Mr Butter's letter

[sagewood]

Grassfarmer, I am not against some of the 'requirements' that are being mandated by Ab. Ag.; I am just wondering when we are going to get paid for the extra work and extra tags and so forth. I jumped on the band wagon and used the bar coded dangle tags--then I retagged with RFID tags so all my herd complied--I have birth verified my calves since it was possible to do so--I have sent their birth certificates to the feed lot and auction mart with them--I have healthy--tag free--red, white and buckskin calves that usually weight between 600 and 700 # at weaning--I have given my premises I.D. as soon as the AFSC site would take it (I attempted it many years back and they were not set up to accept it). My cattle get exemplary care, shelter, health protocol--not just me blowing my own horn either--the SPCA recognized my care and facilities for all my livestock, big and small, some years back. I most often sell at the top of the pay scale, but the 'premium' for these high-end, high-yielding calves has just not materialized. The auction marts bally-hooed that if we dangle tagged we would see 5 - 10 cent premium--didn't happen--same with RFID--didn't happen. I have not looked into Canada Gold, so can't comment whether they will measure up to their much-vaulted press releases and don't just know where I would have to deliver my calves. If they have to go 200 miles south to the Ab. feed lot alley, then the cost of the diesel to get them there (or pay a trucker) would most likely offset any premium that I might receive--I suspect that the premium would not be paid until the calves were hung and graded--seems a long time to wait to see a premium on something that was 'guaranteed' when we started bar coding our calves. But I too digress--I will look into Canada Gold and see what their program is all about--until then--I am skeptical that there will ever be a premium on Alberta calves. I have talked to several 'old timers' like myself and most just are going to get out now--as for me--I still enjoy the cattle, so will hang in there and hope to break even once in every couple of years.

[coppertop]

grassfarmer the information regarding the proposed tracking system from the farm gate to the slaughter facility, was discussed by Alberta Agriculture's representatives at one of the Livestock Strategy meetings I attended. It means that the truckers who haul in smaller truck/trailer units to the smaller markets are going to have to lay out a considerable sum of money in order to be ready to scan these cattle. The information I heard was that only commercial truckers will need this, farmers hauling their own cattle won't...GO FIGURE THAT ONE OUT !!!
I do understand the need for some tracability system, however I do not agree with it being mandatory at this point.
If producers could see a return for their time and money spent, those who are forward thinking would come on board which is the desired result.
I have never been as disappointed in a comment made by a Minister of the Crown, than I was when George advised that those who didn't want to fall in line could exit the industry.

Those who will likely have the most difficulty 'catching on' to this program as the very producers who have believed in the industry in this province and been the heart and soul of the cattle industry in particular for generations. Grassfarmer you only need to look at the average age of Alberta's cattle producers to understand how this new strategy is going to pose challenges for many of them.
I have spent the past two weeks calling producers in my area to let them know abuot the upcoming meeting at Lindale on September 24th, and MANY of them didn't have a clue what in hell I was talking about. They are going to need to burn the midnight oil to be ready for January 1.
I think we should have been given at least 18 months to get producers up to speed on the program, and above all, get those who are going to implement this program up to speed.

I sat at the local auction market yesterday and listened to three older producers tell me the run around they have been getting trying to find out information about the program from the advertised phone numbers.

I was very involved with the livestock regulatory system under AOPA. It went through countless hearings, meetings, presentations etc. for several years and the final product which came into effect January 1, 2002, was vastly different than what was proposed several years earlier.
In fact that legislation has been amended four times since then, and the producers who built facillities during the first year or so did it under a lot more stringent regulations than what are in effect today.
This may well be what happens with the Livestock Strategy....so my fervent wish is that the Minister, in his wisdom would take the time to get it right and ensure that producers can light at the end of this regulatory tunnel which, in my book, means more dollars in my jeans.

[coppertop]

Just wanted to add, grassfarmer, I think ABP has raised some good points, and, just for the record, I do not get 'fooled' by moaning from any sector or direction.
Since the Minister made his announcement in June there have been numerous rumours regarding the 'intent' behind the legislation.
Personally, I think the Department was caught unaware when the announcement was made, and now they are struggling to make staffing changes to accommodate the new Secretariat.
One fear I have is that other areas of the department will be shortchanged due to some fairly seasoned staff taking packages.

