TRACEABILITY FROM FARM TO FORK SUMMIT MEETING

[grassfarmer]

I think you should be embarrassed - for not knowing,
lol !! If you sell calves/feeders into the auction system
there would be a time it was costing you money if
they weren't age verified . Less of an issue now as
countries like Japan have raised the age limit on their
beef imports. Really that's what it was all about and
as that age dependant export niche decreases so
does the need for AV.
I'm curious what was driving the premium for AV cull
cows in MB as that has never been an issue here as
far as I'm aware.

[kato]

There are U.S. markets closer to Manitoba that want age verified cows. Not sure why, but they do. If they will pay, they will get them.

How that will change with this whole new MCOOL nonsense is anyone's guess. The same advantage we get for the cows is the disadvantage that comes when the Americans get stupid.

Manitoba was hurt a whole lot more than just about anywhere else in the country after BSE, precisely because of our location and the fact that a lot of our cattle go south.

And it looks like the hurts not over yet.

[WiltonRanch]

This MCOOL thing worries me more than anything.
Ritz is threatening to get in a pissin match with the
states if they wont relax it or revoke the new
changes. Americans will cut off theirnose to spite
their face. Granted cool will hurt a number of US
packers, and bring about sanctions from Canada
that will grind cross border meat trade to a halt.
However the US had high tariffs on Japanese
vehicles for years because of such a similar deal
when Japan wouldn't ease tariffs on US poultry
exports. We may as well try to expand other
markets because this looks ugly. American govt
doesnt give a shit about Canadian beef cause they
eat all they produce and just exported the
equivalent of Canadian exports.
We can throw birthday parties for all our cows but it
wont do a damn thing about this. There will be more
herds that disappear and less cows. Fewer exports,
a more domestic based market unless other
markets can be expanded.

[grassfarmer]

.....and you can forget expanding into other markets
as long as there are 2 plants content to backfill the US
market and everything in the feedlot is being treated
with hormones and this ractopamine crap that is
banned by 160 other countries. Thats a lot of
countries that can't or won't buy CDN beef. Talk
about backing "ourselves" into a corner.