Canada Gold Beef

[rkaiser]

The official announcement of the Canada Gold Beef program will be made in Red Deer. Both the Minister of Ag and the Premier will be in attendance.
The government is already giving support to the idea both in kind and cash. Looking forward to panel discussions at about 9:30 Alberta time.

[PureCountry]

Looking forward to hearing the results of the announcement. Keep us posted old boy.

[rkaiser]

I know old farmers_son said he was going down, but I didn't hear him at any of the mike's blowing holes in the project. Likely would have had a few things thrown at him as the proposal was very well accepted and applauded by all who had the gonads to stand up and speak and I would say, the vast majority of the room which was plum full.

Unveiled a banner and all. Didn't expect quite so much hoopla, but hey if you piss on a rock persistently you can piss a hole in it, as Cam said in his eloquent little support speech.

[per]

I am looking forward to talking to Cam and getting the details in person. I am ready to support something positive and get at it.

[farmers_son]

I did go and listen to the discussion at 9:30 Most of the discussion revolved around industry issues and not much really focused on any particulars of the Gold Beef Value Chain. I read the handouts and what information was available. The information that was available at the convention is all on the website at www.canadagoldbeef.ca

I see the hog people are way ahead of us and embraced these concepts several years ago. We can look to their example to get some idea of how vertical cooperation and value chains benefits the primary producers. Although it would seem reasonable to assume that some parts of the pork value chain are still making money (the processors and up to the retailer), it is not the producers. The pork people are worse off than the cattle producers.

The pork guys were doing all of this, selling to Asia, had a very high level of producer participation in verifiable quality programs, had contracts with the processors, had established and formal, often legal, relationships through the facets of growing and processing of the hog etc. and look at the financial mess they are in. That is not where I want to be.

If I were to make a comment…be careful what you ask for, you just might get it.

[rkaiser]

Good one batman. Only thing you forgot is that the pork guys stayed with commodity pork. In fact they last made it even more commodity than than it used to be twenty or thirty years ago.

But hay - did we expect any more for old batman. Funny how life turns and those who were branded complainers and critics are not the criticized.

Too bad it wasn't an ABP idea hay batman.

[farmers_son]

A very good article on value chains can be read at:

http://www.banffpork.ca/proc/2001pdf/Chap12-Bouma.pdf

The article mentions Canada's Signature Pork Program:

"Signature Pork Program - a Maple Leaf Foods (MLF) program that offers contract agreements to independent producers meeting specified quality and production standards. The objective is to bring to market a branded pork product as part of the Maple Leaf Foods line of products. MLF offers a variety of services in exchange for supply agreements including nutrition/feed, production advice, loans for expansion, assistance to implement HACCP as well as rendering. In turn the producer qualifies for a premium-pricing grid tied to carcass performance. Note: In 1998, Maple Leaf Foods purchased Landmark Feeds including the Elite Swine Program, thereby extending its reach into Western Canada."

Also check out The Hog CQA Program:

http://www.cqa-aqc.ca/home_e.cfm

These things sound great but show me the money. All I am saying is the hog people have already been there, done that and the results are obvious for all to see. Mr. Ostercamp can piss on a rock if he wants to but I think the real answers lie elsewhere.

I think the BIG C people were a lot closer to the mark with their packing plant proposals.

[per]

Show me the money farmers_son. My wife just brought out a year to year income per animal comparison from 2001 to 2007. O1, O2 and 03 on all of our products sold for double what they did in in 04, 05 and 06 with the exception of our Value added program. It stayed relatively even. The ABP style commodity beef hasn't worked since BSE and it is time to try something else. If that involves urinating so be it. Wake up and smell the roses man. Keeping consuming aspirins for a headache caused by hitting your head against the wall won't stop until you stop hitting your head against the wall.

[grassfarmer]

Farmers_son, I notice you chose to pick the one pig program that was started by the packer Maple Leaf Foods. This is different to a program built by producers and incorporating packers.

How come you are suddenly painting the packers as the bad guys anyway? ABP have continually refused to take any action against packer ownership or even admit that it is a problem. Now when it can be used to discredit the work of other producer groups it is brought up by ABP of all people.
You preferred the BIG-C plant proposal? so did a lot of producers - shame ABP spend producer checkoff dollars fighting all of BIG-Cs plans and ensuring they would come to nothing.
You say the answer lies elsewhere - where?? ABP seems devoid of any plans (other than the elect Arno- the -packer-backer plan LOL) and is content to blame the high $, high feed costs, higher corn yields in the US, EU consumers for not buying hormone treated beef and Asian customers for not buying untested Canadian beef.
No plan, no plan... other than fighting a petty rearguard action to try to hang onto the little empire you've built for yourselves - the expense accounts and the office in Calgary befitting a prosperous oil company. Speaking of urinating on people maybe it's time we started printing off some of the stickers that some truck owners have "I 8@$ on ford/chevy" etc "I @$5# on ABP"
As an organisation you are certainly worthy of it.

[kato]

The thing about the pork value chains is that they run from the top down. The primary producer is not in control of anything at all. Now it's driven by the packers. Everyone is under contract, but it's not on terms set by the primary producer.

As well, the problems the hog people are having now is exactly the same ones we have. High feed costs, high dollar, MCOOL, and on top of those, they have the burden of expensive facilities, and less options for cutting costs than we have.

[Willowcreek]

And Kato- what you and many others forget is that the hog farmers need something that the beef raisers don't to develop their product- expensive grains...From what I understand Canada has oodles of grass available (especially if more and more are quitting ranching as you've said)- and it seems to me that more folks would be taking advantage of the high grain prices and running yearlings on grass til fat- rather than the labor/cost intensive calving in the great white north...Selling a labeled All Natural grassfed product....

[kato]

Actually that is cutting back too, at least around here. A friend of ours who usually puts a couple of thousand grassers out is considering cutting that in half this year. That's how much faith he has in the markets.

We put an ad in the paper looking for cow calf pasture, and got it within six hours of the paper coming out. Just as we expected, there were cow herds sold off that left space for ours. We're not talking about a few cows either, we pasture out a hundred pairs. One guy who called has sixteen quarters of pasture and no cattle! He was too far away for us though.

It's looking like anyone looking for pasture in Manitoba this year can pick and choose where they want to go. It's gotten to the point where even the PFRA is cutting back their land base, when they used to have a waiting list to get in.