International Ranch Advocates Blame NAFTA

[Willowcreek]

Ranch advocates talk policy, blame NAFTA
By TOM LUTEY
Of The Gazette Staff

Livestock markets are uncompetitive and the North American Free Trade Agreement is to blame, say the ranch advocates from the United States, Canada and Mexico gathered in Billings this week.

The groups, meeting to discuss markets and trade policies, called on the leaders of their countries to renegotiate the 16-year-old, tri-lateral trade agreement.

NAFTA is considered one of the world's more powerful treaties. It eliminated tariffs that made trade between the three North American Countries cost-prohibitive. It also created a way to appeal trade disputes and granted each country most-favored-nation trade status with the others.

The trade agreement also made it possible for large corporations to create cross-border supply and sale lines that hurt consumers and producers, said the ranch advocates gathered in Billings. Alejandro Ramirez Gonzalez, speaking for the Confederation of Mexican Hog Farmers, said by eliminating tariffs, NAFTA has allowed U.S. pork processors to flood Mexican markets with pork. He advocated that Mexico create programs like the newly created Country of Origin Labeling in the U.S., which is intended to identify American products from those imported from Mexico or Canada.

Canadian Neil Peacock said his country would benefit from a labeling program similar to the U.S. one known as COOL. Peacock said they came to the NAFTA meeting, to which the Western Organization of Resource Councils, or WORC, played host, to work on beef policy.

Namely, Peacock and others said they would like to prohibit packing plants from owning the feedlots from which they buy cattle for slaughter. Feedlot owners buy young cattle from ranches and then fatten them up before selling them to slaughterhouses.

The concern about processor ownership of feedlots is that in areas of the country where processors own large feedlots, they're able to set take-it-or-leave-it prices for the cattle they buy. In the West, the concern is growing as Brazilian-based meat processor JBS SA acquires American meat processing facilities and feedlots. Last year, JBS bought feedlots in Texas, Kansas, Idaho and Colorado, which handle about 800,000 cattle at a time. Colorado feedlots are crucial to Montana's cattle industry, which exports 900,000 feeder cattle to feedlots annually for fattening.

President Barack Obama has spoken against processor ownership of feedlots. The groups gathered Friday are hopeful the United States will soon pass laws banning processor feedlot ownership.

Gilles Stockton, speaking for WORC, called on Obama to fix NAFTA and help the beef industry.

"President Obama, renegotiate NAFTA now," Stockton said. "President Obama, JBS must not be allowed to buy more U.S. packers. Stop the mergers now."

http://www.billingsgazette.net/articles/2009/02/14/news/local/39-nafta.txt

[grassfarmer]

Thanks for posting that Willowcreek. Neil Peacock was part of the NFU delegation in Billings, the only Canadian producer organization to be represented. I'm proud that a group of dedicated NFU people gave up their time and money to advocate for all Canadian producers and was sorry I couldn't attend myself.

Again we must ask - where were our ABP reps with their $12 million dollar levy funded budget? I guess they were all too busy getting ready for their all expenses paid trip to the extravaganza known as the Beef Industry Conference in Red Deer. I see one of the presentations there is about "achieving global success" given by the CEO of JBS Swift and Co.

Oh, the irony - the paid producer reps (ABP) wining and dining with the side that's bankrupting producers whereas the unpaid volunteers (NFU) are going to battle for producers interests against the same outfit.

[wilagro]

Have to agree with you GF...spot on.

[Willowcreek]

The conference was sponsored by the National Association of Peasant Marketing Enterprises, National Farmers Union (Canada), Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, Food and Water Watch, and the Western Organization of Resource Councils (WORC).



Other participating organizations included the Confederation of Mexican Hog Farmers, Democratic Peasant Front of Chihuahua; La Jornada del Campo, and National Association of Peasant Marketing Enterprises from Mexico; and the Dakota Resource Council, Dakota Rural Action, Farmers Legal Action Group, Northern Plains Resource Council, and R-CALF USA from the United States.

[Willowcreek]

February 17, 2009



CEO Participates in Trilateral Trade Conference



Billings, Mont. – Just days ago, R-CALF USA CEO Bill Bullard participated in a two-day conference hosted by the Western Organization of Resource Councils (WORC) that included representatives of the U.S., Canada and Mexico in discussions of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the negative ramifications the trade agreement has wrought on producers in all three countries, while the multinational corporations in each country have reaped the benefits. Each group’s representatives made it clear that NAFTA should either be eliminated or renegotiated.



“R-CALF was originally viewed as a threat to cattle producers in Canada,” said Neil Peacock, who represented the National Farmers Union of Canada. “There is always misinformation going around, and several years ago, there was the rumor that R-CALF was established by the big packers.



