July 27

[cowman]

I doubt Cebul will be able to pull off an R-CALF end run on the 27th, after the comments by the three judges in the appeal. It would make the US administration look like a bunch of idiots!
If he tried I suspect the government would just put a stay on his judgement...especially if the liners are rolling before that date? I believe the US government has pretty well had enough of the likes of R-CALF and their bought judges?
Now that this little fiasco is over it is time to bury the hatchet and get back to making the North American market work?

[rain]

Cowman I do hope your last sentence does not not mean lets forget about the last two years and go back to the status quoa.

If that is the case for most cowcalf producers we do not deserve an industry.

The border opening means now we have developed new markets and gotten an old one back. I think new market development is more important then US business.

[madcow]

Amen rain !,lets never forget the squeeze they put us in and were happy to leave us in for quite some time.Lets hope we move ahead into a situation where we deal with the US because we want to, or because it serves 'us' better to, not because we have to . WE have to build and maintain a variety of market options and keep pushing towards having the capacity to process our own production,this has been a costly lesson not to have all our eggs in one basket.You're right, if we return to the old 'trust in the US 'state of mind ,then we don't deserve an industry!

[cowman]

While it is commendable to go and seek new markets the fact is the US is our biggest and best customer and that fact is unlikely to change? Simple geography and transportation costs dictate the need for the US market?
Don't forget our cow herd is quite a bit larger than it was in 2003 when the border closed. Something like another 2 million calves a year?
Apparently we are approaching having enough killing capacity for our fed cattle market? The biggest portion is Cargill and IBP! We still need to get the US market open to cows or at least cow beef?
I notice a lot of smaller herds have dissappeared over the last two years...and yet our total cow herds have risen dramatically? Who is buying all those cows? Well obviously someone is thinking there is a future in the cow calf business. With the cruddy prices for grain maybe they are right?
I also wonder if cows get back to a reasonable level, how many farmers are ready to bail? How many are just waiting to get out?

[madcow]

cowman maybe part of reason the U.S. is our biggest and best customer is because we neglected to look farther abroad and secure alternatives.I know it's not likely to change...if we could just do business without getting screwed!
We were concerned that some producers here were waiting for good chance to bail,but many of them are now saying they hung on this long that if cattle become 'worth selling ' again they may as well stay at it.As for me,,,, ,I'm just not bright enough to quit and besides,,,,,,I like cows!
Gotta go cut hay ,the sun's finally out after 3 weeks.

[cakadu]

What I'd like to know is how your "best" customer can treat you the way we've been treated and you still consider them the best? They might be the biggest, but we appear to have done so to our own detriment. If we don't learn from the past, we are doomed to repeat it. Yes, our packing capacity has increased, but wouldn't have it been better if it were Canadian based and structured so that more money made it back to producers?

One might be able to forgive what certain groups in the US have done, but we should never forget the precarious position it put us in.

[farmers_son]

The United States is not our customer.

At best the United States is a market segment. Our geographical and geopolitical market is North America. If you want to segment the North American beef market for analysis purposes then Canada is the number one market, U.S. is number two, Mexico is third.

However doesn’t that ignore the fact that we only sell live cattle and not beef? For most live cattle producers the customer is found at the local auction market. For the feedlots the customer is the local packing plants. Surely we are not as naïve as we were before BSE and still believe that our customer is the lady picking out the package of steaks at the freezer section at the local supermarket.

I recognize that a mentality has crept into the cattle business that confuses who the customer is and where our market is. In the United States this has led to point of view that Canadian live cattle are competition. Canadian producers have been led to believe that they are beef exporters. Canadian producers do not sell beef, they producer and sell live cattle into a NAFTA market that is a net importer of beef with virtually no export live cattle trade to speak of. Canadian and American cattle producers sell live cattle to the same packing plants.

The last two years were not some kind of marketing problem that needs to be corrected. BSE was a political weapon that was used as part of an international dispute over larger issues. The border closure would be better compared to an illegal union strike than a customer problem. If we need to remember anything, it is nature of the union we are dealing with.

[PureCountry]

Well said, well said.

We also need to learn from their nature and deal with it accordingly.