[grassfarmer]

Sagewood, You are clearly a leading producer and deserve to be rewarded for the way you do things. You wonder when you are going to get paid for the extra work - unfortunately it doesn't tend to work like that in the real world. More likely you will just be better rewarded than most producers because you are not getting the discounts they are when they sell cattle.
CanadaGold sounds like it might be able to offer you something in the way of a return for your extra management - no guarantees of course but at least the chance to possibly benefit. Is that better than sitting around complaining about things you can't change? Yes in my book. What have you got to lose though? like me, you are already doing the work required - you may as well try and get rewarded for it.
I think your worry about trucking costs with CanadaGold might be unfounded - they will have cattle in several feedlots and in any case where ever you sell your calves now will likely be paying you a price with the trucking to feedlot alley built in. That's why calves generally make more in Strathmore or Lethbridge than they do in Northern Alberta.

[grassfarmer]

Coppertop,
I think our tracking system must be mandatory ASAP, anything else is a cop out. I have supported the choice of electronic tags since the outset because I know there are systems that can work in an auction situation, I saw them demonstrated in Europe over a decade ago but unfortunately the Europeans then chose to go with a paper chase system. I do not want to see that repeated here. I have moved resolutions at ABP AGMs concerning this - to get it done right away, readers installed in auctions and on liner back doors and paid for by Government funding. I have got no support for this from ABP who argue that we don't need a movement tracking system.

I was more disappointed with Minister Ritz's comments regarding listeria and his hope that Wayne Easter was the person in PEI who had died of it than Minister Groenevelds comments.

I don't think there needs to be an 18 month run up period to introduce this - are beef farmers somehow exempt from needing to show any business sense or awareness of what is going on around them? The only requirements by Jan 1st are to age verify your calves and register a premises ID - the rest doesn't come in until 2010. This was announced in June - I guess the people you spoke to didn't read the letters they received? I bet they cashed their cheques though (except Kathy of course) - there really is no excuse for anyone not being able to age verify their calves this year. There are numerous people who will age verify calves for producers at no cost so there really is nothing to stop it happening other than the attitude that this isn't the way Grandpa did it in 1910. The ridiculous rule still allows you to name the date you started calving and call them age verified. Every producer should be able to hazard a guess as to that date. Equally there is no reason why they couldn't properly (individually) age verify them by the end of next year.

But please think on this - what good will it do producers to run a slew of meetings this Fall grumbling and moaning about Government regulations that are coming in some form anyway? Instead imagine the potential if all this interest and effort was turned to supporting outfits like CanadaGold through informing producers about them rather than griping. Isn't this just the type of thing we have been looking for? something that may have the potential to improve producer returns through gaining access to new markets and securing a fairer share of the revenue generated by the production chain. It just strikes me that we are going to miss a great opportunity by not acting positively on things we can change versus negatively on things we can't.

[coppertop]

grassfarmer, the intent of holding a meeting is to allow producers to become more aware, get their questions answered and perhaps even give the folks at Alberta Agriculture and ABP some producer feedback on what might be tweaked to allow the system to work more smoothly.
I, too, have used CCIA tags from the 'get go'. Have all the birth info on my calves readily available and can age verify with little problem.
As far as the checks go, many producers still do not have their first check much less cash it.
I personally called AFSC on Tuesday, nobody could tell me a thing about the Livestock Strategy, but I did have a wonderful conversation with a very nice young man about the lovely fall colors, weather, etc. He advised that someone would return my call the following morning, guess what, I am still waiting !

