Sheri had informed me last week that she had this interview lined up-- which I told her I thought was a very good idea- as the only way this border problem that has lasted 15 years will ever get solved is with the cattlemen of both countries getting together and getting legislation and working together to break the Packers power to manipulate and control the markets the way they do...
Maybe if Canadians put their efforts behind the Cams and Rkaisers instead of the Packer puppets of ABP/CCA and quit blaming everything on the the Evil American- this could come about sooner..
I think this is also a great indicator of the veracity and esteem of Sheri- that Bill talked to her when he hasn't anyone else...
Good article!!!!
----------------------------------
Quote:
{R-CALF talks after years of silence
By Sheri Monk
Maple Creek Times - Canada
1-18-2008
After nearly three years of silence to the Canadian media, R-CALF USA granted the Maple Creek Advance Times a candid interview. The protectionist American cattle producer group made headlines across Canada after asking a judge to keep their border closed to Canadian cattle.
“Obviously the positions that R-CALF has taken to protect it’s domestic cattle industry had a negative impact on the Canadian industry and so the facts surrounding the issues that we were working on and the impacts of those issues caused a strained relationship between the cattle producers in the U.S. and Canada,” said R-CALF CEO Bill Bullard.
Canadian media coverage of the group has focused primarily on its actions to block Canadian cattle, but R-CALF works as feverishly at hedging the concentrated meatpacking sector and government agencies they view as being in the pocket of the big slaughterhouses.
“The U.S. packers were using the live Canadian cattle as if they were their strategic oil reserve and any time that prices exceeded the threshold that they wanted to pay, they would call upon and use the live Canadian cattle strategically in order to manage prices here domestically,” said Bullard.
Bullard said between the early 1990s and 2002, 120,000 independent American cattle producers were forced out of the business because it wasn’t profitable. By the end of 2002, the American cattle herd was the smallest it had been since the 1950s. When BSE hit Canada in 2003 and the border was closed, the American packers dependent on importing Canadian cattle were forced to start paying higher prices for American cattle.
“When that border was closed, our market began to function properly in accordance with the economic law of supply and demand. We saw our prices hit record prices as a result,” said Bullard.
BSE created a new awareness and a new reality on both sides of the border. Canadian producers realized how dependent they were on the American packers for slaughter and for a market. Bullard said the new high prices suddenly being paid for U.S. cattle caused American producers to see the damage importation had caused their domestic industry.
Despite taking the battle to the American court system, the American border was re-opened to Canadian cattle under 30 months of age in July of 2005.
“When the border reopened, part of that supply-demand situation was changed and we saw a significant stabilization of prices."we weren’t seeing the increases anymore. We’re now seeing a tremendous amount of volatility within our fed cattle market which is from our perspective, an indication that the packers are again using captive supplies and imported cattle as a means of managing the price of our cattle domestically,” said Bullard.
R-CALF, like Canadian Beef Initiative Group (BIG), want their governments to allow voluntary BSE testing to restore consumer confidence and open foreign markets.
“We have a smaller private packer by the name of Creekstone Farms Premium Beef that wanted to voluntarily test for BSE and was prevented from doing so by the USDA. They filed a lawsuit in federal district court seeking authorization to voluntarily test and they won. However, the USDA has subsequently appealed that decision and the case is before the appellate court system and awaiting an answer,” said Bullard.
Bullard said part of the USDA’s legal reasoning in the lawsuit claimed that allowing Creekstone Farms to test their animals would give them an unfair market advantage against the large packers. “We think that the actions by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) clearly indicate that it is being far too heavily influenced by the meatpacking industry and that it is taking positions that are contrary to the independent farmers and ranchers and are fully supported only by the meatpacking sector,” said Bullard.
