Required Reading: NAFTA and COOL

[gcreekrch]

I forgot to add that they've been convinced that there is no BSE in the US either!!!

[Willowcreek]

It is ironical and comical when Canadian producers try getting on their high horse attacking US credibility-- while they have used and are still promoting lying to and deceiving consumers of both countries in order to sell their beef/cattle..

Promoting FRAUD and DECEPTION by lying to and mislabeling the products sold to little kids and the elderly is about as low as you guys can slink...

What happened to the old "code of the west" that ranchers used to have-- did you sell those out too, when you sold out your Slaughter plants to the multinationals?

[farmers_son]

The record keeping requirements for COOL can be viewed at:

http://www.ams.usda.gov/cool/coolbeef.pdf

I would question how many U.S. producers can meet these requirements.

It is easy to see how given the need to keep Canadian live cattle and beef segregated that the majority of feedlots and packers will just decide not to touch anything Canadian. And that is the rationale behind COOL.

[per]

It would take a record number of recorders to recognize the records needed to reconcile, regroup and rehash the regulators regulation so the registrar can record the regulation without regret.

Regards,
per

[kato]

per... that is funny!

OT, methinks you are getting a little frantic. There must be a more relevant arguement to bring up than that old bluetonge thing. Asking for testing to protect from a disease is NOT the same as blocking access. There are health testing protocols between one state and another all the time. Does that mean that there should be trade wars between Minnesota and Iowa? Get a grip. This arguement is so old it's ridiculous.

I answered your post on Ranchers about the Ontario issue, so I won't explain it to you here. It would be just as redundant as the bluetongue thing is.

[Willowcreek]

Thats all that the US has asked for too-- testing...Test all cattle slaughtered before you ship the beef south- and finish developing the Live BSE test (that CFIA seems to want to avoid) and test all live cattle before you send them south.....

No different Kato- we can't stop the spread of BSE and/or eradicate it by shipping it around!!!!

[jensend]

ot: Thats all that the US has asked for too-- testing...Test all cattle slaughtered before you ship the beef south

you gotta be kidding - that's the last thing the americans want! if we tested everything it wouldn't be long you'd have to as well; people would demand it or have you forgotten about those 'atypical' cases you were forced to disclose? atypical was a way to save face for your crooked testing program. you're getting a little loony, check the med levels.

[Willowcreek]

Actually-- jensend-- many US producers have called for testing more in both countries- R-CALF has-- and for allowing US companies like Creekstone to be allowed to test-and market tested beef...

The disease will never be controlled or eradicated if its forever shipped back and forth between countries that have differing safeguards in place....

Since neither country will do that-- consumers have demanded Country of Origin Labeling so they can make the choice of where their beef comes- especially when they continually see the consumer publications/web sites having headline articles on the Canadian "Mad Cow of the Month" finding ....

[farmers_son]

http://www.farmscape.ca/f1Scripts.aspx?m=INT&p1=479


Minnesota Pork Producers Concerned with Potential Impact of Mandatory COOL

Karl Kynoch - Manitoba Pork Council

Farmscape for January 17, 2008 (Episode 2716)

The Chair of Manitoba Pork Council reports, like their Canadian counterparts, swine producers in Minnesota are extremely concerned about the potential negative impact of Mandatory Country of Origin Labelling.
A Manitoba Pork Council delegation is in Minneapolis this week for the Minnesota Pork Congress and to meet with U.S. industry representatives as part of an ongoing effort to promote trade advocacy.
Pork Council Chair Karl Kynoch says the number one issue in that state is Mandatory U.S. Country of Origin Labelling and number two is the low prices in the industry and all of the red ink.

Clip-Karl Kynoch-Manitoba Pork Council
There's a lot of producers right now that have been notified from some of the packing plants in the U.S. that come September '08 that they're not going to continue to buy pigs that originated out of Canada.
So producers here are having to start and make the decision do they continue buying pigs here in February.
Then again in Canada the same thing the same thing is a concern.
Are they going to be able to keep shipping their hogs down here so we're really down to crunch time on this Country of Origin Labelling and that's just a huge concern and causing producers to make some huge business decisions.
I think what would really help this is if we could get to voluntary.
The big concern is right now the retailers in the U.S. do not want to have two labels sitting in their store.
What we need to be able to get on the product is a dual label that would say could contain product out of Canada and the U.S.
We had some meetings here.
We actually met with senate and congress representatives.
We met over at the Canadian consulate with these people and I'll tell you, they were really surprised and concerned over the impact that we were pointing out that this is going to have on producers right here in Minnesota, that in fact, this Country of Origin Labelling could shut down a lot of these small farms right here in Minnesota and I think that really touched home.
We were really pleased with the meetings we had but there's a lot of work going forward that we need to do to work this out yet.

Kynoch says relations between the two industries remain strong.
He says there is a good understanding of the issues on both sides of the border and the two industries are united on the Mandatory COOL this issue.
For Farmscape.Ca, I'm Bruce Cochrane.

[farmers_son]

I don’t think a discussion on Country of Origin Labeling and U.S. policy in regards to non tariff barriers of Canadian live cattle and beef imports can be made in isolation from U.S. imports of crucial Candian oil and gas.

To that end I did some searching and found a very interesting site that also should be required reading for cattle producers on both sides of the 49th parallel.

See the Energy Information Administration (Official Energy Statistics from the U.S. Government) http://www.eia.doe.gov/

In particular imports by country:
http://www.eia.doe.gov/pub/oil_gas/petroleum/data_publications/company_level_imports/current/import.html

“Preliminary monthly data on the origins of crude oil imports in November 2007 has been released and it shows that two countries exported more than 1.50 million barrels per day to the United States. Including that country, a total of five countries exported over 1.00 million barrels per day of crude oil to the United States (see table below). The top five exporting countries accounted for 74 percent of United States crude oil imports in November while the top ten sources accounted for approximately 89 percent of all U.S. crude oil imports. The top sources of US crude oil imports for November were Canada (1.919 million barrels per day), Saudi Arabia (1.530 million barrels per day), Mexico (1.484 million barrels per day), Venezuela (1.227 million barrels per day), and Nigeria (1.215 million barrels per day). The rest of the top ten sources, in order, were Iraq (0.508 million barrels per day), Angola (0.408 million barrels per day), Colombia (0.197 million barrels per day), Algeria (0.184 million barrels per day), and Ecuador (0.154 million barrels per day). Total crude oil imports averaged 9.948 million barrels per day in November, which is an increase of 0.172 million barrels per day from October 2007.

Canada remained the largest exporter of total petroleum in November, exporting 2.428 million barrels per day to the United States, which is an increase from last month (2.411 thousand barrels per day). The second largest exporter of total petroleum was Mexico with 1.581 million barrels per day.”

As well Canada supplies 75% of U.S. natural gas imports.

See:
http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/dnav/ng/ng_move_impc_s1_m.htm


The U.S. imports more petroleum products from Canada and Mexico than it does from Saudi Arabia which is third. When you contrast the relationship that the U.S. has with Canada to Saudi Arabia you would wonder where the U.S perceives any value in antagonizing relations with Canada and particularly the province of Alberta which is Canada’s number one producer of both cattle and oil/gas.

Also please see an interesting document on U.S./Saudi relations:
http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/mideast/RL33533.pdf

It seems to me the Americans should be falling all over themselves to buy Canadian.