NMA up to bat for Canadian Beef

[cowman]

Actually Linda: at that time there was not enough beef to go around once Cargill entered the scene. Only later, with the death of the CROW, did we become a net exporter of beef?
The only consolidation was the fact that Canada Packers was finishing off Lakeside and probably XL? The Alberta government was busy as bees propping up both Lakeside and XL? XL Calgary was the ultimate dog...and yet it survives today(XL Moosejaw was a CP plant) while excellent modern plants in Lethbridge and Red Deer were mothballed?
Your wonderful Tory government at work. picking the winners and losers? In the big picture the only one to blame for the packer situation is Getty and Klein...and probably in the backroom...Peter Lougheed!
The ghosts come back to haunt them...?

[rusty1]

There is one more to blame cowman. Some fingures point back at us.
As producers we were making (arguably) a comfortable enough living in a commodity market just plum happy and content when we saw the tail lights of the last liner leaving the yard, never to remember those calves again. (once the check was cashed).
We won't make things change until we're mad enough. Are you mad enough yet?

[farmers_son]

By definition, a new market entrant that "flies under the radar" by not competing with the established industry leaders will not help our fat cattle prices. Because to do so would offer competition. Unfortunately, the needed competition in our industry lies south of the border. It goes without saying that given the record high prices in the United States that once that market can access our live calves we will have competition. That competition comes not only from the fact that there are more large players south of the border who wish to buy our live cattle but a regulatory environment that precludes some of the outrageous price manipulation that we see in Canada.

Cowman is correct to point out the inherent challenges in starting a new packing plant venture. This is something that all should go into with their eyes wide open. Still the bigger they are the harder they fall and no company is invincible. I firmly believe that Canada will expand its packing industry and opportunities do exist for producer owned packing plants with the right management, business plan and financial structure.

I hear the calls for our border to remain closed as a means of stimulating a domestic packing plant industry. Don’t know if we could do that even if we wanted to. Stopping trade is like stopping the tide, difficult at best and eventually whatever barriers are put up are washed out to sea. Any potential new plants conducting a SWOT analysis should anticipate on having to compete in a reunited North American marketplace as a potential threat. Maybe the successful model will involve many small plants as cakadu suggests yet I would be concerned about their ability to develop and maintain competitive brands without sufficient scale. Even if successful they would soon be bought out by the established players. Rusty1’s vision of avoiding the commodity market by selling a value added product certainly is attractive however and I hope it is achieved. Sounds like Rusty1 is excited about the possibilities that really do exist out there and good for you. A word of advice if I may... Make sure to have fun in your new venture, life is too short not to!! Mad will only take you so far.

[cakadu]

Just because you fly under the radar of the big boys, doesn't mean that you can't be very successful with branded product(s). I've finally remembered the name of the company - it is Supreme Packing Company. This is a company which was essentially staying below the radar of the Hormel?s and the Smithfield?s and probably the Maple Leaf?s of the world by processing free-range, natural, organic hogs. Theywere going to process Berkshire hogs designed for the Japanese market. They?ll process Duroc ? they?ll process light hogs and they?re doing very, very well.

Now, in light of the problems in the hog industry, they might not be doing as well as they were, but at the time I heard this fellow speak about this company, they were doing as good or better than the big players based on operating margins.

Bigger is not necessarily better.

[CattleAnnie]

.R-CALF Throws It's Pitch.


R-CALF fires back at NMA over Candian cattle

by Pete Hisey on 9/21/04 for Meatingplace.com




The Ranchers-Cattlemen Action Legal Fund (R-CALF) has responded to an attempt by the National Meat Association to interject itself into an ongoing dispute with the Agriculture Department over cattle imports from Canada.

R-CALF represents a vocal group of Western cattle ranchers, while NMA represents meatpackers and processors and related companies.

NMA asked to be named an intervenor in a federal case R-CALF has launched against the USDA (See NMA seeks status in Canadian beef import case, Meatingplace.com, Sept. 17, 2004.), winning an injunction against reopening the Canadian border to cattle until its case can be heard in court. NMA, in a statement, noted that the import ban is creating a shortage of cattle for the processing industry, causing layoffs and threatening earnings.

R-CALF responded late Friday that with much of the U.S. beef export market shut down, and prices at wholesale, if not retail, trending downward, there are plenty of cattle in the U.S. as is.

Both sides accuse the other of playing politics to advance their own interests, with NMA calling the cattlemen protectionists, and the cattlemen charging that the processors are endangering the entire industry by relaxing restrictions meant to keep cattle infected with BSE out of the U.S. food system.

Take care.