M-COOL

[Willowcreek]

NEWS FLASH
Appropriations Hearings: The House Appropriations Subcommittee on Agriculture held a hearing on February 13th to review the Fiscal Year 2009 budget for the Department of Agriculture. Secretary of Agriculture Ed Schafer and Deputy Secretary Chuck Conner testified.

A top priority for Subcommittee Chair Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) is timely implementation of mandatory country-of-origin labeling (COOL). Schafer and Conner assured her that USDA was focused on implementing COOL on September 30, 2008

[grassfarmer]

Yep, and the way your economy/deficit is going it looks like you'll be funding it with Canadian Tire money.

[ProFarmer]

To me COOL will be a time that us Canadians can stand up and proudly put or flag on our better guality CANADAIN BEEF

[rkaiser]

Right on Pro Farmer. ---- Then we need Canadian COOL to see if our own countrymen have any interest in supporting our Canadian industry.

[farmers_son]

I am wondering where we are going to be able to put the flag on our Canadian beef?

Certainly not in a U.S. retail cooler. There simply will not be any Canadian beef in the US supermarkets as U.S. retailers will bow to regulation and only display U.S. source verified beef. The Canadian beef will be in the restaurants and in the frozen prepared meal section and it will not be identified as Canadian or anything else. Canadian producers need to understand that M-COOL is not a marketing opportunity but a non tariff trade barrier that will restrict Canadian access to the U.S. feedlots, packing plants and supermarkets.

Canadian producers should also be aware that the U.S. will be able to identify its poorer quality cuts as being from some other country and believe me when I say the U.S. has lots of poor quality animals out there. The U.S. does not have to identify all its beef production that was born raised and fed in the U.S. as being of U.S. origin. The poorer eating quality U.S. beef can be segregated and marketed as unknown or mixed origin. The consumer will think it came from us.

The logical result of M-COOL will be the end of the North American beef market. While a lot of U.S. producers will think that is really great they are not going to realize a sustainable competitive advantage from M-COOL. Bottom line, the U.S. packers will have successfully divided the North American cattle industry into segments and will not hesitate to use their competitive advantage to divide and conquer cattle producers to increase their profits.

M-COOL will have a greater impact on the Canadian cattle industry than BSE did. After BSE hit in 2003 beef trade resumed with the U.S. within 4 months. And live cattle trade resumed within a few years. Those time lines will not exist when MCOOL effectively closes the border on the North American cattle/beef industry. It is not going to get even a little better in a couple of years this time.

The winners from MCOOL will be the packers, no doubt about it. I believe the challenge for cattle producers was to join together in order to extract a fairer share of the consumers food dollar from the global scale packers. If the packers can keep the cattle producers divided and segregated by country then that threat to their profit picture has effectively been dealt a death blow.

[per]

Cheer up farmers_son, your starting to remind me of that guy on Charlie Brown with the rain cloud over his head. I'm not saying here that you don't have valid points, you do. What I am saying is the first several threads looked at a negative and tried to extract positives and you looked at the situation and only saw pessimisn. Where are we going to put our label? On the package right with the BSE tested stamp. Not succeeding in not failure, not trying Is Failure.

[farmers_son]

What I see happening if M-COOL goes through in its present configuration is not Canadians putting a BSE stamp beside the Canadian flag but Canadians calving their cows in the U.S. The cow does not have to born in the U.S. only the calf. The U.S. producer supporting M-COOL must anticipate higher weaned calf prices as a result of the non tariff trade barriers thereby erected (I personally do not think that will happen but maybe it will). Assuming weaned U.S. born calf prices are higher in the U.S. Canadian cows could be transported to the U.S. shortly before calving (allowed under the new U.S. BSE trade rules) calved in the U.S. and weaned early with the calf remaining in the U.S. and the cow returned to Canada for the remainder of the year. After all the cow has to be calved somewhere, she does not care which side of a border she does it on. The resulting calf would then qualify as U.S. country of origin and the Canadian owner of that calf would reap full benefit.

While this is possible what I think it really shows is MCOOL will not work for the U.S. producer or the Canadian producer. It will increase costs for producers on both sides of the border with no improvement in the competitive position of producers on either side of the border. The winner, as always, will be the packing plant.

On the subject of BSE testing, you really are not understanding the implications of COOL. Beef from Canadian born cattle simply will not be in the U.S. retail meat coolers no matter what stamp is placed upon it. The burden on ensuring Canadian origin beef is kept separate from U.S. born beef is simply too onerous. Canadian beef was making up only 3% of U.S. beef trade in the best days. That is simply not enough volume for any retailer to bother segregating. COOL is not a marketing opportunity, it is a non tariff trade barrier designed to keep Canadian live cattle and beef out of the U.S.

But no gloom and doom from me. Live cattle are transported long distances all the time these days. I can calve a cow on U.S ground, or have someone calve it for me, if there is money in it. The Canadian cattle producer is not going away. The U.S. can put up trade barriers, we will find a way to survive and prosper. Canadian cattle producers are a pretty resolute and determined lot.

I frankly do not understand why the U.S. would antagonize their number one source of imported oil and gas like this, especially when Alberta is where the cattle are and we have the oil and gas in Alberta too. Those Americans seem hell bent on shooting themselves in the foot. The benefits of working together as a North American industry are obvious. As are the costs of putting up barriers to trade equally obvious. I think the Americans will figure it out eventually. They are not really as slow as it sometimes seems from up here on the top of the world where we have a better vantage point.

