Interesting story

[grassfarmer]

There was an interesting story in Grain News this week about a New Zealand beef sheep producer which I'll share with you.
The producer runs 29,000 acres with one hired man stocked with 13,000 merinos both ewes and hoggets. He also has 1000 beef cattle, including a 400 cow herd based on pure herefords bred to Angus with the resulting baldies bred Charolais. He fattens all the calves on grass and 85% are contracted to a Japanese restaurant chain.
It's good to see someone with a setup that works selling to the Japanese - and no mention of being gouged by packers in the article.
It proves that we have the genetics right here to fill the same market - you obviously don't need Wagyus fed on beer! It also proves that they are happy to buy grassfed beef, whether that is as well, as or in preference to grain fed I don't know.
I really admire the Kiwis, they are a long way from any market but are still formidable competitors in food production.

[cakadu]

I just got the mail so I'll have to read the story - sounds pretty interesting. New Zealand has to make a go of it in the global marketplace as they are essentially dependent on exports for their survival. It is a matter of give the customer what they want. They also had all of their subsidies cut and very few of them actually fell victim to that. Remember the uproar that there was and in the end, only about 1.5 % of them were gone. I would hazard a guess that eliminating subsidies were not the entire reason for their demise.

If you look at some of the developing countries like Chile, they understand the need to work together to capture the global markets. I believe that there are a lot of lessons for us to learn from other countries and their successes.

I was talking with a friend of mine who has a brother in Manitoba. They have put together a plant to process cull cows and elk and they cannot keep up with the demand for it. They are shipping meat into a couple of places twice a week I believe she said.

It made us wonder how it could happen there and not here? Essentially there were about 10 or so of them that decided to do this and they are federally inspected and the whole ball of wax. Why are the people who are trying to get producer owned plants here in Alberta running into so much trouble? It would be interesting to know what the differences are and see if they can be overcome here in Alberta.