37 Million Dollar Question

[farmers_son]

I have not heard much comment from producers regarding Alberta's injection of $37 Million, $30-million earmarked for a Beef Market Development and Retention Fund designed to help the beef industry find more export markets and increase sales in existing ones and an additional $7 million to go towards creating commercial uses for discarded specified risk material (SRM).

Is this good news that will make our industry stronger or is it just a $37 million dollar gift to the big packers?

Is this something other provinces and the federal government should also do?

Given the generous profits the packers have been enjoying at producers expense I would have thought they would be in an excellent position to do this kind of market development on their own. Comments?

[pandiana]

I wish I knew where the support/directives came from for this initiative. It would, I agree, look to be more of the same sort of stopgap measures that have been extremely hard to direct to those sectors that require help especially over the long term. There has to be a better, saner way to deal with the problems that we will be experiencing.

[rkaiser]

Sure had some city folks hot on the Rutherford show yesterday morning. Sick and tired of the government giving money to the cattle industry.

Problem is, all this money spent to sell cattle that we can't kill. It would be great if we had capacity, but when cargil and tyson had to slow their lines because of short fats last week, it makes you wonder. Yes they could be expanding offshore markets themselves farmer_son, but since the border opened to boxed beef, sales have been brisk and expanding markets is not needed.

I guess CCA could use the money to hire more high priced lobbyists in the States to get the border open. The ones they have have been doing a bang up job?????????

Thirty seven million would have been far better spent on loans to packing plant proposals with payback potential.

[rkaiser]

randy, I think that any assistance considered for the industry at this point should be in the form of assisting to get more capacity.
Interesting to see what the ramifications of the major reduction in numbers at the auction barns in AB will be.

[pandiana]

Yes, I agree emerald1. We still need leadership from our government in making things happen, and very soon.

[rkaiser]

Make that 87 million and counting.
50 mil from the feds announced today.

87 million would have built a plant with capacity similar to Tyson or Cargil.

Now what. Ted Haney gets a raise, maybe gets some people to help him sell beef forrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr Cargil and Tyson.

[cowman]

Randy: I sense your frustration! How many billions before these idiots realize that the answer is there right before their noses?
I do believe BIG C has the answer and it won't cost the government one bloody cent! I mean, is anyone listening?
Build the bloody plants! Put a $5 checkoff on every animal and lets get this done! Instead we dither and slowly go bankrupt? Is that smart?
In my darkest moments, I think that is what the Canadian beef industry deserves...a bunch of ignorant fools who need to be sent to the scrap heap of oblivion? But then I think why? We've fought the damned weather, we've fought the damned ignorant politics, we've fought the damned ignorant medical profession...we've fought all these ignorant a-holes...and we deeserve to win!
This whole BSE thing is just missing one lettter? It is the E? The rest is just that...BS!
Enough with the BS! If the USA wants to play that game then piss on them! Test the whole lot and then lets see who can play that game?

[magpie]

Agree whole heartedly cowman, I’ve been on the side of testing since the first bse showed up. Had we taken this route I believe r calf and their hired judge would not have had any grounds to even look at the boneless beef which I understand now they have in their sites. Lets just get on with testing. Who makes the call for testing? Gov’t , CFIA, I can see us dabbling another 6-8 months on should we or not . We have wasted so much time on this matter of testing it is really sick. If this industry would only learn on how and where the mistakes were made by those before us with bse . I don’t see how we can not test, Japan ,England and France test

[JD4ME]

Geez Randy
Don't you know that the bribes errrrr market development costs alot in many countries, 87 million should set up quite a few nice slush funds in far away lands.
OK I'm just jealous because I'm too busy calving cows and wondering why I care enough to check at 2am. And whether or not I should be applying for pipeline jobs and leaving the girls to fend for themselves this year during the days while I'm off making a living to support my 275 cow habit. What I should be doing is setting up an advertising/consulting business and seeing how much I can garner from the 87 for myself and my asian contacts.
I've got some business contacts in Japan wonder if I can get a free trip um market development meeting to tokyo.

[blackjack]

JD4ME...you pretty well summed it up...its not like they haven't had two years to drum up other markets...why not have Randy and his group do the over sea negotiating...and put Ted and Ben out to pasture...its time for some new people to lead...

[greybeard]

Heck, why don’t we all go? I mean, with 87 million, as long as queen Adrian didn’t decide to come along, I’m sure we could all apply. I know somebody that knows somebody. Of course it will probably cost quite a bit to process the applications, and you will only be able to buy the tickets from a select few travel agents.
Someone lobbied for this. Is there an actual plan as to how to spend that much money, or is this another Liberal slush fund.
I was going to ask you Randy, if that was enough to start a plant. How many plants could have been built by now if all of these “development “type programs had been used for “seed money” to get them started? Can you summarize what has been announced over the past year for us Farmers-son? I am always impressed with your ability to pull the data together. You should indeed be considered for ABP manager. But of course the will have all those experts from Jets-go to pick from now.
The money for a “test them all “program is in the market now. As long as the packers can keep it as profits, why change? They are running at full capacity, and certainly see no reason to open any new markets at this time. Cargill is shipping to Asia from Australia.
If this new money does nothing else, let’s hope it determines what the market is for tested product.

[mcfarms]

I've been of the opnion that there should be no more government "payouts" but what we should do is take 100 million dollars everyyear from the government and play Ranchvivor.
The only difference is the first 50 people voted off the"island" every year get 2 million a piece to go do something else (on top of whatever they get from dispersing the cows and machinery) That would be as good a waste of money as some of these others . Sad but true however........lol have a good weekend.