[rkaiser]

Let them shoot themselves in the foot farmer_son. But I wish you could quit trying to ask all of us to join you in bandaging that foot and kissing Uncle Sam's ass on the way back up to your knees.

Your last two posts point to the exact reasons that we need to have the "Canada Gold" plan in place right now. If the Americans are satisfied to feed their people Brazilian beef, we need to let them. We need to take our beef elsewhere where people will appreciate it and want it. Ask a German, or a consumer of beef in Japan if he/she would like to have access to some of the safest, healthiest beef on the planet farmers_son. I think I know what their answer will be. In fact, I think I know what the answer would be in New York city as well, if we were to brand our "Canada Gold" product and follow any one of the number of protocols being explored.

[cpallett]

Some days I think you folks just like to play nice in the sandbox a little bit too much.

The FDA has consistently refused to ban chicken litter from cattle feed in the US. Chicken litter makes up a significant portion of cattle feed, especially in the Southeast.

I can just see the TV ad now:

"Ever wonder why Canadian beef tastes better? They say that you are what you eat. US cattle producers and feedlots feed millions of tons of chicken excrement to cattle each year. Cattle that end up as steak on your table. Mind you, the nails and broken glass are removed before the chicken excrement is added to the cattle feed, so at least that is something. Canada banned the feeding of chicken excrement to cattle over ten years ago.

Buy Canadian beef. It not only tastes better, it is better for you."

Do you think that might drive some retailers to stock Canadian beef farmers_son? If Willowcreek and his friends want country of origin labelling, I say why not? A thirty or sixty second spot nationwide over the US for one week or less ought to do the job nicely, and for a heck of a lot less than R-CALF paid their lawyers.

Now that is an idea that might just drive up Canadian cattle prices. It might be a temporary price increase, it might last a while, but it might just work. As Andre Agassi used to remind us on a regular basis: "image is everything".

[Bez]

cpallett

I needed that laugh.

Actually, I think the advert should be short and sweet.

"Tastes like shit because we feed them shit. Chicken shit."

Brought to you by the beef Farmers of America.

Regards

Borg

[Bez]

Darn - cannot edit these things.

What I was about to say when I accidently signed off was - Borg (sci-fi characters)state there is no sense in resisting - they will be assimilated!

So let them have COOL - sooner or later someone will bring the chicken shit thing to the head lines.

Be curious to see what happens then.

Bez

[grassfarmer]

I certainly believe there are potential markets in Europe - a 9 million tonne annual consumption figure with tariff free import licenses for 400,000 tonnes issued in 07. This is becoming a bigger opportunity as Brazil has just been denied import licenses because they could not meet EU standards on traceability, FMD free status etc. Brazil supplied about 330,000 tonnes to the EU in recent years.
Current price for domestic fat cattle in the UK is equiv. of $1.08/lb - could we supply that market at that price and make money? We would need a credible birth record and traceability program (which we don't have now), hormone free product and also a totally different product physically. Think along the lines of Laura's Lean - same genetics, same fat cover etc and you would hit the mainstream EU market. There may be smaller niche markets for marbled fatter product in some countries.
I would not label my product "BSE free" for the EU - it would sell better without the words BSE appearing on the packet!

As to cpallets suggestion - I hope you were joking. There have been enough economic disasters created by highlighting quality/production problems with beef to consumers. Point in case the UK AG ministers announcement that precipitated the 2006 BSE disaster in Europe, went something like this "After extensive research we have concluded that although we can not prove it the most likely cause of vCJD comes from eating BSE contaminated beef....HOWEVER WE CAN REASSURE CONSUMERS THAT OUR CURRENT SRM REMOVAL PROCEDURES MITIGATE ANY RISK ATTACHED TO CONSUMING BRITISH BEEF, WHICH CONTINUES TO BE SOME OF THE SAFEST IN THE WORLD"
The crazed media and public chose to ignore the later part of the statement and the rest is history.

I can see your advert now "Don't eat American beef it's reared on chicken crap" with the footnote " - buy Canadian beef it isn't" being conveniently overlooked in the ensuing scare. Bottom line it never pays to scare consumers on food safety issues.

[cpallett]

I agree grassfarmer; friendly fire isn't. My post was just meant as a none-too-gentle reminder to our friends south of the 42nd parallel of another old saying: "be careful what you wish for, you just might get it".

[Willowcreek]

I think in the near future Canadian producers will be thanking the US for passing COOL and verifiable labeling laws...And may be clamoring for their own law...

With the Millions $ Cargil/Tyson/Cactus Feeders/etal are investing into the current FMD areas like Brazil and Argentina- its only a short time before they get the USDA rules changed to import cheap beef products from there into the US- thereby gaining access to all of North America thru NAFTA...

Hopefully we get M-COOL soon enough to give us a chance to promote/endear consumers on US product- before this deluge of cheap product can hit the market.....

A sidenote- the US is looking at doubling the beef promotion checkoff (from $1 to $2)- and its pretty well common agreement amongst producers that they want a portion of that fund used to promote USA BEEF- born, raised, and slaughtered....

[ProFarmer]

I hope we get the Canadian flag stamped on our meat so the american public can keep it apart from the 148,000,000 pounds of downer cows that the US has allowed to be slaughtered in California. Now that it is being recalled you just have to look for the Made in the U.S.A. sticker to know that it is garbage and to put it aside for a cleaner CANADAIN product........