Canada has had 11 BSE cases, the U.S. has had three. The first of the U.S. cases was a cow originally imported from Canada. R-CALF wants both countries to increase testing. “Canada and the U.S. are the only countries that are not testing sufficiently to determine both the true prevalence of the disease and to ensure the removal of diseased animals that are detectable but not yet clinically exhibiting signs of the disease,” said Bullard. “Both Canada and the U.S. have yet to take this disease seriously enough to ensure that it is no longer capable of spreading to other countries,” added Bullard.
Canada, however, is beating America at the BSE safety game. In July of 2007, Canada implemented new laws controlling specified risk materials (SRM),"the parts of a cow that are thought to transmit BSE," from ever accidentally entering animal feed. “We applaud Canada for their actions. They incorporate the recommendations that scientists have been recommending for the U.S. and Canada since 2003. We would have liked to have seen Canada implement it earlier. However, Canada has now exceeded the U.S. in taking such a necessary measure and we are hoping that the U.S. will now follow Canada’s lead in order to strengthen the resistance against the further amplification of BSE within the animal feed system,” said Bullard.
While the SRM disposal may be applauded by R-CALF, Canadian producers weren’t as pleased and the packing plants have been very vocal about the cost the new regulations have placed on the industry.
Like in Canada, grassroots America has taken a few stabs at producer-owned packing plants. The movement had support, but Bullard said that producer start-ups in Iowa and Mississippi both failed. Bullard wants smaller state packing plants to start trading across state lines, allowing them to grow larger and to compete with the packing plant heavies that buy most of the cattle in the U.S.
The 2007 Farm Bill could be a pivotal point of change for the American cattle industry. The senate has approved their version of the bill, which still needs to be passed by the house, read and accepted by the president. The bill would allow state packinghouses to trade openly in the country and would prohibit them from owning live cattle for longer than 14 days before slaughter.
“There is a growing awareness for the need of congress to intervene and remove the tools that packers are using to exercise their market power to manipulate the price of cattle paid to independent farmers and ranchers,” said Bullard.
The most recent report by the USDA claims that at any given time, five per cent of the live cattle in America are owned or controlled by packers. Bullard believes that number is actually much higher. Not surprisingly, the packers are fighting to keep their captive supply.
“Indeed, they are claiming the sky will fall if they are unable to continue owning and controlling these animals before slaughter. One cannot underestimate the influence these packers have on congress. They are among the most powerful political and economic forces affecting Washington, D.C.,” said Bullard.
USDA’s Rule 2 was implemented on Nov. 19 of 2007, opening the border to Canadian cattle older than 30 months (OTM) for the first time since the border was closed in 2003. R-CALF responded by filing a lawsuit, which has not yet been heard. “If we look at what was predicted as a result of the OTM cattle that have entered since Nov. 19, the USDA estimated that only about 75,000 cattle would enter the U.S. in the first year. However, based on the actual numbers that have entered since Nov. 19, we are on track to import approximately 200,000 head this first year, which is more than twice what the USDA predicted despite the purported disincentive related to the stronger Canadian dollar,” said Bullard.
Mandatory country of origin labeling (COOL) is mandated to go into effect in the U.S. on Sept. 30 of this year. Canadian producers have seen the program as another assault on Canadian cattle imports. R-CALF and its producers are hoping Americans will prefer to eat U.S. beef, thereby strengthening their position in the marketplace and reducing consumer demand for cheaper, imported meat.
“The meatpackers seek to obtain inventories sufficient to maximize their market share on a global basis and packers have no particular loyalty to any particular country which is why in the U.S., the meatpackers are trying to convince congress that there is no difference between the U.S. cattle industry and the Canadian cattle industry," instead they want to call it the North American cattle industry. From a competition standpoint for producers, we think it is very important that Canadian producers maintain the separate identity of their industry and we maintain the separate identity of ours and that we compete with each other. We should not both be mere suppliers of inputs to the meatpackers wherever their headquarters happen to be,” said Bullard.
