age verification?

[Horse]

How hard is it to write down the date of birth? I remember the 4H and the date of birth for calves sure is funny how some of those calves took 2/3 days as long to age as some others .
Had a cattle dealer neibour that made his living by buying red tag cows and turning them into green tags whitch are 90 days longer in calf, not to say everyone is like that but there are enough to cast a huge shadow on this age verification.
Mabey we could have them all calve in a hospital and have the DR fill out a birthing report.
Cowman it is only going to happen if we say it is, it is not a faidecomple?

[cowman]

Sean: Well I assume you check your darned cows once in awhile when they are calving? If your cows only have a bangs tag then I can see your problem but not with a dangle tag? Wouldn't you simply write down Mommas tag number, date, sex of calf? Then RFID tag them when you trim them up at branding? You record the RFID number in the same book as you have the calving date and send the info into the CFIA?
You are already paying for the tag and doing the labor so how much extra does it cost you?
Horse: I don't think we have much of a choice? If the CFIA says do it we will have to, just like we had to use ID tags? And yes it is sad that some people will always try to cheat the system and in the end we will probably have to rely on the ossification thing anyway.

[redcountry]

Are we going to be allowed to keep the birth dates in our herd book and put rfid tags on at weaning and still file the birth dates with ccia
My question is how long do we have, to file these dates?.
Each calf now gets a tag with dam ,birth date & sex at birth.

[cowman]

red country: That is what we did. Put in a dangle tag at birth, put in a RFID tag at weaning and sent in the data from the calving book. Got a nice letter from the CCIA thanking us for being so progressive! We'll see if there is any money in it down the road!

[kato]

Heck, we even submitted our 2004 calves. Some of them were already fattened and gone at the time.

This year we're making it a little simpler at calving, and putting regular tags with cow number and birthdate on them when the calves are born, and then do the RFID tags when they go to pasture. It's really not that hard to do if you calve in the yard, but I can see the problem with pasture calving if you're not around all the time. Those pasture born calves are a little frisky!! LOL

As for the dentition, teeth can't be used to tell a calf that's 18 months from one that's 24. Not reliably anyway. Those first baby teeth come out sometime in that time span, and it varies from calf to calf. Sometimes by a couple of months.

[cowman]

I think this spring we'll RFID tag them as soon as we put in the dangle tag...not a lot of fun doing 140 head of big calves in the fall when we are pressed for time.
The boy is pretty vigilant in the spring and gets them tagged right away but doesn't get them all but does record the birthdates on everything. We vaccinate for blackleg sometime in June so get them all trimmed up then.

[farmers_son]

Details of the protocols that will have to be in place to allow beef exports to Japan are still sketchy. However I am concerned that age verification may be not be the answer to seeing more Canadian beef exported to Japan.

One thing is certain, age verification will not increase trade in either live cattle or beef to the United States. We have already have an announcement of a new proposed rule, sometime after mid 2006 or early 2007, that would basically open the U.S. border to all cattle and beef. Age verification is being touted as our advantage into Japan. I think we need to examine that carefully.

Prior to May 2003 most of the Canadian beef that entered Japan did so through the United States. While Canada was the third largest exporter of beef to Japan the vast majority of the volume of trade was divided between the United States and Australia. It was believed that a significant portion of the U.S. exports were really Canadian beef.

It is true that Canada is ahead of the U.S. on ID but it appears that talk of a competitive advantage may be premature. The reports I have read suggest that the U.S. will be exporting beef based solely on carcass information while Canada will have to bear the extra cost of a verified age identification system possibly because our grading system is less able to identify carcass age.

So how is this going to work? Before a Canadian steer slaughtered in Canada is eligible for export to Japan it has to have age verification. Do we assume that the same live steer if exported live to the U.S. does not need age verification to be exported to Japan or will Canadian cattle slaughtered in the U.S. just not be eligible for export to Japan? Or will Canadian cattle have to be segregated from U.S. production, essentially MCOOL.

While our age verification system may see direct Canadian beef trade with Japan increase from relatively very low pre BSE levels I think producers need to keep in mind that politics sell beef. Japan is not going to risk trade retaliation with the U.S. Japan is simply not going to stop beef trade with the U.S. and replace that product with beef imported from Canada, age verified or not.

Canada cannot gain a competitive advantage over the U.S. when it comes to beef exports. The best we can hope for is a harmonized North American system where Canada enjoys the huge benefit of being blended in with U.S. beef trade. The U.S. is never going to negotiate protocols with Japan that places the U.S. at a competitive disadvantage to Canada. I am concerned that protocols for trade with Japan that mandate age verification for Canadian beef while not mandating age verification for U.S. beef will result in Canada loosing far more beef trade with the United States than it will ever gain with Japan.

Age verification simply because we have the technology to have age verification in the end may not be the panacea for increased Canadian live cattle and beef trade. Age verification easily could result in Canada loosing more markets than it gains.

[cowman]

Well farmers son I guess you never caught Doug Horners comment at the WTO meetings in Hong Kong? He seems to indicate that our age verification thing is the cats meow with the Japanese! Now I suspect you are right about a whole lot of things you have mentioned and maybe Horner is just blowing smoke! I do realize the Americans hold the big stick here and Canada is sort of a joke when it comes to international trade!
Hopefully we didn't go to all this effort to ensure our beef is acceptable only to have politics play the major role? It is frustrating trying to do the right thing and then realizing it is all BS because some sort of deal is cut under the table?
I actually hope you are wrong on this one FS!

[kato]

There is also at the moment some serious reservations on the part of Japanes consumers about the integrity of the American system. They want traceability above all else, and I don't think they'll go for generic mass processed beef just on the word of the American packing system.

The Americans can push the beef on them all they like, and open the border as far as they like, but they can't force individual consumers to buy it if they don't trust it.

[cowman]

I would also assume if bone ossification is going to be the preferred method of age verification then our American owned plants would have the ability to do it...just like the American plants? And also our finished steers going to the plant in Washington state would be eligible through the American system?
If the American plants are able to extract a premium price for export beef then it would be reflected back to the producer in Canada? The IBP plant in Washington ran on Canadian beef prior to BSE and they went right on the boat with a USDA stamp on them? Will that change?
Canada had a $67 million export trade in beef with Japan but the fact is the trucks rolled steady to Walla Walla out of feedlot alley, so in fact that number was quite a bit higher?
Personally I don't care if they ship beef to Japan as Canadian or product of the USA, just as long as someone will pay me more for my calves! If age verification will do that, then I will age verify them. It costs basically nothing...already doing the labor, paying for the tag and keeping the records! After we figured out the Excel spreadsheet it is basically copy, paste, send! How hard is that?
The CCIA has spent a lot of time and money promoting this idea? Was it all a waste of time?