TRACEABILITY FROM FARM TO FORK SUMMIT MEETING

[SADIE]

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Thankyou Gary E for sending me this copy a couple of weeks ago. I some how get these invites when these discussions are carried on in Saskatchewan. I will let you Albertians handle this meeting.

For those agrivillers this might help explain why I put the posts up again about RFID eartags, Traceability and what some of the commercial cattlemen are facing today.

You have some great people out there in Alberta and on agriville and members of the WSGA that likely will be /could be at this meeting.

TRACEABILITY

"DOG AND PONY SHOW" "GREAT CANADIAN GONG SHOW"

Per is close by and has been quite quiet. Get ahold of GARY E and My classmate Dr. William Newton ---both of you guys are close to this meeting.

[per]

A guy gets into less trouble when keeping his mouth shut. Especially with a difficult conversation where the bureaucrats and industry are not necessarily after the same thing and where there are as many opinions as there are producers.

[per]

I would however be very comfortable with either Gary or Bill looking after my interests on most industry subjects.

[kato]

Mandatory traceability, IMHO, gives a market advantage to Canadian beef, in general. The problem with that is that an advantage to Canadian beef, is another way of saying an advantage to Canadian beef processors, not necessarily Canadian producers. Promoters of this kind of marketing advantage are believers in the trickle down theory of economics. The problem with that is that it doesn't trickle down, at least not as far as the producer level. All the tracing and tracking and work done by us will not give us any more money. It will make money for JBS and Cargill though.

If traceability was voluntary, then there could possibly be some economic benefit, because the big players would be forced to pay for the work done at our level if they wanted to get enough cattle to market as traceable. It could also be a way for smaller processors looking for their own markets to have something extra to offer.

The bottom line is that we're doing the work, but we're not getting the benefit. So far traceability hasn't done anything for food safety either, as the fiasco at XL showed us. Make it voluntary, and make them pay if they want it.

[rkaiser]

You nailed it Kato. The only thing traceability is god for is to break the back of the (producer) that can be used as a scape goat in any food safety issue that may "pop" up.

The only thing that will change this industry in a substantial way is our own value chain including our own plant.

[ALLFARMER]

Ya spot on kato!

[Happytrails]

X3 on Kato's comments. The feedlots and packers are willing support mandatory tagging and scanning because it makes a higher value product available to them without a higher cost. Not to mention the discounts on undocumented cattle. Let the MARKET drive traceability!!

[WiltonRanch]

So true. The mandatory side is unescesary for age
verification. We should get a premium but we dont. I
think the whole AV and premises id are floundering
because packers arent paying premiums. Gets me
is Alberta guys have to do AV but Sask guys dont,
and we know damn well Sask cattle go into Alberta
unverified. This thing is a complete waste of time
and expense for the producer. Like rkaiser said just
a convenient means to scapegoat the producer.
When the first bse case showed up, cfia traces the
tag back on the cow to a guy I know that had it
many moons ago, and they proceeded to down his
herd along with other guys herds that traded cattle
with this guy. Was this a great means to wipe out
bse? I dont know. Was it a knee jerk reaction by a
govt agency in a panic? Hell yes. Therefore that is
why I hate this whole tagging bullshit because our
livelihoods are sometimes at the whim of insipid
beaurocrats looking to wag the dog. Anytime we get
the govt more involved in our business for our
supposed betterment it is not good.

[kato]

To make a comparison... regarding premiums disappearing when things become mandatory.

In Manitoba age verification is not mandatory. Here there is a premium paid on cows. It can be anywhere from five to ten cents a pound. This is only as a rule on cows going south. It is negligible on calves and feeders.

Why? Because the cows are going to the U.S., where they can capture a premium. They need to pay it to us in order to have animals for that market. The feeders, and cows staying in Canada will be heading to Alberta, where there is no reason to pay a premium.

If it wasn't mandatory in Alberta, I would be willing to bet that there would be a premium on age verified cattle of every class.

Make it mandatory, and we producers lose. Everyone above us wins. This applies to traceability as well. IMHO

[perfecho]

I feel a little embarrassed here...is age verification mandatory in Alberta? I run purebred, so majority of animals are registered, but any culls I run through the auction(young and old) have never been age verified, nor the animals we have processed for off farm sales. I have never been asked for this info….I RFID tag, but nothing else.....should I be hiding out?

[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.