to move forward with our plans to open the Balzac beef packing plant and allowing producer participation as well as ownership.
As I said in the last thread I posted on, we are not stopping and it will be your choice to participate or continue to go with the flow. So tempting to write something more sarcastic at the end, bottom, or greased up backside of that last sentence.
Today was another one of those days for dealing with the elected officials that govern our industry and the employees who they direct.
Our company has attempted to work with these industry officials three times in the last few weeks and I have already mentioned how one of these efforts was met with rejection in the form of an application for market research funding under the CCMDC or legacy fund. This fund consists of an earmarked 170 million dollars to regain markets lost after BSE. If you ask the CCMDC folks about how much is left, it ain’t much. If you ask them where it went; well it went to re open borders to Canadian Beef of course. Was there any money available for a company who met with more than one group in China that could take every ounce of beef from Cargill and NB in Alberta ---- Nope. Strike one.
We also requested a list of Hong Kong and Chinese importers that we could work with to start our samples flowing into China. This request began with the Alberta government and they directed us to Canada Beef Inc. who also has a huge influence on the CCMDC marketing fund. After a few days of waiting, we got the list. 4 importers in Hong Kong. Holy shitcakes, that must have taken a pile of the 170 million to acquire. We decided to ask the Chinese / Hong Kong government for a list and got 5 or 6 pages – sorry can’t remember the exact number right now with 30 importers on each page. Strike two.
Last week we picked up a box full of the new/ old CBEF, Canadian Beef and Veal handbooks. These are some glossy fancy shit folks. I don’t know how many of your hard earned check off dollars went in to these babies, but those were well spent dollars. At the same time, we asked for an electronic version that we could have translated by our people for our Chinese customers. We even found out that the document was already translated and available at the Hong Kong office. A little hard for us to jump back on the big bird and fly over to Hong Kong to grab some and then drop them off out the Air Canada cargo door as we flew over our customers offices in China. So we asked for the electronic version so that we could email it. Rejected……… both the English and Chinese versions. The excuse that the secretary gave us after the executives would not pick up the phone and talk to me was that we might copy the copy written version and use it for ourselves. My question for myself and everyone reading along at this point is “who am I”? Or who are “ourselves”? Oh my God. That document should not only be available to me but should be on face book and twitter and every other social and private media outlet in the world promoting Canadian beef. Strike three.
I won’t make you suffer through any more of this sufferin succotash and besides I need another beer. I would like to end with one last bit about the check off that funds these folks we have been dealing with. I am mandated by law to still pay the $1.00 to these industry leaders and it is automatically deducted from any cattle I sell by public auction. When I sell my bulls or purebred stock privately, I do not pay the $3.00 and then ask to get reimbursed and thus the $1.00 mandatory payment stays in my pocket.
I know it is not a lot of money but I really hope that someone from CCA or a lawyer sent by CCA shows up at my bull sale asking for their 50 bucks some day. I will kick his ass out the sale barn door on our live feed internet broadcast video.
Have a lovely evening everyone. Cheers.
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