Canadians Fight Back

[kato]

Got this off ranchers.net

Web Posted Jul 16 2004 04:24 PM MDT

Threat of blockade latest anti-R-CALF salvo
Nanton - A group of ranchers and feedlot operators threatened Friday to prevent a shipment of cattle it believes belongs to an American from going to slaughter.


About six people were going to block the road from the Chinook feedlot, so that Cargill couldn't take the 125 cattle to its slaughterhouse.

Rick Pascal, who owns another feedlot, says the cattle are owned by a director of a U.S. lobby group that has been fighting to keep the border closed to Canadian cattle.

In April, Ranchers-Cattlemen Action Legal Fund, United Stockgrowers of America (R-CALF USA) successfully lobbied a Montana judge to block additional beef exports into the U.S. The U.S. Department of Agriculture had approved the wider scope of acceptable beef shipments.

R-CALF also opposes reopening the border to live cattle, arguing Canadian beef is unsafe.

Pascal says R-CALF shouldn't be able to profit from selling Alberta cattle whose prices are driven down by the mad cow crisis when it is actively working to keep the border closed.

The group says there are about 250 R-CALF-owned cattle at Chinook.

"These people are actively keeping Canadian beef from crossing the U.S. border," Mike Sears, with Chinook Feeders, said. "And on one hand they're saying to the American public that our beef is unsafe and unfit for the American public to consume.

"And on the other hand, they're up here buying cattle, trying to profit from that same situation. They're being fairly hypocritical, as far as we're concerned."

Cargill cancelled Friday's shipment from Chinook, but wouldn't say why.

Sears says the feedlots in the province are talking to each other about where they believe the R-CALF cattle are.

"We're going to do everything in our power from now on to make sure R-CALF cattle in Canada do not get killed," Pascal said. "If it means we've got to drive wherever we've got to, drive to blockade these cattle, that's what we're going to do."

If the cattle can't be slaughtered, the owner must continue to pay feedlot operators to care for and feed them.

The U.S. and 33 other countries closed their borders to Canadian beef May 20, 2003, after a single case of bovine spongiform encephalopathy was discovered in Alberta. While the United States began accepting some cuts of beef last August, they still won't allow shipments of live cattle.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture is in the process of determining whether it should be reopened to live cattle.

[kato]

Anybody know any more about this?

There was a speaker at the grazing tour we just attended who was talking about the number of cattle in Alberta owned by R-Calf members. Several fellows, whom someone here probably knows, (but I won't mention names), travelled around to the feedlots and took a census.

They came up with 30,000 head, of which 15,000 belonged to a fellow by the name of Pat Goggins.

He said some other things which I won't get into, yet, because it's to our benefit that our American neighbours don't read it, but let's just say this is latest turn of events is not a surprise at all.

[dalek]

Don't know much about the beef end, but I do know Americans now own a significant number of Holstein heifers being raised on contract in Ontario. One California farm bought nearly 600 at a single sale and now are paying $2 per head per day to raise them. Different situation than feedlots because we really need to get rid of the heifers to stay within quota, I know a lot of the heifer dealers are now stuck with heifers calving and no quota so after raising these heifers to 24ish months they're now offering them fresh as straight trades on open heifers and taking the last years expenses as a total loss.

[rsomer]

I think as an industry we have bigger fish to fry. If Americans bought Canadian feeders intending to profit when the border opened didn’t that support our industry and raise the price of feeder cattle at the time? These calves Pascal and Sears are blocking from market are Canadian born calves, what difference if they are owned by Americans or whoever. A Canadian producer got paid for them. Is Pascal unhappy that these Americans bid up the price of feeder calves at the time?

We are only a couple of months away from this falls calf run. We may be very glad for anyone, American or otherwise who is willing to buy these calves if the border doesn’t open first.