While R-CALF’s positions serve to strengthen the cattle business for American producers, it’s a tough pill for Canadian producers to swallow. Though the numbers differ from year to year, it is estimated that over half of all Canadian cattle were being sold into the U.S. Now nearing five years since the American border was closed, Canadian producers are becoming angry that they are still so dependent on the U.S. market. In the months and years after BSE was found in Canada, industry and government reports all pointed towards opening other foreign markets to diversify and stabilize the Canadian cattle business.
Cam Ostercamp leads BIG, a group that has recently been making news with proposals to the Alberta government that demand a new board to work aggressively on trade issues. BIG also wants producers to have the option of testing for BSE and a brokerage firm to retain ownership of cattle until the point of retail sale as beef.
Bullard likes Canada’s brokerage concept. “We think that those are very promising alternatives for addressing the concentration issue and so we see those type of projects being both considered and implemented in the U.S. as well and we fully support those. We were pleased to see Canada increase its packing capacity because we think that when trading between nations, we would be better off to trade in beef (than in live animals). You have less concern regarding transmission of foreign animal diseases and you are trading with a product that each party on both sides of the border are on a level playing field. You can market and promote Canadian beef and we can market and promote American beef and we can compete in a competitive marketplace.”
Many of the problems in Canada’s cattle industry are identical to those south of the border. Canada, however, found BSE first and was already too dependent on the Americans to kill and buy their beef. Uncle Sam has since thrown the border wide open, but Canadian producers are living with prices that are lower than they were even two years ago. The cost of feed is high and the price of fuel has skyrocketed. R-CALF has been a thorn in Canada’s hide for years, but the group has not been able to shut the border. However, the cattle business flirts with crisis.
Bullard says R-CALF has nothing personal against Canada, that its goal is to ensure the survival of their own ranchers. “The actions of R-CALF with respect to strengthening our protections against disease are not based on any ill-will towards producers in Canada or anywhere else,” said Bullard.
The American 2007 Farm Bill reflects the collective power of producers who have fought to retain their share in the cattle business. Now that the border is fully open, Canadian cattlemen are spending less time watching R-CALF and the border and have fixed their gaze on their own producer groups.}
maplecreeknews.com
Maybe if Canadians put their efforts behind the Cams and Rkaisers instead of the Packer puppets of ABP/CCA and quit blaming everything on the the Evil American- this could come about sooner..
I think this is also a great indicator of the veracity and esteem of Sheri- that Bill talked to her when he hasn't anyone else...
Good article!!!!
----------------------------------
Quote:
{R-CALF talks after years of silence
By Sheri Monk
Maple Creek Times - Canada
1-18-2008
After nearly three years of silence to the Canadian media, R-CALF USA granted the Maple Creek Advance Times a candid interview. The protectionist American cattle producer group made headlines across Canada after asking a judge to keep their border closed to Canadian cattle.
“Obviously the positions that R-CALF has taken to protect it’s domestic cattle industry had a negative impact on the Canadian industry and so the facts surrounding the issues that we were working on and the impacts of those issues caused a strained relationship between the cattle producers in the U.S. and Canada,” said R-CALF CEO Bill Bullard.
Canadian media coverage of the group has focused primarily on its actions to block Canadian cattle, but R-CALF works as feverishly at hedging the concentrated meatpacking sector and government agencies they view as being in the pocket of the big slaughterhouses.
“The U.S. packers were using the live Canadian cattle as if they were their strategic oil reserve and any time that prices exceeded the threshold that they wanted to pay, they would call upon and use the live Canadian cattle strategically in order to manage prices here domestically,” said Bullard.
Bullard said between the early 1990s and 2002, 120,000 independent American cattle producers were forced out of the business because it wasn’t profitable. By the end of 2002, the American cattle herd was the smallest it had been since the 1950s. When BSE hit Canada in 2003 and the border was closed, the American packers dependent on importing Canadian cattle were forced to start paying higher prices for American cattle.
“When that border was closed, our market began to function properly in accordance with the economic law of supply and demand. We saw our prices hit record prices as a result,” said Bullard.
