Frankensteer/CBC documentary

[oldfarmer]

Did anyone catch this documentary last
evening on CBC? It is to be aired again
Monday October 31 at 10 p.m. ET.

For the sake of our industry you can and
should express your opinion to CBC at:
http://www.cbc.ca/contact

FRANKENSTEER
Thursday October 27 at 9pm on CBC-TV
repeating Monday October 31 at 10pm ET/
PT on CBC Newsworld

Frankensteer is a disturbing documentary
that reveals how the ordinary cow has been
turned into an antibiotic-dependent,
hormone-laced potential carrier of toxic
bacteria, all in the name of cheaper food.
Frankensteer exposes the harsh and
sometimes frightening realities of how our
beef gets to our tables.

According to this compelling documentary,
the beef industry, supported by North
American government agencies and
pharmaceutical companies, has engaged in
an on-going experiment to create the perfect
food machine. Their goal is to increase the
speed of production and reduce the cost of
manufacture. But there is a price in
producing a cheap industrial product. This
benign, grazing herbivore has undergone a
transformation in how it’s raised, fed and
slaughtered. Consumers are unaware of the
dangers lurking in their beloved steaks, ribs
and, especially, hamburgers.

According to Mike McBane of the Canadian
Health Coalition, "When you bring a
package of hamburger home from a
supermarket, you have to treat it as toxic
material…"

Frankensteer reveals some startling facts.
Every year, fifty per cent of the total tonnage
of antibiotics used in Canada ends up in
livestock. Cattle raised in massive feedlots
are routinely dosed with antibiotics even if
they are not sick for public health safety
reasons. During the current BSE (Mad Cow)
crisis, North American health officials
labeled parts of the cow as bio-hazardous
products and ordered that they be handled
accordingly. Recent changes in inspection
rules have shifted the responsibility for food
safety from government inspectors to the
people on the floor who do the slaughtering
and packing.

Frankensteer is written and narrated by Ted
Remerowski and produced and directed by
Marrin Canell and Ted Remerowski. It is a
production of Paradigm Pictures.

[pmckenna]

The CBC, on a national level, is irresponsible to say the least. The Passionate Eye (The Passionate Lie) which used to be hosted by our current G.G. brings us controversial "indie" documentaries all the time. It finds ways to spend film board money etc, to help keep our "Arts" alive. Always when watching CBC "investigative journalism" such as MarketPlace and The Fifth Estate (hosted by another G.G). Their job is get watchers, not provide an accurate "whole picture".

Non-rural viewers, and some who stand to benefit, with lap this up. They love being told a good old "truth is stranger than fiction" yarn. Creating such entertainment involves many half-truths, omissions, and glorified rare exceptions.

The urban population at large will view this little gem with great credibilty, they wanting to hear this "fact".

Maybe we should increase their funding so they can hire some editorial staff? Naw strike, decrease it so they don't have resources to do "investigative", "hard hitting", "thought prvoking","journalism".

[rkaiser]

Kind of torn on this one guys. I agree that calling this thing Frankensteer and talking about toxic waste are pathetic attempts at attention. However from the 15 minutes I saw at the end of the show it seemed that they were portraying the farmer as the good guy and the packers as their usual greedy profit driven selves. Maybe ranchers need to see this thing to open their eyes up to where we have been led. Like I said, dramatising something for those who don't understand is horrible, getting the message to the ranchers may be important though.

[rkaiser]

A couple of comments :

1. a very respected veterinarian advised me today that two of the vets interviewed for the article have no credibility with the veterinarians association.

2. Dr Lorne Taylor, former Minister of the Environment was part of a panel discussion at yesterday's Environmental Farm Plan meeting in Red Deer. Dr. Taylor lambasted the confined feeding industry for polluting the creeks, he indicated that there should never be any more of them allowed in the County of Forty Mile and areas in south eastern AB.

It will be interesting to see how the industry responds to both the Passionate Eye program and Dr. Taylor.

[oldfarmer]

emrald1 wrote:
>It will be interesting to see how the industry
>responds to both the Passionate Eye program and
>Dr. Taylor.

The following was sent out by the CCA yesterday
afternoon:

In anticipation that we may get calls from producers
asking us to do something about the CBC
documentary "Frankensteer" airing tonight on the
Passionate Eye program, please encourage callers
to also express their opinion directly to CBC. It will
have more of an impact for CBC to hear from a
number of viewers than to receive an official letter
from CCA.

[pmckenna]

I have been noticing this building trend for years. I just copied mine over to the CBC.

[pmckenna]

Here is what my final submission looked like to CBC:

The CBC, on a national level, is irresponsible to say the least. The Passionate Eye (The Passionate Lie) which used to be hosted by our current G.G. brings us controversial "indie" documentaries all the time. It finds ways to spend film board money etc, to help keep our "Arts" alive. Always one should be thoughtful, and do their own checks, when digesting CBC "investigative journalism" such as MarketPlace and The Fifth Estate (hosted by another G.G). Their job is get viewers, not provide an accurate "whole picture".

