Rcalf has a point here

[rkaiser]

Talk aboput sqirming you way out of this one FS.

Which trade barriers are you talking about now? There are more feeder cattle moving into the USA right now than we have ever seen in history.

Nobody is talking about getting in to bed with anyone. In fact it is time to get out of bed with the Uncle Sam.

Time to work with the Americans with some dignity for one.

You know FS - I am starting to think that Tyson and Cargill may be willing to make changes before you and the gang at ABP/CCA.

WD 40's quote - "Well we've keep the beef industry on it's knees long enough it's time to let them up for air".

Guess who is talking with the B41/4 group these days farmers_son.......

[vagabonddreamer]

i laugh when i think back to the start of the BSE thing...a VERY good friend who ranches in wyoming...told me that the US burried (literal and figurative) MANY cases of BSE that were never made public...at that time...he told me..and i quote ..."its not the BSE or the US cattle market that will cause problems....its the packers...they will manipulate this BSE thing in their favour...guaranteed"...i have been reflecting on this...because with the US border open...the prices have actually gone DOWN...we have all been waiting impatiently for the border to open???....so what were we all waiting for in actuality??? vs

[grassfarmer]

That's very true - I farmed in the UK from the start of the BSE cases in 1985/6 through until 2000 and there were huge BSE problems for the beef industry. Consumer confidence collapsed - beef was not saleable at any price. Export markets were severely affected for 15 years and totally closed for 10 of those years. This was a real case of BSE caused disaster.
What we have seen in North America is totally different - consumer confidence and consumption was never affected. Exports off this continent have been affected but this is only a drop in the bucket relative to North American domestic consumption. So I would suggest the problems we have experienced were not caused primarily by BSE but by the packers, politics and to a lesser extent fools like R-CALF.

[kato]

The way I see it, with the limited number of packers in Western Canada right now they can manipulate the prices quite nicely without using packer owned cattle to do it, with their ability to maneuver the market by killing or not killing cull cows.

Not that they don't own cattle too. Their own cattle are just the frosting on the cake. .

Now that is a sad state of affairs.

Packer ownership is just one item that should be on the agenda. We need to address industry concentration as well, and the lack of competition that comes with it.

In a perfect world, cattle should go straight from farm to plant with the profits being shared up the line equally, and there should be honest competition for those same cattle.

If only we lived in a perfect world eh?

[grassfarmer]

"We need to address industry concentration as well, and the lack of competition that comes with it." DING DING you get the prize Kato - right on the money!!
Unfortunately this crucial issue is ignored or swept under the carpet by ABP/CCA, the Provincial and Federal Governments and most other commodity groups. This is the true cause of the farm crisis for beef, pork and sheep producers.
Most ag producers don't even believe this is the problem they have been fed so many lies - blame drought, BSE, the high dollar, high grain prices, oversupply, undersupply, cost of fuel etc etc.
A simple question for anyone who doubts that corporate concentration is the main cause of our problems: How does the price of beef in the store compare with 2002 levels?? is it higher or lower. The answer is considerably higher. So why are cow/calf and feedlot operators going out of business in big numbers currently?? It's not simply the high dollar, high feed cost or BSE it's because the processors and retailers have virtually eliminated competition in their sectors and can pay a low price for live cattle, sell them as record high priced beef and pocket the proceeds. Given the price beef is bringing in the stores what justification is there for paying under $80/cwt for fat cattle? sheer greed.
Time for some proper anti-competition laws and these should include packer ownership laws.

[Willowcreek]

Right on Kato and Grassfarmer--and they are taking this money they are making-putting into their reasearch, development, and expansion budget so it doesn't show as a profit and shipping it off to Argentina, Australia, and Brazil, to build new feedlots and plants- thereby to get a way to get cheaper beef/meat to compete with yours not only in the global market but in the Canadian and US markets....
I think last year Tyson invested $600 plus Million in Argentina alone in cattle ranchs, feedlots and slaughter plants...

Thats the reason the Packers are fighting the M-COOL law so hard in the US-- so they can keep passing off cheap imported generic beef as product of the country they are selling it in- while they are able to go around all the enviromental, health, industry concentration, and packer ownership laws of the United States or Canada- while operating outside of each's jurisdictional boundaries..

One of the reasons the Packer industry has been compared to- and often called The Multinational Mafia...

[wd40]

I am glad to finally hear some common Sen$e in this thread. Another huge re-direction would be an effort to move into the EU martket which is begging for our beef and which the US arm wreseled us out of, whilest the market place there has a distain for US beef and is begging for our CDN beef. And Asia is another huge oportunity while they got forced into Auzi beef because we accepted our position like wimps and put our hand up and said "look world we have BSE". And as the CFIA held us at ransom on a "theory".