Food Safety

[cakadu]

If the beef industry is the best we can do in this country, then should we be doing it at all - beyond what we need for domestic consumption?

Like it or not, we are going to be getting competition for our beef in the coming years from countries like South America. There are growing numbers who like the grass fed beef and you talk to chefs in high end restaurants and they like it.

The biggest problem with grass fed beef is consistency - i.e. getting consistent product time after time. If those in the grass fed business get that down - I'm sure it will increase.

One other thing to ponder is the fact that grass fed beef doesn't normally get manufactured feeds, so the risk of TSE's is limited according to current research.

More and more the current state of affairs is pointing to the fact that we have to take a long hard look at what we have been doing and perhaps make some difficult decisions.

[rsomer]

"More and more the current state of affairs is pointing to the fact that we have to take a long hard look at what we have been doing and perhaps make some difficult decisions." I couldn't agree more. I remember when I was a kid Dad was finishing calves on real good alfalfa brome pasture with grain added. Bloat wasn't a problem and the calves did well as I remember. I think there is room for innovation in the beef business, the big feedlots do not have all the answers.
Australia is rather unique in that they produce beef more than one way. Yes they have the grass fed product but the people we know from Australia have farms much like ours in Alberta and fatten their Murray Grey calves on barley. This meat would be every bit as good as the Canadian product.
I look to Australia as the world leader in the international beef trade. Their marketing is first rate and we are far behind. That doesn't change the fact that the key to their success is first getting their foot in the door of countries like Japan by negotiating trade access for their products. They are even better at this then they are at marketing beef. Canadians should not be fooled into thinking that if we just pick up our marketing and promotion and yes even test if that is what the Japanese want, that we will gain any marketshare from Australia and the U.S. unless we as a nation are first prepared to accept more Japanese imports. I don't believe we are in that position because of our NAFTA commitments.

[cowman]

Now it would seem to me we have quite a few Japanese imports. A whole lot of toyotas and Sonys around but I understand we have a small population. I do not know how many people are in Australia?
I truly fail to understand how Australia can export meat into Canada and compete with our 12 cent cows? I would think transporting it would pretty well eat up that 12 cents. Ocean liner and then freight to the golden triangle. I suspect it could be a deal something like the American corn coming into Alberta last year. A totally unrealistic price while the Australian government subsidizes through the back door.
Either that or the Toronto deli boys are not paying the 12 cents for Canadian cows but are getting screwed by the packers like everyone else?
The idea of grass fed beef is a good one but it can never be much more than a niche market here in Canada. Where is all this grass going to come from? In case you haven't noticed we are pretty well maxxed out right now? I guess it could happen if we reduced the cowherd about 50% or maybe more?
Why we could go back to 3 year old steers just like Pat Burns had back in the early years of the century! Will it happen? I don't think so.

[cakadu]

I wouldn't quote me on it, but there are about 17 million people in Australia.

What would happen if we converted the marginal lands to perennial cover? If, as stated in another thread, it is hard to make money at barley and/or other cereal crops, then wouldn't it make sense to convert the land? Let's face it, there is a bunch of land that was put into grain production that should never have been.

We keep asking the land to do things that it is not meant to do i.e. grow grain. If the land is left to do as it should i.e. be grass, then it does just fine under proper management.

I can't begin to tell you the amount of land around me that was taken out of perennial cover in the last few years. Has it been profitable? I don't know if it has been all that great for those who converted. I don't think the drought helped at all and the grasshoppers sure cleaned up a great deal.

At some stage we have to quit applying all these chemicals and such to the land because it is not economically viable, nor is it sustainable.

[rodb]

Cakadu

Hope you are managing to keep warm.

There are a lot of things that we do that are not sustainable but the alternatives are not either. If we went back to growing with out chemical inputs be they fertilizers, pesticides or for that matter fossil fuels we would drastically reduce our surplus of food stocks and drive the price up.

Would we see all the people that are presently employed in the ag service sector pick up a hoe and a rake or would they try and sustain themselves by other means.

Farmers (most) will always manage land to its upmost potential. If prices rise to certain levels, production systems will be changed to take advantage of those changes. To protect marginal lands, prices of grain and other annual crops have to stay low. Subsidies distorted these patterns and the worst one in Canada was the Crow payment that encouraged farmers to break prairie soils, also the CWB and its acreage quota system that allowed for delivery on summerfallowed land. These policies kept marginal acres from being returned to nature prairies. We could go back to the way my grandfather farmed but we would also lose our 36 hour work week as we would not be able to make enough in that time to buy our food or the RV's that so amny people cherish in todays society.

[cowman]

Junk land is junk land. If it won't grow grain it won't do much better with grass. Should it ever have been broken? No but then how much grass did it produce anyway? Go out to eastern Alberta and see the crops! Dismal...then look at the pastures...dismal.
When the Crow was killed we saw a lot of land go into grass, and some of it very good land! This was not surprizing as how can you ship a product to an export position when that takes up to 50% of the price? So instead we basically converted to grass and continued to export through cattle. Which worked just dandy until the Americans closed the border. The amazing thing was most of Saskatchewan stayed in grain even though the Crow benifitted them the most!
We produce too much food in this country for our own use. We need to export...period. The problem is to do that we need to compete with the world. And we can't do that! We could be the most efficient producers and we can't compete because we don't have the money to match the European and American subsidy programs.
What is the solution? Rip up the grass and plant more grain? Plant more grass? Neither one seems to be working all that well.