BSE testing.

[rkaiser]

I would like to say that I appreciate Sean's post and feel strongly that his opinion would be supported by a vast majority of producers in this country should ABP/CCA decide to use a direct democracy approach and ask those who sent them where they are today.

[grassfarmer]

9420,
I feel sorry for you, you still believe the old ABP/CCA propaganda. You say "perhaps the correction in pricing is because of market forces. High dollar, high feed costs, high basis and low demand....we should be instead concentrating on reducing our costs, not adding to them through more regulations."
This tired old crap about it just being bad luck, producers deserve it etc, while serving to deflect attention from the real issues does producers no favors. There is good and rising demand for beef around the world, there is plenty value in the production chain to allow profitability at all levels if the proceeds were more equitably distributed. As producers we have lowered our costs more than enough - it is time for the processors and retailers to take their price cut and allow producers to get a fair return for their work and investment. We are entitled to it so lets fight for our share instead of believing the propaganda of the packer backers.

[nicolaas]

Just being the devils's advocate, but here is a scenerio that may occur if tesing of every animal is allowed for export purposes. Say we start finding a dozen cases a year (Sorry, a guess on my part- maybe we would be similar to the number of cases France finds every year whatever that is), what would happen to our live cattle export market to the States? Would they shut the border to UTM cattle again? It definitley is a complex issue with many "what if" senarios, but something has to change. Reliance on one market is craziness. Here is another point. If we have such good beef that everyone wants if only we test, and it is impossible to start up our own packing plant due to predatory tactics, would it be possible to involve a foreign company (from china, korea..etc) to get involved in a packing plant. Deeper pockets and a guaranteed " in" into an offshore country may increase the chances of success and increase competition for out cattle.

[kato]

If MCOOL works the way the protectionists in the U.S. are hoping, we won't have a market for live cattle in the States anyway. Watch the spread on cattle that will be finished before next September and those that will finish after. That should give fair warning as to what will happen.

We will have nothing to lose.

[InAHurry]

At the risk of thinking a$$ backwards – are the governing bodies of the importing country going to allow Canadian BSE tested beef to be labeled and marketed as such?