Amazing Letter to Editor Wasted Meat

[Kathy]

This Letter to the Editor was submitted to the Alberta Farmer by Neil Peacock. The first time I read it (outloud to a friend of mine), I admit I cried.

This is how I feel about taking care of our animals also. We have a duty to them, and we have a responsibility to not let their lives be wasted. The carcasses dumped in the landfill at Brooks were tested for ecoli and the results were negative - this was not "recalled" potentially tainted meat"... It is a disgrace to see happen in this day and age.


LTE

On the morning of Oct. 22, I
woke up, and on my favourite
TV news channel the first thing I
saw was the story on the landfill
at Brooks, Alberta and the truckloads
of meat being buried there.
My first reaction was shock
as to what a million pounds of
beef is in terms of volume. Then
it brought a tear to my eyes as I
realized what it really meant. It
meant that nearly 1,333 head of
cattle were wasted, and some of
those wasted animals could have
been ones that I raised.

As a rancher I have a social
contract with my animals. I provide
feed, water and shelter to
them and in turn they provide
their young to feed Canadians.
As part of the contract I am
to be humane to them, not to
abuse them or mistreat them, to
care for them if they are ill, to
provide assistance if they need
it during birth and above all,
to ensure their young are cared
for and that their short lives are
not wasted.

We have a moral responsibility
to ensure we do not mistreat
or waste these animals.
They deserve better. Canadians
must get involved and demand
accountability for this wanton
waste and demand our food system
be restructured so that no
more XL’s occur. Write your MLA,
MPP, MP and county and city
councilors and demand change
— and demand to be part of that
change. And yes please light a
candle and place it in your window
for those 1,333 wasted lives.

Neil Peacock
NFU board member
Cattle Rancher
Sexsmith, Alta.

[kato]

Well said, and very true.

This is becoming a pattern in our lives, isn't it? First, negligence. Then over reaction. Then waste. And then comes draconian measures that cost a lot of money, and still don't prevent future problems.

It was true on all points for BSE, and now this e coli issue. And it's also true that it will be us that pays for it all, without any of it being our fault. We paid dearly for the BSE fiasco. Somehow a way will be found for us to foot the bill on this one too.

IMHO, to sum up the state of mind of a lot of cattle producers, it would be safe to say they feel let down, unappreciated and disrespected. Just like those wasted cattle.

[riders2010]

That was the only thing done that actually made sense given the situation. Would you really have presented that meat to your kids after hearing that there was shit everywhere on the other meat? It was done to install confidence in the consumer that the extreme would be done to insure the meat is now safe.

but that was the first step I really am not that convinced that that meat actually was safe as greedy as they all are can't see them throwing out good meat.

But the question is are people confident in the way it was handled and the way food safety is in Canada as a whole. I would say confidence has dropped off greatly in the aspect of big mass production facilities hiring anyone from anywhere etc etc etc. But I will say local butchershops at least around here are thriving so at least that is good.

[Happytrails]

The economics of waste are over due to be revised IMHO. Economists somehow think that the faster we waste scarce resources the stronger our economy is. How can that go anywhere good? BTW when rider thinks it is ok look out.

[riders2010]

I think it is a disgrace that it had to come to doing that. But in that situation for the good of the industry it had to be done. As I said also not convinced that that stuff was safe.

Yes resources are being wasted bigtime, take drinking water being destroyed for oil production as another example of something headed for a major disaster. But when you have govs in power that the only goal is the short sited money factor you are going to have long term problems.

Can't understand why some cowboys are not demanding that a real change be made to the other end of things once the cattle leave their yard. People are not confident in the system. You wouldn't have this waste if the system slowed down and produced a good clean product. But according to the experts if you did everything right and produced a good clean product you would be loosing money, am I right or am I wrong? So how does that instill confidence in the system?

The fact is the ag industry and not just beef has done a piss poor job of showing the value of producing a good product. People are willing to pay 50,000 for a car but complain about a 2.00 hamburger. Why is that?

[smcgrath76]

I agree riders2010. We do waste a ton of resources. Look at all the grazing resource "wasted" at the cow/calf level through lack
of management. It would be nice to see changes further up the chain, but in reality it isn't going to happen if calves continue to
be sold at auction after weaning. At that point you have taken your money and said "I'm out, tag you're it". No skin in the game
means you no say in the rules of the game.

[grassfarmer]

"I think it is a disgrace that it had to come to doing
that. But in that situation for the good of the industry
it had to be done"

I think it had to be done too - but not so much for
the "good of the industry" - it was business and it
doesn't matter if it was deemed safe or not. Who
would have bought this product that was under a
cloud of suspicion? Which retail outlet would buy it
and then risk their customers going elsewhere if they
knew it was produced by XL at the same time as the
recall was going on.

[ASRG]

This product could have been used. It could have been used in a cooked manufactured beef process, it could have gone into pet food. The "send it to the landfill" was all about PR.
The product that they trashed was actually all tested as ecoli free, there was nothing wrong with that product....probably much safer than the stuff sitting on the store shelves that hadn't been tested! Again it was PR to calm the hysteria created in a large part by the media?

Nobody died, a few got sick....probably fewer that got sick from ecoli on vegetables at the same time.....probably less that got sick from eating chicken at the same time!

The XL ecoli scare had it's 15 minutes of fame....big news at the time, but no big deal a couple of weeks later!

[Kathy]

We have a government that finds "throwing away" the meat to be a better solution than sending it to a pet food processor (which would see it heated to well above the temperature required to destroy the ecoli bacteria).

Once again, I must stress that whole carcasses that tested negative where thrown out! Either testing for ecoli is trusted or it is not trusted. Once the plant was cleaned and the trial runs showed no ecoli contanimation from the equipment - the product should have been allowed for sale (even if just for pet food).

Please keep in mind that the carcasses where not contaminated, the processing equipment was.

PR was mishandled and mostly misrepresentative of the facts. CFIA did not give JBS management the option to sell the untainted meat to anyone/they actually denied this option - even for dog food.

The fact is public perception seems more important in this situation than fact, yet, public perception of our Confined Feeding Operations bears no effect on our industry. While JBS could afford to throw away the meat - since there was no possible means of recouping losses via a sale,- the feedlot operators continue to manage their systems in a way that does not reflect well with many consumers (bigger is better/economies of scale etc.) Sadly this is the present nature of our industry and most others. Change will take a monumental shift in society, especially since inflation has deteriorated our dollars purchasing power.

[grassfarmer]

I guess I'm a bit blase about the alleged 1333 cattle
wasted in this instance.
I believe the figure for the number of over thirty
month cattle incinerated in the UK between 1996 and
2006 was around 8.5 million. The whole carcasses
incinerated where the same risk is being addressed
by specified offal removal in Canada.
There has been a lot of waste but what can the
primary producer like me do about it?