Stressed-Out Cowboy When:

[SASH]

It's not a matter of one producer standing on another producer. its a matter of producers working together. I, maybe, have a different point of view than some of those who never left the farm. My parents had registered Herefords when I was growing up. I left the farm and started a business in landscaping and excavation. If you wanted me to work for you, you paid what I asked or you didn't get me working for you. It just seems ludicrous to me that if I'm asking for $100/hr for a man and a machine and you are only offering $50/hr that I would work for you. It wouldn't even cover my fuel and maintenance let alone any profit but that's exactly how the cattle industry in Canada seems to work. Its nice to say that you like the lifestyle but I don't think I should have to pay for the privilege of checking my cows at 3 AM or starting my tractor when its 30 below. We have a commodity that the consumer wants, why can't we get a fair price. Its because of all these producers who accept these lowball prices. We've got to get everybody on the same page and stop undercutting each other so that we can make this into a profitable enterprise.

[gwf]

How would a marketing board change the price you receive for your cattle?

[SASH]

If we had a marketing board, all of the cattle in Canada would be funnelled through it. If the price offered wouldn't cover the producers costs and a reasonable profit, no cattle would be sold. That's why it would be important to have some producer owned plants along with this idea. This would take away all the undercutting and make sure that we weren't running at a loss. This is the same way any corporation runs. We set the price, we control production and marketing and eventually if we get really good we can integrate everything right from birth through feeding, slaughtering and distribution. We eliminate as many middle men as possible and keep those profits for ourselves. This is exactly what Maple Leaf does with its pork but we have to grab the bull by the horns and get this thing under producer control.

[BFW]

Sash, just wondering if you have thought through how this marketing board would determine how to price all the different types, weights,etc. of cattle and how would the flow of cattle to market be controlled?

[gwf]

SASH:
You indicated that if the Board did not like the price offered; the cattle would not be sold. Is that different than the present system. If we don't like the prices, we don't sell them. Or, do you think that a producer owned plant would just pay what you felt you needed?

[SASH]

The marketing board would send cattle to market in an orderly fashion based on predicted demand. My personal preference would be to see the cow-calf producer get a basic price per pound at the time of shipping and a bonus cheque at the time of slaughter depending on how the animal grades. This would motivate producers over time to move to genetics that give them the best money for the producing the kind of beef the consumer wants which would also add consistency to the product over time and eventually minimize those tough steaks that land on the consumers plate from time to time. For those who prefer grass fed beef, it would allow the producer to choose how their beef would be finished. Many who sell grassfed beef now just ship their excess to the auction where it ends up in a grain feedlot where the genetics don't match the finishing technique. As far as timing, cattle producers already all calve at different times of the year, but some co-ordination would have to be done to make sure that animals are finishing approximately when they will be needed for slaughter. This is alot of what the Packers are trying to control now, but we have the means of production and they don't yet. I understand that this would be a huge challenge in the short run but in my mind, if we want to be in this business in the long run, this is what we have to do. Otherwise, we keep plodding along with the Packers making all the profits and the producers taking all the risks. You can only run at a loss for so long and what happens when all the oldtimers and their money are gone? The banks won't invest in business that doesn't make money. I guess it depends on what is more important to you, your pride and your way of life are more important to you in the short term or the viability of your farm in the long term.

[SASH]

You indicated that if the Board did not like the price offered; the cattle would not be sold. Is that different than the present system. If we don't like the prices, we don't sell them. Or, do you think that a producer owned plant would just pay what you felt you needed?

Most people I know send their calves to auction eventually. Unless you are using futures to lock in a price, how do you not sell them. How do you think the guys who sold in the afternoon of the day they found that last BSE cow made out and furthermore, do you see a futures price right now where you think the average producer could make a profit? All I'm saying is that it seems to me that its crazy that the consumer is still paying approximately the same for beef as they were before BSE and the producer is making way less. If we had control of our production, we wouldn't be in this mess.

[rkaiser]

Talk about a bunch of talk out of both sides of mouths.

Tell me I am a whiner for not liking the way packers have taken advantage of the situation and yes "made vitims" of producers in Canada. Suggest that I want to control these trolls with some sort of ownership rules, and then jump on the supply management band wagon. Lets see you argue that one while saying the packers are your honest ethical angels. Hog wash. If you could simply leave it as two ideas to change the current dysfuntional market, I would leave it alone, but to say I am talking victimization is no different than what you have said.

Piss on the talk of limiting packer ownership, we damned well deserved to take what the packers gave for the past year and a half. They had no choice.
You win - Okay - If it makes you happy to support this type of business practice, good for you. And I hope you get a chance to screw somebody into the ground that hard to get ahead yourselves SAH and kbp.

I am not a cow calf guy SASH. I raise purbred breeding stock, and market my non breeding cattle directly into restaurants and meat markets in Calgary with a number of other producers.

www.westernrancher.com
click on CrossVenture Livestock

We have found a way to retain profit from conception to consumption without capitalizing on the backs of other producers, and without the left leaning supply management CONTROL measures that you seem to suggest.

I love the right wing/left wing bullshit that comes from conversations like this. Every one of us is a hypocrite sooner or later.

Like I said before, ideas for change are what is important now, and the utmost of these ideas is packing capacity.

Are you going to take on the ~SH~ role from ranchers.net SASH and come back with more words like blamer, and whiner; cause if you are, you had best brush up on your double talk whenever you get a chance.

