Province Takes Over Alberta's Cattle Industry

[grassfarmer]

I guess it's up to you whether you cash your cheques I'm sure others will take your view. Lots of them out there driving about in camouflaged trucks and looking for "reds under the bed". Is that the kind of producer that foreign beef customers would be comfortable buying from though?
Yeah, I'm only an immigrant - but wasn't Canada built by them?
You seemed happy enough to learn from Mark Purdey, another foreign expert.

[Kathy]

Typical response towards someone who will not be bought by the powers that be. Are you totally unaware of the integration processes that have been put in motion? You must live in a closet if you are ignorant of the activities of our governments and business experts - as they negotiate their corporate deals, with our tax payer dollars backing up their goals.

It IS our choice not to cash the bribery cheques. Why NOT wait until it is passes as a LAW? Maybe the gove is hoping, enough will take the bait, they won't have to pass legislation.

With the price of fuels rising, the consumer will be eating less of the expensive foods (which are mostly less nutritious), and meat will become a luxury (unless you raise it yourself).

Foreign markets for beef won't last either with these rising fuel prices. All the talk about the 100 mile diet will come to pass.

Foreign people can have as good an idea as an Albertan, I just don't put them in charge of the piggy-bank.

Mark Purdey has been correct about pretty much everything he has brought to our attention. He came to Canada and toured around, taking samples from CWD affected regions and non CWD affected regions and found elevated metals such as barium and strontium. Cesium decays into barium, strontium 90 (and cesium) has come from nuclear fallout, including atmospheric testing and Chernobyl (releases); oil/gas mud from drilling has barium.... take your pick... these metals out of balance are the problem - not the mysterious so-dubbed "infectious prion protein".

If the USA or another country decides to bomb Iran and Iran's nuclear facilities, the fallout will rain down around the world and some PREMISES will be unfit for raising livestock (some are now, but animals continue to be pastured or fed from contaminated fields). The UK still has 200,000 sheep quarantined from Chernobyl fallout, except they pasture the sheep on less affected fields (before slaughter to reduce levels) and the isotopes are crapped out - guess the solution to fallout is dilution.

[per]

Whether your Premises is identified if you have Strontium or Cesium falling on your head from an extraordinary event you have bigger problems than the Ab Gov. Both have a half life of around 30 years. You can't outlive the radiation in your lifetime at that rate. Do or don't cash your check, it won't make any difference anyway. Legislation always follows non compliance.

I respect that you feel strong enough to take a stand though. We are not an island and our industries survival depends on us doing business differently. The hundred mile diet is a laudable goal and is a model worth pursuing. I am still happy to see beef go elsewhere. Our best chance of entering the EU is to Comply to EU values. Sitting around and wondering why no one wants our product even though we comply to OIE standards doesn't move any product. I think that is the thrust of the GOA program. Is living in a police state desirable... not so much but I don't think that is the spirit of the plan. My guess is that if you participated in NISA and CAIS you have already signed your life away anyway. Unless we create other markets or re enter old markets all of this will be for not.

[blackjack]

...feel free to do as you like kathy...though you may feel big govt and corps are running the ship...no one is holding a gun to our heads quite yet...the govt could legislate the programs without the handouts and there is nothing we could do about it...though i could live without the subsidy i know my fellow rancher is probably taking theirs ...so would i not be actually hurting my own farms competitiveness...

[grassfarmer]

Newsflash Kathy (from 20 years ago) the radioactivity issue remaining with the UK sheep didn't in fact originate from Chernobyl - it was their own domestic production, leakage out of the nuclear power station at Sellafield, Cumbria. They didn't know because prior to Chernobyl no-one had thought to measure the radioactivity of the sheep grazing on the granite based hill farms.

[smcgrath76]

Kathy, take the first cheque. It is not tied to anything other than cow numbers. I would think hard about the second one though.
I agree with the competitiveness arguement.

[Kathy]

The radioactive contamination from Sellafield and native nuclear facilities in the UK is certainly a huge issue. It's that way where-ever nuclear facilities/mines exist. Pulling the truth out of the nuclear industry is impossible - it has to be exposed by the hard working researchers and effected families (guys like Dr. Chris Busby of the Low Level Radiation Campaign, and Mark Purdey).

I want to learn more about the Strategy. The idea of registering your premises has been discussed at length on the american radio programs we listen to daily. The usa courts ruled the national animal id system unconstitutional as the information provided by the producers is private, and cannot be shared (without consent). Groenveld's program allows for the pharmaceutical companies to run trials on our Alberta ranches with their new vaccines. Just wait and see. Right now, many vaccines are based on studying only a few hundred cows; now, the 'strategy' can recommend certain vaccines (hinged with more funding via the program) and the pharmaceutical companies can reap the benefits of the data base at no cost to themselves. We will be guinea pigs - or our animals will be.

As for us human guinea pigs, that's another story..... the Gardasil Vaccine and the Hepatitis B shots (at the same time).... brilliant move docs. One vaccine series with huge amounts of aluminum and another vaccine series with mercury - ever heard of the synergetic effect of toxicity in metals being increased thousands of times by dual or multiple exposures? I fully expect these girls will be sterilized by this synergistic effect. We won't know for at least 10 years or more.

Cattle vaccinations are the same sh*&. How long before I am forced to vaccinate my cattle against my better judgement?

At least the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms states I have the right to life, liberty and security of person (meaning they can't force people to inject these toxins against our will).

Funny, how prices of cattle are rising due to flooding in the USA - just as the government is trying a hostile (or is it?) takeover of the Alberta livestock industry.

I have stated for some time, that those ranchers that can stick it out for as long as possible will, in the end, reap the benefits of better/higher cattle prices.

Like other industries that governments have sold out just before the prices rose (fertilizer/potash/phosphorous), gas/oil production, the potential of meat prices going up.... was inevitable with the exudase of farm families from the business.

Milk board, poultry and egg board, and coming soon to a province near you... meat board. Should I denied meat quota because I refuse to license my operation? I've been in business for 20 years, and my dad owned the place before me....(literaly, 1964)... Am I going to loose my priviledge to raise cattle because I don't want to be under the thumb of the Alberta Livestock and Meat Strategy's "premise registration" requirement?

[Kathy]

What about having a strategy that says if you want to sell beef outside of Canada - that's ALL you get to do? You have to choose:

Canadian market only

OR

foreign markets only

If an animal disease causes the closing of the boarder, those that banked on foreign markets will be affected first... Now, if the animal disease outbreak causes the loss of some of our domestic producers, then the gov could pick and choose from the foreign pool producers to replace the lost domestic "premises".

Some of the quarantined or closed premises may be up and running again in the future, OR NOT.

Those that want to gamble on foreign markets can take on the risk, and jump through all the hoops. Leave this to producer choice.

One more question. The word producer. Right now everyone along the meat chain is considered a producer. Isn't that somewhat messed up.

Surely the only producer of these animals are the people with the cows that give birth to the new calves.

Feedlots and packers are secondary processors - there can only be ONE producer of the calf (the cow and the owner of the cow).... Why are the cow/calf guys treated on an equal footing (by gov) as the rest of this industry... when without the new calves there would be nothing to further process?