Non-rural viewers, and some who stand to benefit, with lap this up. They love being told a good old "truth is stranger than fiction" yarn. Creating such entertainment involves incorporationg many half-truths, omissions, and glorified exceptions. I won't even begin to reward the effort by pointing out errors or omissions, there are so many. But I will make one exception, in saying that the tiny hormone additives quantities that steers receive are tiny as compared to a bull, a steer which has not been castrated. Nobody would ever know that Europe, which has an outlawed hormone use, has a massive black market, unmanaged and unreported. North America has a safety system that exists nowhere else in the world.

The urban population at large will view this little gem with great credibilty, they wanting to hear "facts".

Maybe we should increase their funding so they can hire some editorial staff? Naw strike that, decrease it so they don't have resources to do "investigative", "hard hitting", "thought provoking", "journalism".

Paul A. McKenna, Calgary

[cowman]

Well I never caught the show but I think they ran this one once before?
Without a doubt the CBC has a tendency to stir things up and paint a picture however they like it!
But consider some of their facts? Is it true that over half of the drugs in North America end up in livestock? If that is true does it cause you to be a bit uneasy or is that okay?
Are hormones and all those anti-biotics necessary to raise livestock? What is the point of raising more food if we don't get paid for it?
Where is the proof that there is a massive black market in hormones in Europe? Or is this just hearsay? I would think if there was an actual massive blackmarket then the authorities would know about it and put a stop to it?
There are a lot of practices in livestock production that are hard to defend? Like feeding animals to animals? Or using steroids on cattle? Or pumping animals full of anti-biotics so they will gain well in a factory farm?
Baby pigs and chickens are on anti-biotics just about from the day they are born. Is this a good thing? Is it necessary?

[cowman]

Dr.Taylor used the term 'factory farm' in his tirade. Interesting that he is a former minister in the government that has set benchmarks of millions more hogs produced in Alberta by 2010. Wonder what he said around the cabinet table when that goal was being discussed.

[cowman]

I wonder why Taylor might have been upset? Was there any justification for his "tirade" or had he just been watching too much CBC?
I think you might find that the most vocal opponents to "factory farms" are not the acreage owner but the farming neighbors? Acreage owners are like gypsys...they come and go...but the farmers have to live with the ILO forever!
When a hog barn or big feedlot move in next door to you do you think you are not affected? There goes your property values and maybe your quality of life!
So somebody can make enough money to pay for overpriced land? Thankfully I live in an area where there are not going to be anymore of these factories!

[cowman]

cowman the powers that are in control in government just don't 'get it' that communities do not want large operations in their midst.

New technologies when implemented certainly can mitigate the impact of a confined feeding operation but the mere mention of a hog operation in most communities gets the citizens in an uproar.
Municipalities are amending their municipal development plans and including buffers where no cfo's can locate.

[cowman]

emerald: I would suggest to you that the municipalities putting in these buffer zones is a good thing? The fact is we don't want or need to live beside an ILO...just so some immigrant can pay for his overpriced land?
As I said I personally don't have a problem in my immediate area. The only place this land is going is to a playground for the wealthy and I personally have no desire to raise thousands of animals...whether hogs or steers or milk cows!
The fact is the wealthy suburbanite can outbid the farmer or ILO for the land around here just about everytime? Now some old farm families will get in there and bid right along but in many cases that is just too much oil money in their wallets...and most of these boys aren't interested in slopping the hogs...if you know what I mean?
That is not to say I don't have any ILOs close to me but they were built before all the tough rules came into place and expansion doesn't make much sense now. They will run out the course of their life and disappear? At one time there were several fairly decent sized feedlots west of Red Deer...all gone now.

[cowman]

The hog industry is whining big time and blaming the NRCB because they haven't had the huge increase in hog numbers in this province. Many municipalities are amending their municipal development plans to include larger ' no go zones' to ensure that they can have growth in their hamlets, recreation areas etc. without the land use conflicts that would arise if there were large confined feeding operations in the vicinty.
When I was on council we had a buffer zone around the urban centres and hamlets where no cfo could locate and that was long before the current legislation was in place.
There is significant growth in the hog industry in Saskatchewan, land is cheaper there, there is a glut of barley that is cheap so it makes sense that operators would locate there vs paying high land values in Ab.

[cowman]

I actually caught the last half of "Frankensteer" yesterday and though a little sensational mostly what they said was true or at least plausible?
The part on E coli was pretty scary to say the least? Solution: Slow down the line speeds and get the darned carcasses clean!
Near the end they asked Rick Pascal if he could feed out cattle without hormones and anti-biotics and animal protein. He said yes he could and he put the cost at around $25 or less per animal! Is this true?
Will the day come when beef is raised in a more consumer friendly manner? Where the consumer can be assured that beef is free of hormones, pesticides,anti-biotics, BSE, Johnes, E coli? We may believe we have a safe product now but how do we really know? Most of us just sell calves or feeders...we have no clue what happens from the day they leave the farm until they end up on the customers plate?
We send out a healthy uncontaminated calf...what happens later? We actually don't know! We have to trust the feedlot, packer and meat inspection are all doing their jobs? This show suggests they aren't!

[cowman]

As I indicated on another post, the monitoring of livestock operations to ensure compliance in enviromnental matters is being reduced, and pretty soon the consumer will have no faith in the safety of what they consume !!
The documentary was sensationalism at its best, but the livestock industry needs to counteract this sort of stuff with assurance that it operates within all regulations and environmentally sustainable practices vs fighting any sort of regulatory system !!!