Mr Butter's letter

[smcgrath76]

GF, that is a great challenge. I am not sure I have better answers and I probably tend towards the sink or swin model (which I appreciate the minister can't do).
I think that a pilot slaughter plant (similar to the leduc pilot plant for agrivalue) would be a good investment. It would allow smaller value chains to get started without incurring the cost of building a plant. I think investment in research and extension is a good move. I think some sort of an exit strategy is a good investment. I think that investing in an agency to assist local businesses in navigating export is a good investment.
I don't disagree that the floor needs to be raised, but I don't see a lot of fostering of innovation through the program. Quite frankly there are all kinds of opportunities out there, and I think producers need to pursue them. I don't think that dragging the entire industry up by its' bootstraps so to speak really accomplishes anything in terms of adding value. Rather it simply raises the base expense level.
One major challenge I see is that poor cattle obtain too much money out of the marketplace. The producers of these cattle are overpaid, and producers of superior cattle are underpaid. The best rewarded producer will be the one that has the lowest cost, rather than the best product. Addmitedly producers can't always get this information back, but conversely this is not a profit driver for the guy who sells at weaning.
Canada Gold has very good protocols and procedures, but it still does not have any breed makeup or quality criteria persay in their specifications that I can see.

[per]

Canada Gold is an idea that came out of a think tank of progressive producers of calves and fats. It is a way to marry all the things that the industry has been asking for and lamenting the absence of. Most of us realize that regular commodity beef is not the way of the future so something else has to be offered. Canada Gold is putting together a pilot to get it's feet wet and find niches that could be filled on a large scale. At the very worst, only commodity price will be achieved less 1 cent per pound. Which will still at the very least buy you your carcass information. At it's best the sky is the limit. All sorts of different protocols can be supported for various likes and dislikes of the end user. All good ideas have an infancy and need time to mature. All I can say is that it is going to take some forward thinking folks and a little faith to make it work. Status quo is not likely to work as a long term strategy. As far as ownership of Canada Gold goes, as 50 shareholders are approached then the regulations are such that different rules apply to the company. That bridge will be crossed and eventually there will be more than the 50. In the mean time you all have the opportunity to be in on the ground floor. In my experience, there usually is not much reward if there is no risk. So yes it just might not work. It is guaranteed not to work if no one steps up to the plate and takes some risk.

As far as the ALMS is concerned there is not much in there that the industry has not already asked for. There are some concerns especially regarding the health act and careful consideration needs to go with the regulations that come out of it but the intent is to forward the industry. I think participation in the form of the different industry groups, letters to the Minister and his staff is necessary. But, it needs to put forward ways to make it work, not complaints that we just don't want to work on it or throwing around fear full unproductive rhetoric.

This is our chance to make this industry work. I am positive the Minister wishes he could take back his think about exiting the industry statement, but just maybe he was right to think it. We finally have a Minister that is trying to drag the industry into the 21st century. Rather than making it a hard pull we need to give constructive input.

[Sawbones]

One of the main hurdles that Canada Gold has to overcome is the slaughter solution. They may be able to work a short term deal with XL or even go to Washington but neither appears to be a long term solution. I agree with Sean that an incubator plant is needed for new value chains during their establishment that will have a fixed price of slaughter and guaranteed timely access. You need to be able to guarantee price and delivery before any retailer or food service will talk to you about the merits of your product

[coppertop]

Sawbones, that was one suggestion that came out of the producer arranged meeting on this topic that was held last evening.
I think that with this new strategy the Devil is in the details, such as having to scan cattle going from pasture to pasture.
Community grazing reserves will need a premises ID as well, which caused some concern.

[grassfarmer]

Sawbones, slaughter is certainly one issue CanadaGold has to overcome - my understanding is that they are working on innovative ways to get the current packers to custom kill. Given that their plants are running way under capacity I don't see that should be too difficult to achieve.

Coppertop, So at the meeting did the deputy minister outline the details of the regulation that will see us having to scan cattle going from pasture to pasture? It sounds most unlikely.

[Sawbones]

Coppertop..absolutely, the devil's in the details, hoever we already have a good start. Alberta cattle producers have already invested over 32 million in the Balzac plant and another 900 producers have invested in a slaughter facility in Spruce Grove where the value added equipment sits in containers. We need to convince the Ab gov that they need to financially backstop ventures such as Canada Gold, Prairie Heritage, Spring Creek Beef, Diamond Willow, Canadian Legacy Partners and others that I'm not familiar with so they have a plant where cost of slaughter and guaranteed access are provided. They do not have to build or buy, just guarantee investors that their bottom line will be protected. These value chains can then have their cattle slaughtered for a cost of approximately $200/head plus a finance fee of approximately $18/head. However we know there are startup costs and it will take about 2 years before this plant will be efficient and have the capability of delivering products according to the required specifications. This plant needs to be EU and Halal certified. Value chains would apply for space and once successful with numbers adequate to sustain in excess of 1000 head/day could be transferred to the existing plants of XL or Cargill but the difference is that they would have the end user as part of their value chain so they would not be "stolen" by the major packers. As stated, the devil's in the details but I'm more confident in producers coming up with a workable solution than having one imposed by the gov. AB ag has put 30 people in place to help us fill out forms...That's well over $1million in wages let alnoe office, travel etc. We can fill out our own forms if we can see the reason for doing it