As far as Gerry Ritz' comments, I agree, he should have stuck to business vs shooting off his mouth, but I also feel that there were staff in his department that still had ties with Easter and are bent on making an election issue out of it.
Time we forget about personalities, dumb comments and negativity, and stick to issues, and that comment is aimed at every political party, they all need a good kick in the butt for some of their comments. With the exception of Elizabeth of course, her issues are having us all riding bicycles and growing legal 'pot' !!!!! LOL

[smcgrath76]

Well, this thing will never die. I think AB Ag has stepped back a bit in attitude if not in deliverables from the ALMS program.
We are not able to individually age verify our calves to the exact day. Being forced to do so would represent a significant cost to our operation. This is not to say we can't change how we do things, but our costs would increase significantly. Some of this is actual cash costs and some is because we value our time.
I do support the idea of automated traceback with readers on trucks, etc. I think this would represent a great step forward. One issue I could see is liability for the transporter. What happens if the reader misses an animal on the way into the truck? Who is responsible?
There are a lot of challenges to the program no matter what side of the issue you are on. And for the record, I still don't see how it gets anyone any more money for their calves or their work. Obtaining extra money is the job of the individual operation and whoever they choose to cooperate with.
I don't agree that AB has the best beef in the world hands down, and while I do agree that food safety is perhaps our most important responsibility, I am also convinced that the Canadian system to enforce it could use a huge list of improvements, and I am also rather convinced that it is a cost, rather than a market opportunity.

[sagewood]

Grassfarmer, I deliver my calves to the feedlot myself so that I know they arrive clean and healthy. Same to the auction mart, so the price I get is not discounted from the feedlot or the auction mart. Therefore, if I need to purchase and operate a 'reader' my cost of doing business will most certainly increase--as will the extra labour that I will have to hire so I have someone at the trailer gate operating the reader and have myself pushing the cattle along the alley. Further, as Sean stated, if my read list and the auction mart read list do not agree at the end of the day--who picks up the loss and whose list is correct? I have already experienced the auction mart cost of replacing an RFID tag on a calf. I know full well (because I checked each calf prior to loading) that all my calves had RFID tags--however, on sale day--one tag was missing--so of course the cost of labour and the tag came right off the top of my cheque. Now as painful as this was, I can hardly imagine how difficult it would be to prove that the auction mart did not sell one of my calves somewhere else along the line because their reader missed one of my calves. I know this is a long story, but I do see more work,cost and vigilance being required at every point on the system until I actually get the cheque in my hands that is due to me.

I don't have any problem verifying an actual day of birth on my calves because I have a small herd. I can see that those breeders with 200 - 400 head would find it next to impossible to verify the actual day on each calf unless they had someone dedicated to that task during the entire time of their calving. Again--more cost and this is being down loaded on the cow-calf producer as have all the rest of the costs that have been incurred during this BSE BS.

I see on another farm site that the Ontario think tank (George Morris Centre) thinks that the cost of the grain being converted to methanol will be borne on the backs of the cattle industry. Well really!!! And this is a surprise to those of us in the industry? I think had they just asked any of us in the business we could have told them all of this and saved them the cost of the 'think tank'. More reasons for bureacrats to take time off from their phoney-baloney jobs.

But I digress yet again. Obviously those of use with 60 - 100 head of cattle will be forced out of the business because of the looming economic cost related to same and only the 'big' players will survive and the cost of our beef will go up and hopefully for those who remain in the industry, there will be a profit.

[coppertop]

My understanding from information I obtained at various Livestock Strategy meetings, is that producers will not be required to have READERS in their own truck/trailers. This makes me wonder why a commerciallivestock transport would require them if tags were scanned as the animals exitted the trailer.

Lots of things need to be fine tuned with this strategy, and I am worried that it will be similar to AOPA, where government bureaucrats and a few lawyers etc. developed legislation only to find out that when it was put to the test by the regulator there were far too many glitches, and numerous amendments have been necessary to the legislation including ministerial amendments within a few months of the legislation coming into effect.

All the 'readers', age verification, traceability in the world likely won't stop outbreaks of things like listeriosis which has now claimed 18 lives !!!

[grassfarmer]

The tracking can be real simple - readers at auctions, feedlots and packing plants will pick up most of the animal movements. There really is no need to have them on commercial trucks except for direct farmer to farmer sales of breeding stock etc.
Coppertop, you say that "All the 'readers', age verification, traceability in the world likely won't stop outbreaks of things like listeriosis which has now claimed 18 lives !!!" - True enough.
However it is the tool we need to stop outbreaks of things like F M without needlessly killing millions of animals and disrupting commerce way worse than the minor inconvenience of BSE in Canada did.

