First Thing Monday Morning

[Joe-2]

Hi all,I'm new to this site.I've followed it for a while but never posted.I have a cow/calf/background operation in Mb.
I'm not only tired of this "the border will open soon" BS, I just can't afford to play that game anymore.
Monday morning I am going to start screaming long and loud to anyone that will listen,that we need to start testing 100% for BSE. I'm talking phone calls to MLA's,MP's,municipal leaders,media,you name it!!
ENOUGH ALREADY. To hell with common sense.Perception is where it's at!!!

[rusty1]

I understand you're frustration and you're pretty close to right about perseption. I just trust that as you do you're ranting that you include a "locked down" policy world wide as to what will happen when another is found. OK

By the way welcome to the form.

[whiteface]

Joe, I'm with you 1000%, whatever backup you require, I'm there, of course you all know that. I think everybody knows where I stand and that I intend to follow through as much as I'm able with my small herd but signifigant contributions to the purebred industry. Welcome to forum from myself as well and rusty, if I may ask, what do you mean "locked out?"
We produce, we test, for sure we find more, I guarantee that more than 2 cows were originally infected and with advanced meat recovery machines, infected cows were, at the very least, fed to chickens and pigs if not cows themselves through our lax policing of the rendering/feed industries and so the disease quietly gets past us. For sure, we'll find more, not many, but more and then it's a non isuue because we know where they are, not in the feed...for people or animals. Then all this funding to support Bush's re-election, saving the farmers, whatever, can go to finding out about these new Transmissable spongiforms that surely will find their way into every species in one way or another...Scrapie, chronic wasting, BSE, really needs to be dealt with if we are in fact talking about food safety and consumer confidence otherwise we're just as guilty preaching beefs safe, open the border, save our livlihoods. Let's deal with this on the ground floor. Test our cattle, open our markets, save our buts (both our livlihoods and our health) I really think I'm right here - I mean tell me if I'm out to lunch guys, do you see a permanent lock out when we find another case? Creekstone claims to have a buyer for their tested meat and I don't see anyone spending the amount of money it took them to open a lab facility to test if they weren't pretty darn confident they'd have a market.

[kato]

Welcome, Joe. From another Manitoba producer. (You know, one of the ones with no slaughter facilities? LOL)

I wrote to Roseanne back in January, and guess what? I got an answer! Yesterday!

You might as well start at the top. Roseanne is out of ideas.

Prime Minister Paul Martin

email pm@pm.gc.ca

I've sent him my email, and I hope more people do the same.

You know, it's funny, but if a company decided to test all it's beef for e-coli before sale they would be applauded. Why is BSE any different? Could it be that there is no political agenda attached to e-coli?

I hate to be cynical, but the way I see it, if we are willing to cough up an extra 30 dollars to test the cattle and get a better return, why are we prevented?

Could it be that WE would be the only ones to benefit? After all, the packers are doing very nicely right now, thankyou. Why on earth would they want anything to change?

The threat to test would do a lot toward making our neighbours to the south sit up and listen. They are going through the same debate right now.

As we saw on Dec.20, it ain't real until it happens in the States.

[rsomer]

I am curious what benefit we would gain by testing 100%.

Correct me if I am wrong but our packers are killing all they can right now. The reality is there is a good market today, at this very moment, for everything we can get dead. Our problem is not lack of markets due to not testing 100% but lack of access to packers and competition.

We don't need 100% testing, we need to get our animals to a packing plant. That extra packing plant capacity is sitting idle in the U.S. waiting for our live calves to move across the border.

If you can't afford to play the 'border will open soon game' there are others that will buy your cattle and play that game for you. And when the border opens they will get well paid. A lot of those playing the 'border will open soon game' right now are Americans. You can figure out for yourself if they know what they are doing.

[topper]

Rsomer makes a good point. Without increased kill capacity testing will do us no good at all. We need to pressure our leaders to increase our slaughter capacity and once thats done maybe then testing could be an option!

[cakadu]

Always great to see someone new taking the plunge and getting their feet wet. Welcome aboard.

Don't forget along with the slaughter capacity will have to come the storage capacity to wait for test results, if testing was approved.

Were my eyes playing tricks on me or did I see somewhere (maybe even in the newsroom here on this site) that the chief vet in this province said he would say no to 100% testing as it wasn't warranted?

[blackjack]

rsomer ... like kato says if we test for ecoli whats the big deal if they test for BSE! Is it not true the packers already had to make changes to take out the parts of the animal that was high risk. What's the big deal if we go the one more step and test? Like so many other ranchers I talk to,they too are getting very tired of the sound science excuse the politicians have been using ! rsomer ... perception from the US ranchers is that Canada has BSE and they don't. Why not as Canadians take the bull by the horns and get our own BSE tested branded beef !

[Joe-2]

Well of course 100% testing is unwarranted.So was closing the border.So is losing more equity.So is spending $450 to feed a cow that is worth nothing.
What I'm getting at is our strategy of doing nothing isn't working.More slaughter capacity is easier said than done and takes time.Massive cull?? Out of the question.
That leaves getting the border open to live cattle.
Let's put some pressure on the elected or wannabe elected.Demand testing and let them explain to consumers why they can't have it.Maybe it could become an election issue.Why not throw a fit? It works for Quebec and it beats sitting around slowly going broke.I suspect that just the threat of testing everything might rattle enough chains.
I've only been at this 4 years so I'm probably on thinner ice than some of the more established guys.Time IS a factor.

[topper]

Joe- Lets suppose for the sake of arguement that Speller announced this morning that we can test 100% of our cattle. What would that accomplish? Our exisiting packers are already exporting all the beef they can put through their plants and our domestic markets are eating more beef than ever so where could we sell all this tested beef? Just curious to see what you think 100% testing would lead to.