[SASH]

I am not a cow calf guy SASH. I raise purbred breeding stock, and market my non breeding cattle directly into restaurants and meat markets in Calgary with a number of other producers.

Good for you, but how does that help the cattle industry as a whole? Basically, it looks like you have done exactly what I'm suggesting that the industry as a whole do which is control production from birth to plate. I can't see how expanding that to encompass all the producers would be bad for you.

[SASH]

Also, I never said that the Packers were angels. They are good business men however. The only thing that is consistent is change. Just ask all those Mom and Pop stores that got shut down when Wal-Mart moved in. You can't just stand around and say this is how things should be. Instead look around and see how things are and decide how you can best deal with it. Interesting that you say that we need new ideas and then shoot me down in the next sentence. I already said that BIG C was a good first step but we need to take our production back from the Packers. The window is closing and if they get to a point where they get the production integrated before we do, then we'll al just be Packer employees.

[rkaiser]

I guess that before I can answer that question SASH, I would have to ask you if your idea of supply management is like that of kbp. He seems to feel that we should manage supply so as to only supply the Canadian Market and to hell with exports. That is a point that I cannot agree on. Our Ag industry is far to dependant on all sectors working together to make a backward move like that.

Intergrated marketing, on the other hand is very do-able and, I will argue, could have been considered an alternative by the packers over the past 2 years.

All of these producer owned packing proposals, and especially the one brought forward through BIG C, involve integration and post harvest benefits for producers.

What is it that the controls suggested in a supply magagement proposal would gain us over simply retained ownership at various levels? For instance, if the producer decides to sell cattle pre harvest, he would still benefit from post harvest if he owned shares in the plant visa vi the BIG C prposal.

[SASH]

The problem with that kind of supply management would be that it would take years to cut back our production to a level where we would only be supplying Canada. I'm more of a believer in trying to balance supply and demand on a week to week basis on a larger scale. I'm sure that if we could pick up the money as producers that the Packers are making righjt now, we could still keep our prices on a level to be competitive in our exports. What I am proposing is that we tweak the industry as producers. We need to incorporate some of the methods that big business uses like Just In Time processing where your goal would be to have approximately the same inventory in feedlots at all times with approximately the same finish ratios all the time so you are delivering approximately the same number of cattle for slaughter every week. From what I can see now, most people deliver their feeders to the auction in the last three months of the year. We need to start right from calving dates and move through the system as consistently as possible. This means we won't have finished animals sitting in the feedlot on maintenance rations waiting for kill space. As soon as they are ready to go, they are out of there. Of course it wouldn't be perfect but it would help and the more efiicient we can make the process, the more money in our pockets because it lowers expenses for everyone. The goal should be to produce the highest quality, most consistent product we can for the consumer and establish Canadian beef as the best beef in the world, bar none.

[kpb]

rkaiser, i'm still not sure why it is you can market your beef for the best price going but have all sorts of nasty words for the packers when they try to make the top buck. And I also think we should be careful about tossing words around like unethical and pirates when the people involved in these packing industries have not been convicted of any crimes that i'm aware of.
as far as talking out of both sides of my mouth is concerned i would say that YOU cannot have it both ways. If you really want our industry to be producer-owned, vertically integrated right down through the packing industry then you need to have a marketing board made up of producers. Or, if you want a free enterprise system then you cannot slam the packers for making as much money as they can. Either way is fine with me--I'll survive anyways. But what you can't do is mix the two so that you have a so-called free enterprise systems with controls on what the packers can own or buy or how much money they can make. Or that periodically gives producers welfare cheques. I think that that system is, in itself fundamentally unfair and open to abuses beyond what we've seen. Because what it means is that people can make money but just not too much. And that is simply wrong. You've got to decide--if you want free enterprise then you've got to let everyone, not just yourself, succeed. If you want a marketing board then I guess you've got to put up with left wingers. You just can't have it both ways or nobody will know just what is allowed.
And I will say it again, it would be a whole lot cheaper for the government to cull the old cows, give everyone a cheque, then go to a marketing board system so that everyone can begin to make a decent dollar with a secure future. You may not like it but it would end all these welfare cheques every six months or so, would mean that we can pass the farms down to our kids with secure futures, would give the Canadian consumer confidence in our industry (secure future supply) and would give the producers control of the industry all the way to the meat counter.

[kpb]

rkaiser, you say that our ag industry is too dependent on all sectors working together to make a backwards move like that in regards to my proposal to have a marketing board just serve the domestic market. But surely we have learned in the last two years just how dependent we are on foreign markets and surely that dependence is something we should try to avoid. As long as our industry is beholden to foreign governments and foreign multis we will always be at their beck and call and their local politics. As long as we continue to run after the foreign, export market our industry cannot have a secure future and we will not be able to, as a group, make a decent long-term living. Furthermore, as long as we pursue these foreign markets you will find our cattle industry to be more and more concentrated in fewer and fewer Canadian hands.
The only way to save the small to medium cattle producer is to have a marketing board made up of producers that serves the Canadian market.
One more thing--what has all this increasing of exports in the last 10 years done for the individual producer?

[blackjack]

... interesting posts... always thought the supply management of the dairy industry would have been good for Canadian agriculture... don't remember much of him but was Eugene Whalen not for supply management back in the seventies... seems to me the beef guys didn't want then... now with all the rules of NAFTA and the WTO ... seems to me even the rancher wanted a marketing board it might not be possible... on another note I do remember back when those against the NAFTA agreement were basically laughed in our faces by our cattle associations...