I do not support R-Calf and their protectionist ways, however this kind of action by Rick Pascal and others is not going to help anything. I believe our problem lies with the U.S. government who could open the border if they wanted to but they have taken their own sweet time in getting around to it. The USDA could have challenged the R-Calf injunction but the USDA chose not to saying they preferred to focus their attention on the comments and developing a final rule. That was last April, three months ago. I think the USDA is not being entirely honest here.

Later this month the U.S. and Japan finalize their discussion on beef trade with an announcement expected in early August. Once trade resumes between the U.S. and Japan, trade in live cattle with Canada will soon follow. Without the tacit support from the U.S. government, R-Calf will be then seen for what it is, an insignificant little group of self centered protectionists who won’t be able to stop our live cattle from going south.

I think Pascal and Sears would do better if they tried to block imports of American goods into Canada at the borders or demonstrated at distribution points for oil and gas and electricity destined for the U.S. That would have more impact.

[grassfarmer]

A few of us were talking about blockades recently and although it is not something I would be keen to do the time may come for it. In the UK bse fiasco the retailers were performing the kind of thieving that messrs Cargill and Tyson are at present and we got rather fed up with it. It was discovered that modern supermarkets rely on a very regular supply of groceries and if you interrupt this chain it is very effective. As most deliveries took place in the early hours of the morning a simple blockade of a few farm vehicles over an entrance road to a supermarket for about 5 hours totally disrupted the stores ability to stock their shelves. Later in the day shoppers start asking questions of the store when some of the shelves are bare. A few farmers can stand around outside and hand out some leaflets explaining the situation or talking to anyone interested. Despite farmers being less popular in the UK than here in Canada this operation always went down well with few consumers irate at the farmers. It is crucial that no violence is ever perpetrated and that police are not involved.
A possible would be to blockade meat leaving a killing plant but it would need to be done carefully so as to ensure animal welfare was not comprimised by blocking up animals entering the plant. As I say I don't think the time is here yet for such action but desperate times may need desperate actions.

[grassfarmer]

Don't know if I want to agree with Pascal and Sears or not, however bringing attention to these hypocritical a%#holes is a very good thing. Maybe, just maybe some of the people who support R Calf will see that they have rag tag self serving leadership. Like any other organization, some points that help, but in the case of RCalf, mostly short sighted selfish interests.

I say go for it Pascal and Sears. There is enough of us, and probably enough time in their lives as well, to run a little block play and work on the bigger picture at the same time.

[cowman]

Maybe I'm not thinking right here or something but how does Mike Sears come off calling the R-Calf guy a hypocrite? I mean wasn't he feeding this guys cattle for a profit?
The fact is this R-calf guy is probably going to lose money on these cattle, while Mike Sears made a profit? So who is the hypocrite here?
I have to agree with rsomer that this is not the way to go. Like we have so many customers for our calves that we can afford to alienate any of them? Sure those old R-calf boys are being hypocrites but they are also in the business of making money? And after all isn't that what business is all about? Bottom line...can you make a buck?
If one tries to look at R-calf from an American cattlemans view, you will see that they represent a whole lot of grassroots producers...and they should because they have consistently stood up for the little cow/calf guy and they have had a wee bit of success? I mean they have managed to keep the border closed and thus kept the price up for the cow/calf guy?
If we had a "R-Calf" up here would you support it? If we had an organization that kept out the imports so we could get a decent price for our product? That insisted all the kangaroo meat and other assorted garbage be labelled so the Canadian consumer knew when he was biting into that tough old grass beef, that it actually didn't come from a top Canadian steer? That continually lobbied against packer consolidation and control of the food chain?
R-calf is growing and it does have a lot of tacit support in the USA(or so I am led to believe)! Now they may be short sighted, but for that American rancher selling his calves at over $2/lb. this fall, I suspect they look pretty good? What has the NCBA done for them?

