Canada confirms new case of mad cow disease

[farmers_son]

“I hope we see another one next week and another the week after”. And here I was hoping for a nice spring rain and good grass this summer. Actually that is quite the statement, hoping for more BSE cows. I suppose R-Calf is hoping for more BSE positives in Canada too for that matter so you are not alone in your wishes, however unfortunate the company you decide to keep may be.

Your hope is probably not going to come true however. We should expect to see fewer and fewer BSE cows in Canada and in a few years none at all as our stringent SRM disposal programs eliminate BSE in the Canadian cow herd.

I sometimes wonder to what extent some people will go to in order to achieve their ends. Hoping for more BSE cows is going too far, in my opinion. That is nothing short of irresponsible. Maybe you were joking although it is not that funny. Did you hear the one about the farmer with the BSE cow…yea he lost his herd. Yuk Yuk.

[grassfarmer]

I don't know how quickly you expect cases to disappear f_son, In the UK the tightest SRM rules went in place in 1996, following on from 7 years of slightly less strict precautions. In the last 12 months the UK reported 47 new cases - that is 11 per million head of total cattle population. I'm not suggesting that Canada or the US have such high numbers but there will be every chance that cases will be detected for many years to come.
Given that the accepted theory of BSE is junk I suggest that it would still be wise to consider BSE testing.

[rkaiser]

Nothing short of irresponsible?????? Oh my goodness. Talk about irresponsible. If ABP/CCA had taken the responsible road in the first place, we would not find ourselves in the situation we are in.

Your response -- Mr. ABP and newly elected CCA director, has prompted my resignation letter to your "has been" association. I have no time for the likes of you and the gang who are partially RESPONSIBLE for the economic mess we are in due to your POLICY decision on BSE testing.

As I will say in my resignation letter this afternoon, I apologise to those who voted for me at the fall zone meetings where I ran on the one single issue of testing for market access. I also respect many of the delegates and staff for their efforts in dealing with the likes of "cows and fish" or ESA programs and hope that the directional levy that ABP receives next year helps to pay for their efforts.

My efforts with BIG C and Canada Gold will continue along with a new found industry initiative which will take too much time to ever hope to drag anyone from ABP along anymore.

As far as wishing for anything to fulfil my needs farmers_son, I wish for BSE testing to stop this ridiculous captive market situation that you and the rest of the irresponsible folks at ABP want to continue.......

By the way - spoke with ANOTHER supporter of BSE testing yesterday who said --- as I have always said --- that BSE testing will continue in Japan and the only way to break in to this MOST lucrative market in the world will be to test.

[rkaiser]

This letter should be in your email in box this afternoon farmers_son.


subjectRe: BSE CASE CONFIRMED IN ALBERTA
mailed-bygmail.com

hide details 2:51 PM (1 minute ago) Reply


Dear fellow delegates and ABP staff,

It is with my sincere apologies to the folks in zone 6 who elected my to my position at ABP for issuing this resignation letter. The latest BSE cow along with new knowledge of the testing issue in Japan has shown me that I cannot sit with an organisation who continues to see themselves as policy makers on this very important issue that continues to cost the producers of this country millions of dollars.

I ran on the single issue of market access testing and was elected by my peers. I saw the issue debated in front of the largest Zone meeting in Fort Macleod, and saw the resolution passed with a large majority. I saw a resolution on market access testing narrowly defeated in one of my own zone meeting and soundly supported in one more despite the misinformation given by one of my own zone delegates at the AGM concerning these resolutions. Yet somehow this organisation not only defeated the resolution at the AGM but created a policy statement on it as well. I would guess that this bold move by ABP was never before taken.

My efforts with Beef Initiative Group Canada and the Canada Gold Beef initiative will continue as well as a new industry initiative which I have become personally involved in.

I appreciate and respect the efforts of the staff of ABP and many of the hard working volunteer delegates. I would hope that the very important promotional initiatives, and work on programs like the ESA continue to be funded after the current policy review finds that most producers in this province support a directional levy. I hope to see the question on a ballot or answered by an independent poll of some type in the near future so that I personally do not have to start a signature petition.

