Prices not that great?

[kato]

WiltonRanch, I agree totally. That's the elephant in the room that no one seems to be talking about. This is a serious thing. IMHO it has the potential to knock the bottom right out of our prices.

The American's response to an unfavourable ruling on a bad law is to replace it with a worse law. These people are not to be trusted, and not to be believed. And the lying will never end, not when a dollar is involved.

Maybe this time around our numbers are small enough that we can just turn our eyes to other markets without the kind of damage that happened in 2003. The Americans are exporting a lot of what they take from us now, so I hope we have the smarts to just take those markets from them and sell our beef directly into them.

But first, there need to be tariffs slapped on US beef and pork that are so high nobody here will import it. They seem to think they can just walk all over everybody and there will be no consequences.

Personally I'm fed up with dealing with the U.S. There have to be more honest people to deal with out there somewhere.

[rkaiser]

I like your word enticing sumsmartguy.

Complaining about Americans will get us no where. Especially since "we" and I need to use that term loosely, Americanize our cattle and beef every day.

We can and will not only entice the consumer at the retail counter and in export markets including the USA, if we use our truly Canadian advantage and produce a truly Canadian branded product.

A product that does taste different due to feed.

A product that is easier to fatten due to our climate and the natural will of animals to create that fat in our Canadian environment.

A product that could include a consumer friendly "ask and you will receive". Leave the USA to sell the masses a product the is laced with antibiotics, beta agonists, and growth promotants.

A product that entices the consumer with size and the thing that made beef the ultimate unique protein that it is. A product that is healthy and tasty when eaten with the juices intact. A smaller thicker cut of magnificent succulent pleasure.

MMMM cant you just taste it...LMAO

Or we can just keep lap dogging to our American multinational packers and keep on complaining...

Hugz Randall

[wilagro]

rkaiser: You are absolutely right...keep up the efforts to promote our distinct quality beef.

[WiltonRanch]

So right rkaiser. We should take this situation and
turn it in our favour. Remember Alberta oats back in
the day. Its all about marketting what we have. The
USA is still the path of least resistance. We offer a
superior product into the states and brand it as
proudly Canadian.

[grassfarmer]

Problem with that WiltonRanch is that "we" do not
control slaughter capacity. One US plant, one
Brazilian - by ownership they get to call the shots of
what product, what branding, what markets and at
what price CDN beef sells. Until someone changes
that dynamic its all just wishful thinking.

[WiltonRanch]

That is right grassfarmer. What I am more afraid of
is this industry shrinking to the point of no return.
Numbers that do not sustain a meaningful feeding
or packing industry. This cool thing will shave off
another few hundred thousand cows. Grain and
land remains high, and there will be no new entrants
to the business. Just the same old folks as usual
busting their butts. Problem is these folks arent
getting younger. So yes maybe previous post was
wishful thinking. I guess I just have to be the lowest
cost producer.

[grassfarmer]

Why worry about large scale feeding and packing
capacity? Ranchers might do better without it.
Feed/graze fatten on family farm scale and get it
processed through a local plant.
As a business strategy the ramping up of production
to export into the global marketplace has been an
abject failure if you judge by the returns that accrue
to primary beef producers.
Time to try something different.

[sumdumguy]

They say we are what we eat. Then are cows
what they eat, and is there a marketable idea
there, like organic, fruit flavoured feeds, milk-fed,
Green oats, sprouted lentil fed, whatever works,
market the H out of it, cowboys.

[WiltonRanch]

Yeah maybe we gotta go beyond commodity beef.
Its a new world out there. If I run cows like my
grappa done it I could lose my ass, but if I forget
how he done it I could go outta business. Part in
parcel is to be less dependent on iron, diesel, and
chemical inputs, and more reliant on well managed
grass and lower cost feeding methods. The writing
is on the wall for the current infrastructure of the
industry. I like ranching because it suits my land,
and not as risky as grain. I am kinda glad there is
less cows but also lamenting the day when cows
were big.

[ASRG]

I wonder if the cattle business might have been more viable today if the "BSE bomb" had been handled differently?
How many young people who might have been interested were turned off completely, when they saw how the federal government refused to step up to the plate and make things right?
Maybe we wouldn't have a bunch of old men and women putting in their last days in the cattle business?

[rkaiser]

In some ways ARSG, BSE was the best thing that happened to this industry. Individuals --- no --- and we are working on that with a class action lawsuit. Industry - yes - by forcing people who want to be in the industry to look at an alternative to feeding the multinational players who will bite the hand that feeds them until they run outa hands and move to the next country.