Lakeside Beef Slaughter Increase in June

[kato]

I've been giving this one a bit of thought. This may not be as bad as it seems. I've been a little concerned lately about how long it's taking for the appeal on the temporary injunction to get going.

Figured it would be just our luck that the appeal court would overturn it and then a couple of weeks later it would go to court in Montana again, and be made permanent, and then it would be months before that was appealed, and so on and so on. Meanwhile nothing gets done and we all suffer.

Perhaps this way he can do what we all know he wants to do, and then the appeal court will be prepared for it, and can just jump in and overthrow it once and for all. This is just my thinking, and I'm not a lawyer, but to me it would make sense. (As if anything that's happened in the last two years ever made sense!)

Either that, or R-Calf is getting jumpy, and figures that the longer they wait the higher the stack of oppostition to them will get.

Kind of like a politician thinking of an election eh??? LOL

[grassfarmer]

One thing that you are overlooking kpb is the potential to produce here a lot cheaper. I'm not talking about tinkering with extended grazing season or different breeds but if your scenario of $200 calves were to come true and 80% of producers went to the wall inside three years the land is still here. Supply and demand would see a different kind of operator - one that could sell $200 calves - if the land away from city influences was $100 an acre. So we can in a way compete with anyone, anywhere in the world - maybe we have just got carried away and payed too much for land relative to it's worth as a producer of beef?

[grassfarmer]

grassfarmer, we have been in this BSE crisis for two years and ag land isn't worth less than it was pre-BSE. $100 an acre ag land in Alberta isn't likely going to happen, at least for the sake of the cattle producers in our province I hope it doesn't.

[grassfarmer]

Emrald, I realise land prices haven;t dropped due to BSE - they didn't in the UK either so it doesn't surprise me. I wasn't predicting they would fall rather showing that in the worst case scenario kpb was talking about beef production would not cease on the prairies because we could import cheaper meat from elsewhere.
Actually high land prices are bad for young or continuing producers and are
only good for retiring or exiting producers.

[BWC]

Nice call kato, no one really knowsor can guess our fates in the U.S justice system. I do beleive that R-Calf officials are very concerned over the growing resistance to their efforts. The ramifications of the loss of the boxed beef trade are very scary and they are well aware that it would really put us in a bad way. The onlt contingency plan that I have heard that makes any sense, is that the CBEF is pushing the Federal Ag Ministry to direct the CFIA to immediately develop a tseting for market acccess protocol with Japan and other Pacific Rim nations. But this is all speculative at the moment. Hope for the best

[grassfarmer]

Not much of a contingency plan at this late stage is it? How long would it take to move the sloths at CFIA to approve such a procedure, then build testing facilities large enough to handle the workload, then of course there is Cargill and Tyson who have sworn they won't test - where else can we get them killed? Maybe in another two years they would be ready to go - if buyers actually materialise. Let's pray it doesn't come down to this desperate scenario.