[Sawbones]

Grassfarmer..check with Natural Valley to see how well they did with their custom kill arrangement with XL at Moose Jaw. It wasn't pretty

[coppertop]

John Knapp really didn't get into details on the regulations last night, he spent most of the evening answering questions about the age verification issue, not the other details in the plan. I doubt if many producers were aware of the scanning from pasture to pasture, although when John was asked the question he said that eventually that will be the case.
The gong show at the grazing reserves on both take-in and take-out will be a real photo op I am sure, when they have to scan everything coming off trucks, and know exactly what is in which paddock !!
John stayed around talking to individual producers for quite awhile after the meeting ended, which is something he is really making an effort to do.
No-one from Livestock Identification Services was at the meeting, and I have a feeling someone is going to get a bit of a chain rattling because of that. At one point John asked for the LIS rep to stand up so he could ask them a question and there was no-one there!

[grassfarmer]

Coppertop, I think you are confusing me with your terminology. You talk about the need to scan when moving from pasture to pasture and later mention grazing reserves. Is this the pasture move you are talking about? cattle going from a producers own place to a grazing reserve? If so then yes they would need to be recorded because it is an "off premises" or "on premises" move. These are crucially important to know in case of a disease outbreak. Equally you told us that there was no requirement for producers to have scanners on their livestock trailers - only commercial carriers. I don't believe for a minute there is any possibility of requiring producers to track their animals between their pastures on their own farms which is how your post reads. Not in a million years - they don't do it in Europe so they are not likely to do it here where regulation is at about 1/10th of the level.
Wow, you spend most of the evening talking about age verification - how difficult is it to understand for people?

[coppertop]

Well, obviously grassfarmer the 150 producers who attended aren't as astute as you are, so they did ask a lot of questions and certainly some of the answers weren't as clear as they could have been.You have to remember that very few producers in Alberta are familiar with the European system.

The tracking for movement of cattle from pasture to pasture on one's own operation may be a requirement down the road, but not at this time.This was discussed at length, and the answer wasn't as clear as it could have been. There still seems to be a requirement to have a record of which cattle are in which pasture within one's own premises. Your premises includes all land owned or controlled by the operation. The grazing reserves I speak of are community pasture type reserves.
Apparently the Saskatchewan government is looking at our proposed system with the intent of doing something similar, and BC is intending on offering their producers so much per head to voluntarily age verify their calves.

[grassfarmer]

"The tracking for movement of cattle from pasture to pasture on one's own operation may be a requirement down the road, but not at this time" - I think this is what is what's referred to as scaremongering. Absolute nonsense, there is no possible need for it and no way it will happen. Still it'll maybe put people off the ALMS and keep the ABP in power a little longer.

[coppertop]

grassfermer, I am merely quoting the Deputy Minister. He was asked that direct question and his response was that in the future it will likely be a requirement.
Now, the logistics of it will be interesting, particularly since many ranchers still move their cattle from pasture to pasture with horses.

[grassfarmer]

I guess he must have been confused after all the hours of answering questions about age verification. I don't believe it for a minute.
As for being astute about age verification, I don't think so. How difficult can it be to understand a program that has been up and running for four years, has a minimal requirement of knowing when your first and last calf was born and then going to the number of operators prepared to enter the information for you for free. If you cant grasp that concept without further explanation maybe it is time to look for another career as I doubt you'd be swift enough to manage the other challenges of running a beef production operation successfully.

[smcgrath76]

GF - I agree that the age verfication process is pretty straightforward.

The tracking and future implications of COFFS requirements are more onerous.
I guess the AB gov has an obligation to offer age verfication services since they have made it a mandatory requirement. On the flip side by offering a free service it has also damaged some businesses that were doing age verification for a fee. A free service indicates to me that the service either has "no value" in the marketplace or a philosophical "big brother" type of approach.
It will be interesting to see where the shake out occurs between regulation and free enterprise.
All of this regulation does come as an expense. We can argue about the size of the expense, but it still costs time and money to do. If the program somehow raises the income above the level of the expense then it is a success, if not then it is just a huge PITA.
All the arguments will basically have to boil down to this point somewhere over the next few years.
If the program succeeds then great. If it does not I fail to see any probability that any of the regulatory costs will be rolled back. In this sense it is a bit of a gamble (notwithstanding what we are currently doing in this industry).
I still worry a lot about producers buggering up their cowherds with carcass data, but that is a whole topic for another thread.

[grassfarmer]

Sean, I don't think the AB gov has an obligation to offer age verification services since they have made it a mandatory requirement. It is hand holding to try and encourage backward producers to get it done. Absolutely, this affects the free enterprise decision of others to run businesses submitting producers information and that is wrong.