BSE created a new awareness and a new reality on both sides of the border. Canadian producers realized how dependent they were on the American packers for slaughter and for a market. Bullard said the new high prices suddenly being paid for U.S. cattle caused American producers to see the damage importation had caused their domestic industry.
Despite taking the battle to the American court system, the American border was re-opened to Canadian cattle under 30 months of age in July of 2005.
“When the border reopened, part of that supply-demand situation was changed and we saw a significant stabilization of prices."we weren’t seeing the increases anymore. We’re now seeing a tremendous amount of volatility within our fed cattle market which is from our perspective, an indication that the packers are again using captive supplies and imported cattle as a means of managing the price of our cattle domestically,” said Bullard.
R-CALF, like Canadian Beef Initiative Group (BIG), want their governments to allow voluntary BSE testing to restore consumer confidence and open foreign markets.
“We have a smaller private packer by the name of Creekstone Farms Premium Beef that wanted to voluntarily test for BSE and was prevented from doing so by the USDA. They filed a lawsuit in federal district court seeking authorization to voluntarily test and they won. However, the USDA has subsequently appealed that decision and the case is before the appellate court system and awaiting an answer,” said Bullard.
Bullard said part of the USDA’s legal reasoning in the lawsuit claimed that allowing Creekstone Farms to test their animals would give them an unfair market advantage against the large packers. “We think that the actions by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) clearly indicate that it is being far too heavily influenced by the meatpacking industry and that it is taking positions that are contrary to the independent farmers and ranchers and are fully supported only by the meatpacking sector,” said Bullard.
Canada has had 11 BSE cases, the U.S. has had three. The first of the U.S. cases was a cow originally imported from Canada. R-CALF wants both countries to increase testing. “Canada and the U.S. are the only countries that are not testing sufficiently to determine both the true prevalence of the disease and to ensure the removal of diseased animals that are detectable but not yet clinically exhibiting signs of the disease,” said Bullard. “Both Canada and the U.S. have yet to take this disease seriously enough to ensure that it is no longer capable of spreading to other countries,” added Bullard.
Canada, however, is beating America at the BSE safety game. In July of 2007, Canada implemented new laws controlling specified risk materials (SRM),"the parts of a cow that are thought to transmit BSE," from ever accidentally entering animal feed. “We applaud Canada for their actions. They incorporate the recommendations that scientists have been recommending for the U.S. and Canada since 2003. We would have liked to have seen Canada implement it earlier. However, Canada has now exceeded the U.S. in taking such a necessary measure and we are hoping that the U.S. will now follow Canada’s lead in order to strengthen the resistance against the further amplification of BSE within the animal feed system,” said Bullard.
While the SRM disposal may be applauded by R-CALF, Canadian producers weren’t as pleased and the packing plants have been very vocal about the cost the new regulations have placed on the industry.
Like in Canada, grassroots America has taken a few stabs at producer-owned packing plants. The movement had support, but Bullard said that producer start-ups in Iowa and Mississippi both failed. Bullard wants smaller state packing plants to start trading across state lines, allowing them to grow larger and to compete with the packing plant heavies that buy most of the cattle in the U.S.
The 2007 Farm Bill could be a pivotal point of change for the American cattle industry. The senate has approved their version of the bill, which still needs to be passed by the house, read and accepted by the president. The bill would allow state packinghouses to trade openly in the country and would prohibit them from owning live cattle for longer than 14 days before slaughter.
“There is a growing awareness for the need of congress to intervene and remove the tools that packers are using to exercise their market power to manipulate the price of cattle paid to independent farmers and ranchers,” said Bullard.
The most recent report by the USDA claims that at any given time, five per cent of the live cattle in America are owned or controlled by packers. Bullard believes that number is actually much higher. Not surprisingly, the packers are fighting to keep their captive supply.