Thankfully there was one more nominee in my zone who I would suggest might welcome the thought of filling my now vacant position. All other zones but one would not have this luxury as all other zones had to beg and plead to fill the positions open.

I feel that structural and functional changes to ABP need to happen NOW, and do not feel that the in house policy review, nor the pathetic excuse for a democratic organisational process will get this done. My life and the lives of cattel producers of this country are far too short to wait for change in ABP/CCA.

Please consider this my official resignation letter and take whatever steps need to be taken to remove me from your organisation.

Best Regards

Randy Kaiser

Ponoka Alberta

[grassfarmer]

Sorry to hear that Randy, but you've stuck it out longer than I could have. Delegates of your caliber are what is needed to represent producers but unfortunately unless the majority of delegates are of similar worth ABP will continue to be a useless organisation. I've thought for a while ABP was beyond reform - time for demolition!

As for BSE testing, I heard last week that one of the local processing plants has got numerous leads on new, higher value markets (in north America) that they cannot access without BSE testing.
Same old story - multi-national packers do not want testing so the ABP will serve their masters and make sure it does not happen.

[Bez]

Hey Kaiser

I own a real good set of body armour - including all the ceramic plates. We run about the same size.

Let me know if you ever need to borrow it.

I know from very personal experience that it works - otherwise I would not be here today.

:-]

Not so sure you are doing the right thing. It is easier to make changes from inside rather than outside - besides the one thing that could transopire is the "well, we got rid of him after all" attitude.

I'll be watching your progress - best to you.

Test!!!!!

Advertise!!!!

It works.

Besides I would love to take some extra international market share - and yes dammit - we would!

Stay well

Bez

[kato]

I was reading the Grainnews yesterday, and by the time I finished the cattle section I was absolutely depressed. We've been in this business for a long time, and we've seen a lot of ups and downs, but this time it just feels different. People we know who are cattlemen through and through are asking themselves why they do this any more. These are people who's involvement in the cattle business is a very large part of who they are. It's their identity. And even they are losing hope. In my mind what's going on right now is worse than the BSE fiasco. I never thought I'd ever see a situation where I'd say that. With BSE, at least there was a glimmer of hope that things would get better. Now it seems that we're getting it from every side.

Something has to happen. It has to be big enough to shake this industry right to the bottom. I think we all agree that there is a fundamental change in our business right now, and that this is the time to decide which way it will go. Not next year.... Now.

The closest thing we personally have gone through that compares to this is back when Manitoba lost it's position as the packing center of Western Canada, and it all moved to Alberta. That was bad enough then, but at least then it was still in the country, not gone forever. We learned here that once it's gone, it ain't coming back.

So what do we do? I think Randy's on the right track. For example, as much as a lot of people complain about the Wheat Board, we need to follow their lead in a very important way. They have managed, through quality standards that are held up as some of the highest in the world, to place Canadian wheat as the premium to which the American's can only dream about achieving. (Why else do you think they are so intent on getting rid of the Board? But that's another story.) In places like Italy, the ultimate pasta country, Canadian wheat is considered the best of the best, and is better known there than here for it's high calibre.

Why can't we do this with beef?

The American's don't seem to want us as partners, so I guess they will have to have us as competitors. We all need to push for the Canada Gold label and branding. It wouldn't take much to qualify just about every animal in this country. We already have the traceback. I suppose enrolling in the already existing Verified Beef Program would satisfy the quality assurance and feed records. Tie it all in to the CCIA database, set up a paper trail through the same database, and we've got it done. It could happen pretty quickly too. Lobby for testing for market, while emphasizing that to do this would save the government money by not having to bail out us broke cattle people any more. Maybe testing would help save a bundle on SRM removal costs too.

I think the reason we don't test now is because of American pressure, but the way things are now, who cares what they think? They don't care what we think, that's for sure.

