someone tell me

[CattleAnnie]

Good news Cattleannie.
Every individual person (at least 10) that I have spoke with in ABP is in favour of Testing for new and expanded export market. As individual producers, I would expect that they would have to be extremely disconnected to the real world not to be.
This is however, a group in general, led to believe that there are no new markets for export even if we do test.
Thorlackson and Haney with the CBEF are finally starting to talk about more and new export markets, and have not dicounted the notion of testing for those markets if the need arises.

I beleive that time is turning the tide. This lengthened border opening process is beginning to get to the Industry leaders, and I can see a groundswell of support for testing.

Establishing new off-continent markets for our beef is the best long term solution I can see. The only Americans that are pushing for the border to open are those that see opportunity for America,,,,,not the Canadian Rancher!
This is our problem, and we need to find our own solutions. I only wish we had half a dozen proposal's as far along as that of the Peace country folks.

[kato]

Rancher's Choice in Manitoba is still in progress. The city of Dauphin has decided that it really wants the plant, and is going to help in whatever way they can.

The MCPA came out quite a while ago in favour of testing, and our provincial government seems open to the idea too.

Our friends down south really don't want to hear all this, either.

[cropduster]

Randy,how are Thorlakson and Haney paid by their organization? Per diem or annual?Is this public info? Are their wages paid by checkoff?

[grassfarmer]

emrald1, Last I heard the Ranchers Own intend to start building in September - a month later than they hoped originally but I am still waiting to get official word on this through a shareholders notice. This was tied up at the lawyers office as of three weeks ago. Time will tell - once the snow flies we will know who will be in business by next spring.

[grassfarmer]

Thanks grassfarmer. It may be a long winter for a lot of folks in the beef industry by the sound of things .

[BFW]

Don, unfortunately (fortunately?)I am not as close to the politics of the BSE situation as I was earlier on. However from what I can gather I think the official position on testing is that we don't need to do it which happens to be the position of the Alberta gov't so you can read in to that what you want. Personally, I don't think whether we test or not is the issue at the moment although I believe that it is wrong that private companies are being blocked from doing it if they believe that it will open some new markets for them. I believe our focus as industry should be on increasing processing capacity and marketing the production from this plants effectively and profitably and in the meantime finding a way to alleviate some of the financial presssures that all are experiencing until this new capacity comes on line.

[cakadu]

Listened to Neil Peacock of Tender Beef this afternoon and it is definitely a go for Dawson Creek. He said that the news articles had that part right. What the articles did not have right was that the testing was being done for markets in Korea, Japan and even the U.S.

The testing is being done for animals for domestic consumption ONLY at this time.

Please help me to understand how this is going to help us in the long run. They are gearing up a plant to provide domestic supply, when we are already extremely oversupplied in our own market. Another thing that I can't figure is that the Canadian consumer has not asked for 100% testing to any degree that I'm aware of, but some of you may be more aware of that than I.

Obviously it will be a federal plant because he talks about going east/west and you need a federal kill for that.

I am not suggesting this is wrong, just having a bit of a hard time understanding why they wouldn't be looking for new markets before this plant is even operational. I can't quite see how having more product available for the Canadian consumer will help the producer much either - beyond helping to diminish the backlog that currently exists and is growing day by day. I don't know how much more the consumer is prepared to consume beef beyond the current per capita consumption.

[dsinclair]

emerald 1, We are very much involved with Ranchers Own. I am not sure about the ground breaking in September, but we are beginning our final push for members later in September. All the necessary forms and legalities have been accomplished, now we need to build the producer numbers. The deadline for becoming a member is Novemnber 30, 2004, according to the website ranchersown.ca.
Personally, I think it's a great opportunity. $500 gets you through the door, the other $4500 can be written off against your cattle as they are brought in. There are alot of details to be worked out yet, like feeding, marshalling yards... but at least there seems to be a small light at the end of the tunnel. I would encourage all producers to take advantage of the opportunity, if you own one cow, or hundreds.
What I can't believe about the whole CCA proposal and all the talk by our so-called industry leaders is the amount of support they are throwing behind the Big 3 packing plants. They are all American owned, some more than others, but American none-the-less, and our leaders are just so excited about their expansion. Fats dropped $.10 a pound when Lakeside announced its expansion. A quick logical deduction tells you who was paying for the construction, and it's not their investors. Why aren't we getting more support for our cooperatives?
Last we heard from the Peace was that their plant was having difficulties finding a good spot to build and with funding. They were then going to go to Dawson, and get some money from the BC gov't, but they're tapped because of the fires. It looks like they may join forces with Ranchers Own.
The other plant near Calgary ran into trouble too. Calgary doesn't want them now. Last we heard they were looking at Vulcan, but then they have to bus their people, added expense.
Did you hear the best one so far? (I think anyway). A number of slaughter plants in the USA are closing their doors. One put 5000 employees on the food line. So some brainchild came up with the idea that we should ship all of our excess cattle to these plants, have them slaughtered, then ship back the hides and everything. That way it would keep the US people working. Come On Now!!!
Anybody know where we can sell 28, 1200 pound steers for more than $.50 a pound?

[jensend]

bfw - i agree we need more capacity as soon as possible. i just hope we adopt a plan that is far reaching enough to give us future opportunities. i hate the idea of a mass cull. if we start shrinking an industry it can turn into an implosion. freedom to test is key to the future of the industry - it gives us more options and we're feeling the effects of limited options now.

cakadu - if the plants doing testing can only do it for domestic consumption cfia is only allowing the testing in order to get a large enough number to get up to oie required sample numbers. this way the cfia has us paying for their program. hopefully the pressure to export will build enough that cfia can shake loose from its 'sound science' arrogance and get out of our way.

[kato]

from Japantoday.com

Wednesday, September 1, 2004 at 03:39 JST
TOKYO — A group of legislators from the Democratic Party of Japan, the country's main opposition party, rapped U.S. measures against mad cow disease Tuesday as inadequate to ensure the safety of U.S. beef, whose import resumption Washington is seeking.

"Japan should not restart imports unless the United States consents to adopt blanket testing for all cows and remove certain dangerous body parts" believed to carry high concentrations of prions, the group said in a report. (Kyodo News

This is not an easy market to arm twist into taking anything on terms other than their own. The USDA is going to drag this out for a long long time.

[grassfarmer]

dsinclair, I looked back at RanchersOwn website and I see they now want $500 up front and the remaining $4500 PLUS INTEREST will be taken off the value of cows we send them. I'm wondering what rate of interest they are now asking for and why this wasn't in the earlier printed material.

[dsinclair]

grassfarmer, as far as I know the interest will be the going rate. The NGC will have to take a loan on your $4500, to cover it until it's paid up. So, I think that makes sense. It has been brought up at meetings we have attended. If you want more clarification, or information, I suggest you attend a meeting. There's nothing like getting it from the horse's mouth!! They are suppose to have some dates on the web site.