“Indeed, they are claiming the sky will fall if they are unable to continue owning and controlling these animals before slaughter. One cannot underestimate the influence these packers have on congress. They are among the most powerful political and economic forces affecting Washington, D.C.,” said Bullard.
USDA’s Rule 2 was implemented on Nov. 19 of 2007, opening the border to Canadian cattle older than 30 months (OTM) for the first time since the border was closed in 2003. R-CALF responded by filing a lawsuit, which has not yet been heard. “If we look at what was predicted as a result of the OTM cattle that have entered since Nov. 19, the USDA estimated that only about 75,000 cattle would enter the U.S. in the first year. However, based on the actual numbers that have entered since Nov. 19, we are on track to import approximately 200,000 head this first year, which is more than twice what the USDA predicted despite the purported disincentive related to the stronger Canadian dollar,” said Bullard.
Mandatory country of origin labeling (COOL) is mandated to go into effect in the U.S. on Sept. 30 of this year. Canadian producers have seen the program as another assault on Canadian cattle imports. R-CALF and its producers are hoping Americans will prefer to eat U.S. beef, thereby strengthening their position in the marketplace and reducing consumer demand for cheaper, imported meat.
“The meatpackers seek to obtain inventories sufficient to maximize their market share on a global basis and packers have no particular loyalty to any particular country which is why in the U.S., the meatpackers are trying to convince congress that there is no difference between the U.S. cattle industry and the Canadian cattle industry," instead they want to call it the North American cattle industry. From a competition standpoint for producers, we think it is very important that Canadian producers maintain the separate identity of their industry and we maintain the separate identity of ours and that we compete with each other. We should not both be mere suppliers of inputs to the meatpackers wherever their headquarters happen to be,” said Bullard.
While R-CALF’s positions serve to strengthen the cattle business for American producers, it’s a tough pill for Canadian producers to swallow. Though the numbers differ from year to year, it is estimated that over half of all Canadian cattle were being sold into the U.S. Now nearing five years since the American border was closed, Canadian producers are becoming angry that they are still so dependent on the U.S. market. In the months and years after BSE was found in Canada, industry and government reports all pointed towards opening other foreign markets to diversify and stabilize the Canadian cattle business.
Cam Ostercamp leads BIG, a group that has recently been making news with proposals to the Alberta government that demand a new board to work aggressively on trade issues. BIG also wants producers to have the option of testing for BSE and a brokerage firm to retain ownership of cattle until the point of retail sale as beef.
Bullard likes Canada’s brokerage concept. “We think that those are very promising alternatives for addressing the concentration issue and so we see those type of projects being both considered and implemented in the U.S. as well and we fully support those. We were pleased to see Canada increase its packing capacity because we think that when trading between nations, we would be better off to trade in beef (than in live animals). You have less concern regarding transmission of foreign animal diseases and you are trading with a product that each party on both sides of the border are on a level playing field. You can market and promote Canadian beef and we can market and promote American beef and we can compete in a competitive marketplace.”
Many of the problems in Canada’s cattle industry are identical to those south of the border. Canada, however, found BSE first and was already too dependent on the Americans to kill and buy their beef. Uncle Sam has since thrown the border wide open, but Canadian producers are living with prices that are lower than they were even two years ago. The cost of feed is high and the price of fuel has skyrocketed. R-CALF has been a thorn in Canada’s hide for years, but the group has not been able to shut the border. However, the cattle business flirts with crisis.
Bullard says R-CALF has nothing personal against Canada, that its goal is to ensure the survival of their own ranchers. “The actions of R-CALF with respect to strengthening our protections against disease are not based on any ill-will towards producers in Canada or anywhere else,” said Bullard.
The American 2007 Farm Bill reflects the collective power of producers who have fought to retain their share in the cattle business. Now that the border is fully open, Canadian cattlemen are spending less time watching R-CALF and the border and have fixed their gaze on their own producer groups.}
maplecreeknews.com
They seem to speak the same jiberish!
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