So we leave them behind. Take some of that BIC checkoff money and launch a big ad campaign in the U.S. pointing out the safety and quality of Canadian beef, and start selling it.

Then use these same protocols to move into international markets that the U.S. is having trouble cracking because they refuse to do the homework, and then maybe we can untie our industry from the weak American dollar.

Canada already has an international reputation for being honest having integrity. It's time to use it.

[farmers_son]

In regards to a BIC selling campaign, I understand that is already in the works.

Speaking to the future of Canada’s cattle industry or for that matter the North American cattle industry… See:

http://www.quickmba.com/strategy/porter.shtml

I firmly believe in Porters theories re competitive forces shaping the profitability of industries. Although not specifically mentioned in the link I provided, one of the factors influencing primary agriculture in North America has been the lack of profitable alternatives. That has changed with the rise of the grain sector. While stronger grain prices have impacted the livestock feeding sector in the near term, in the long term the profitability of the livestock sector will increase to match the profitability of the grain sector. In Canada that will may be moderated by our ability to access alternative buyers for our live cattle, those are in the United States.

If you look at the commodity markets, it is a great time to be in agriculture. True, the cattle industry has been challenged and although BSE has gotten the focus here in Canada other market factors such as rising dollar and high feed costs are the driving factors at the moment. Still I have never seen a brighter time to be in agriculture. The world demand for protein continues to grow and the North American cattle industry is positioned to meet that demand. Our time is coming.

I hesitate to comment too much on the Canada Gold Concept as I believe it is not finalized. However I see the two global packers, Tyson and Cargill strategically dividing nations as individual profit centers that they can play one against the other. Branding a beef product as Canada or Brazil etc. anything falls right into the global packers plans for producers. If you look at companies that are regarded as brand experts they would not put all their resources in one brand identity whether it is Canada Gold or some other name. For example look at the shampoo section in the drug stores you will see brand name after brand name, rows upon rows of customer choices. However if you check the back you will see only two or three manufacturers represented, Colgate-Palmolive and a very few others. We would be wise to understand product branding, especially how Colgate does it before putting all our resources in a Canada Gold Brand. Any problem with the Canada Gold brand or whatever it is eventually called and the whole industry falls. If there is a problem with a Colgate product that product is quickly replaced by another Colgate product and the consumer will never know what happened.

That leads to the topic of country of origin labeling which has been discussed at some length but bottom line it is not in cattle producers interest to divide thereby creating pools of cheaper live cattle for the packers to take advantage of. We need to think of ways to join together as cattle producers in order to compete with the global packers who purchase our live cattle, not split apart to be picked off country by country. My opinion.

[kato]

Good points.

As for your last paragraph, this is what we've been trying to drive into the heads of our neighbours to the south for years now, and it's just not happening. We've been saying all along that if we all worked together, we may get some benefit for everyone, since by being divided, it just makes all of us weaker and more vulnerable to the multinationals.

So since our neighbours to the south obviously have no intention of joining up with us to form a stronger alliance against the big coporations, what do we do?

Producing a quality product that will have name recognition is a start, in my opinion. If it succeeds, then we could expand the protocol and make new brands aimed at different markets. We could use Canada Gold as a template for future marketing stragies.

In the meantime the multinationals are a necessary evil, but that doesn't mean Canadians couldn't take over the processing of branded beef in the future, especially if we can make this first step work. The trick is to retain control and ownership over the brand.

[rkaiser]

Well farmer_son, you must be really causing waves at the CCA level if you don't believe in branding product. You won't have to quit - they will simply ignore you or kick your ass off the board.

Most of what Canada Gold is doing is adding a marketing arm and those "unique product lines" to the latest CCA agenda to brand Canada. And maybe even more to come........

Your attempts to stop the momentum of Canada Gold are as pathetic as the efforts of your associates sitting at our table. I have had enough of pulling the dead dog along with a piece of twine - thus my resignation, but I will not sit by and watch you tear at the best idea to come along in this country since BIG C supported testing for market access 4 years ago.