[jensend]

did mike sears know an r-calf member was placing cattle in his lot? not likely, i don't imagine there are too many r-calf membership lists floating around feedlot alley. this was a minor act that might qualify as civil disobedience and it was certainly peaceful and it may have gotten a message across. given r-calf's tactics and sleazy strategies this was a pretty polite way of giving notice that their business isn't appreciated. americans have owned cattle upo here for a century or more and it hasn't been a problem. there shouldn't be a problem with unmasking some of the ones we don't need. they certainly haven't been fazed by the endless ineffectual efforts of our official leadership. maybe these guys will sit up and take notice too.

[jensend]

We could sit back here and say we don't think these boys are doing the RIGHT thing, but,,,, they are doing something, and once again, it is getting some attention. What is really so wrong with a little civil disobedience as jensend calls it. I think you would have to dig pretty deep to find a way that this one might hurt the average Canadian producer. There are hyprocrites everywhere; in fact their is one right here typing this note from time to time. What is so wrong with pointing out hypocracy? I know it humbles me.

[kato]

R-Calf started out with the best of intentions. How it got so far off track is quite amazing.

I think that the ordinary cattle producers in the States should be told what kind of people they have elected to represent them.

It's not the people they thought they were.

Since a lot of the people who took out memberships in this organization only read the press releases put out by R-Calf, perhaps a bit of media attention to the whole story would be a good thing. We all know how much Canadian news gets shown in the States, so it'll probably take a 'stunt' to get their attention.

Besides, I bet the cattle they blockaded were the 40 cent ones that were floating around back in the winter.

[cakadu]

I don't know what actions are right or wrong as nothing really makes sense anymore. What might be beneficial to keep in mind is undertaking those actions that help us to keep moving forward.

What actions will benefit us? I don't think we need to move toward a situation where someone is crying "uncle", although having said that, we have been held hostage for so long now that one can't blame people for doing whatever comes to mind.

The main thing is we have to make progress forward; how that is accomplished is up for debate I'm sure.

[cowman]

jensend: You are probably right! How could he know? In fact I suspect a lot of this "buying cattle in Canada" was probably a hedge thing? Maybe the old R-calf boy never even knew what was going on?
Still it seems to me Mr. Sears is biting the hand that feeds him? And maybe that is the honorable thing to do if he never knew what the score was?
rpkaiser: Don't sweat the hypocrite thing! Hey if a R-calf member came offering me $2 for my calves I'd be all for it! Invite him in ask him how the wife and kids were and take him out for a steak dinner(Alberta beef!)! I guess I would outshame you by nine yards on hypocricy! Hey we all have to do what we have to do to survive, right?

[greybeard]

In fact,it was probably a no-lose deal.If he bought the calves if Feb. when the market was in panic and some were running out of feed,many calves sold for less than $500. There was no real "market price" at that time.Even at todays prices thats at least $3 a day gain on 100 day calves. If the border opens he wins big.

[ALICIA]

I have to agree, right now Id doesn't much mater who buys, just as long as some one buys because my greatest fear is that I'll have to many and can't get rid of the excess and they will all die of starvation, or I have to get someone in to kill some so that I can feed the once I want to keep.
As I see thing, anyone that is buying cattle is taking a great risk, and winter is coming.

[cowman]

I wonder how many other Americans(not R-calf members)also own cattle up here? And I hope they don't get painted with the same brush? We really don't need to chase off our customers.
It's like the deal where the American farmers had their truck vandalized...I doubt they were back for the next sale? Which is fine and dandy if you are the guy looking for a cheap deal at the sale, but not so good if it is your sale?
You purebred guys want to sell bulls into the USA someday when the border opens? Then I would think you wouldn't want to PO your best customers?
Perhaps Rick Pascal got sick of sitting in the mart being outbid by Americans! Maybe these cattle are actually making a profit for someone? But you know, whoever it was, they had to take a chance and put up their hand...I would suggest that their money is as good as anyones? And there is no law saying they can't buy and sell here is there?