Another point that strikes me in this thread is the comment that producers put a value on their time and they need to be paid to for it. Well that's good in theory but the question I would ask is if you don't spend time doing age verification for example how else will you get paid for that time? If you have an off farm job or a consulting side line that earns $50 an hour and has work lined up that's fine but if you don't age verify because you want paid for your time and instead spend your extra time in the coffee shop, or on Agriville, or at ABP meetings you're still not earning any more so maybe you should re-evaluate the "value of your time". I think in truth there are very few beef producers that couldn't make the time to age verify this fall - and you will get paid for it by a Government cheque!

[coppertop]

grassfarmer, are the GOVERNMENT CHECKS going to keep coming, age verification is an ongong demand on time. I don't even like to see government having to send checks, the check should be the one we receive when we market our livestock and the price we are paid should reflect the quality of the livestock and the age verification if, in fact, it is a bonus to our industry.
As for spenging time, I guess we never are compensated for our time in agriculture, we don't have the luxury Epcor has, which is to ask for a 5% rate increase because our expenses and returns don't balance ! As for sitting in coffee shops, maybe that is the pastime some indulge in, but personally, I don't have time. I have coffee at the auction market when I am sitting in the stands checking out prices or talking to neighbours, and that time is limited to an hour a week !!

As for $50.00 per hour consultants, good luck finding any !! Most of the consultants I know are paid at least three times that !!! Mind you, none of them are working in the agricultural industry!!!

[grassfarmer]

Coppertop, "I don't even like to see government having to send checks, the check should be the one we receive when we market our livestock and the price we are paid should reflect the quality of the livestock and the age verification if, in fact, it is a bonus to our industry."
All very well, and I agree with you, but in the big real world it isn't happening like that - what would you change to make it happen that way?

I wasn't commenting how much time you choose to spend in the coffee shop or at the other places I mentioned but I believe my point stands. I know I have spent more time posting on this thread today than it will take me to upload my age verification data for the year to the CCIA database.

My choice to quote $50 as an hourly fee is neither here nor there to the argument but I can tell you that I get paid $100 an hour for the limited consulting I do - and yes it's in agriculture - on beef and grass.

Why is there always the desire in agriculture to make producers look stupid for choosing this as their career? It fits in nicely with the P M crowd at ABP. Not once do any of you folks opposing the ALMS highlight it's potential benefits? Maybe it's not poor returns that are driving away young producers but elders that are constantly dwelling on the negatives and in doing so missing the opportunities. I'm increasingly disappointed with the attitude I see in Alberta - I thought this was the "can do" province not the "can complain" province.

[coppertop]

grassfarmer what is driving young people away from choosing to farm as a career ? For one thing, it is the ability to afford the quality of life our younger generation desires.
For the young folks whose family has land that can be passed on, and parents who can help with machinery costs etc., there are opportunities, but for many young people the dollars they can make in other industries are tough to ignore.
Many of our farmers who are getting close to retirement age, particularly in the livestock sector, have not seem many good times as far as financial returns go, and most parents want better for their children than they had themselves, regardless of what line of work they are in.So it is difficult to expect these farmers to be encouraging their sons and daughters to follow in their footsteps.
In my community there are several young families who depend on the farm for most of their income, and it is a tough row to hoe. Many of them live in older homes, or mobile homes on their parents farmestead, without much hope of building that 'dream house' in the near future given the increase in input costs and the prices they receive for their livestock. A lot of the young families I know, with a farming background, have said they would love to be farming, but they are not willing to give up the things they consider necessities of life to do so, and it is too bad that is the choice many people who choose to farm must do.

[grassfarmer]

Yes, or maybe as I said "it's not poor returns that are driving away young producers but elders that are constantly dwelling on the negatives and in doing so missing the opportunities."

[smcgrath76]

I agree with the attitude issue GF. We have a terrible attitude in agriculture, we also have a very real struggle with rate of return and capital investment. The traditional model of farming to pay for land doesn't work too well in a land that is valued beyond its' pure agricultural capacity. I think we have a terrible lack of business training in all of the youth in this country, and a lack of enthusiasm in agriculture in general. We are very Canadian in that we are often not prepared to stand up for agriculture, but prefer to be looked on as the poor second cousin of real business.
This obviously does not apply to everyone in agriculture, but it is an extremely pervasive attitude.