Japan Market To USA

[crossfield_beef]

The CTV news station on the sattelite mentioned the Japan-USA Market has reopened. I confirmed this on
the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association website http://www.beef.org.
Check the news link.
I would think that this is a positive sign for our industry in that packing plants are now closing down in the US because of a lack of cattle and no margins. Increased export demand will mean that the US will need to import our cattle to feed and sell to Japan.

[kpb]

Didn't our industry leaders keep telling us that the Japanese would consider Canada and the U.S. as one North American Market??? I see no mention of Japan opening their borders to us. Oh well, just another example of how pathetic our industry has become--we'll wait anxiously for the U.S. to throw us a few crumbs now that they got the Japanese market re-opened. I have one question for everyone--how does opening foreign markets benefit the individual cow-calf producer? I know it means we can have more markets to ship more animals but how does it benefit the individual producer's profitability to produce more animals at a lower price and dependent on foreign markets. It benefits the packers by having more animals on supply hence lower prices, it benefits the cattle industry groups through more check-offs but I don't see how it helps my profitability. It seems to me that LESS cattle produced equals higher prices. For an example, look at the dairy industry.

[cowman]

Well you're not supposed to mention anything so socialist as supply management on here...don't you know we are all rugged individual capitalists? Now mind you that doesn't stop us from getting our hand out at every opportunity!
Every business in the world operates under some sort of "supply management" except us dummies in agriculture. For example if Ford can't sell its trucks at a set price do they immediately start to make more trucks or do they cut production? Do they quietly sit by and let Toyota bring in more trucks or do they lobby the government to put higher taxes on the Toyotas(thus increasing local demand for Fords)?
Supply management got a bad name because of the qouta system? Not because it wasn't a good idea but because the government allowed Quota to become a commodity?
It still always come down to supply and demand. We have an over supply and we always will, because if the demand is too great prices will rise and our wonderful government will bring in some more supply to keep the price down! Now mind you they don't do that for cars or planes or just about anything that is produced west of Manitoba! Well I shouldn't say that as the farmer in the east is getting screwed just as much as us! Maybe I should have said for the really "important" industries? Like the ones who give the donations and kickbacks to the politicians?
And if any "incorrect" industry gets a wee bit of an advantage then there is always things like the NEP or Kyota to put them in their place and take all the profit out of it! Nice country we live in?

[kpb]

Cowman, thanks for replying to my thread and, also, for expanding on my thoughts. I agree with you completely that it is against the nature of ranchers to consider supply management. And before anyone thinks I am too pink I would like to assure you that I used to also believe in unbridled free enterprise. I have lived through the ups and downs of ranching just like everyone else and just considered them part of the capitalist market. But in the last year or so it has occurred to me, as I watched many of my ranching or hog farm neighbours have to get off-farm jobs just to support themselves, that the words "free enterprise" in agriculture were used to control the farmers and ranchers and make them accept all sorts of anti-free enterprise activity. A monopoly by the packers is not free enterprise, the U.S. shutting off their markets to us is not free enterprise, our government refusing to allow BSE testing in specific packing plants when requested is not free enterprise. It seems to me that free enterprise only applies to the individual when the companies and people with power want to keep them in line. Then the talk is all about competition and capitalism. And we buy right into it. Which government is doing something about packer-owned feeder cattle? Is that free enterprise? Until we have a supply management system in our industry we will always be suckers to the powerful industry interests. One more thought, when was the last time anyone saw a dairy farmer or egg producer having to work off the farm to support his family?

[cakadu]

Which of the beef producers are going to be the ones to go? Supply management works only in a domestic system, so there would need to be a mass exodus of producers because the supply far outstrips the demand for beef domestically, witness the huge numbers in limbo right now.

Depending on which figures you look at we export between 60 to 80% of our production, which includes things like the eyes, tongues, and whatever other parts you would care to mention. What are we going to do with all of those because we certainly don't use them to any extent.

If we are going to keep producing cattle at the numbers that we are at, or maybe more realistically pre-BSE, then we should be looking for other markets on our own that will help to spread the risk around i.e. risk management.

I am truly at a loss to understand why we seem to insist on giving the value that we as producers should be getting, away to somebody else? This is where we need to shift from a production focus to one of a consumer or market focus. If we want to capture more value in our own pockets, then doesn't it stand to reason that we need to do things that will enable us to do that?

After reading these threads for the last 18 months, the one thing that has stood out loud and clear is that people want to be more in charge of their own destiny. Ensuring that the value stays with us is one way to do that.

I have to believe that we have not been holding our collective breaths for the last 18 months only to be waiting and wishing for the US border to open.

What will it take to help us not rely so heavily on a market that is so very, very fickle to us?