“What has happened is that the mind shift of livestock owners in Canada has turned around,” he continued. “We no longer view R-CALF as a threat because our cattle producers are facing the same challenges as independent U.S. cattle producers. Just like R-CALF members in the U.S., we are fighting the packers, the mega-corporations and the ramifications of NAFTA and the WTO. It would be nice to unite with R-CALF to fight the issues we have in common.”



Jan Slomp, also of the National Farmers Union in Canada, said consumers in all three countries need to be able to know where their beef comes from and be able to support their domestic producers if that is what they wish to do.



“XL/Cargill keeps feeding us this line that R-CALF is just a protectionist organization against everything,” Slomp said. “We’ve been fed this bull about continental integration, that increases in exports will benefit ranchers and farmers, and that’s just not true. We’ve been sucked into this corporate structure that is very, very hard to correct. It’s all about a forced food system now. Trade should not be so complicated. Every nation has the right to look after is own producers.



“Authorities here are influenced by the Cargills and make R-CALF the enemy and try to mobilize all the Canadian ranchers against R-CALF, which is not helpful at all,” he continued. “I can totally understand and defend R-CALF in public now. We need to be allies with R-CALF.”



Dennis Olson, a senior policy analyst at the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy (IATP) said that promises made by the proponents of NAFTA have not been kept and that new policies are urgently needed.



“As far as NAFTA goes, it’s a failed agreement,” Olson said. “It has not curtailed the growing power of the global meat cartels, both in our livestock markets and in our politics. NAFTA impedes the rights of all three countries to establish their own food and agricultural policies that provide farmers with the cost of production, as long as those policies do not result in the dumping of agricultural commodities into the other markets at below the cost of production. We commit ourselves to building an alternative food system that is designed to make safe, affordable food a higher priority than increasing the profit margins for the global meat cartels.”



Patty Lovera, with Food and Water Watch, said she was at the meeting to talk about how to work together to stop the negative impacts caused by bad trade policies. She also noted that even as prices livestock producers receive continue to go down, retail food prices rarely do, and the result is that consumers do not end up spending less at the meat and dairy case.



“Consumers care about workers, farmers and the environment – all of which are damaged by trade policy that puts corporate controlled trade as its top priority,” she said. “But consumers also are directly impacted when trade policy means they are exposed to unsafe food or lose the ability to know what they are eating, where it is from or how it was processed.



“The growing number of food safety scares, from both domestic and imported food, has made it very clear that regulators are not doing enough to protect consumers,” continued Lovera. “Consumers have no way to influence the governments of other countries on what they do to regulate food safety, but have to live with the consequences of what those governments do, and there must be room in our trade policy for antitrust measures so we can restore competitive markets for producers and prevent a handful of corporations from calling all of the shots about how our food system works.”



R-CALF shared with the producers from Canada and Mexico the work it is doing to prevent the proposed acquisition of National Beef Packing Co. by JBS, the world’s largest beef packer based in Brazil.



“This merger would increase packer concentration to an unprecedented level, resulting in reduced competition that will harm both cattle producers and beef consumers,” said R-CALF USA CEO Bill Bullard. “We were pleased to learn that Canadian producers support R-CALF’s efforts to prevent further concentration in the meatpacking industry and to eliminate anticompetitive cattle procurement practices going on in each of our countries. We look forward to sharing information with Canadian producers that will help both Canada and the U.S. restore competition for all cattle farmers and ranchers.”

[InAHurry]

NFU [Peacock and Slomp] do not speak for [all] the Canadian livestock owners. It is rather pompous of them to assume that they do!
I or my family are not NFU members and upon reading that they have chosen R-CALF as an ‘ally’ and ‘will defend them in public’ ~ rest assured that they will never receive our support or membership dues.

..... Anyone know how many members in NFU?

[grassfarmer]

To be fair the article posted by willowcreek was presumably contributed by R-CALF and it is written with a rather obvious R-CALF spin (ie to paint them in a good light). The purpose of the conference in Montana was not to buddy up to R-CALF. I know both Neil and Jan and I would be inclined to say the article was quoting them slightly out of context. They certainly do not believe that some of the past activities of R-CALF were acceptable with regard to Canadian producers. That said I recognize that R-CALF has done some useful campaigning in the past on some issues - captive supply in particular and for that reason I think it is worth swallowing our pride and trying to build something positive out of these alliances.
You don't like some of the things R-CALF has done InaHurry - are you happy with everything ABP/CCA have done - especially with regard to captive supply, packer ownership etc?

[farmers_son]

http://www.hursh.ca/

February 17, 2009

NFU aligns with R-CALF
The National Farmers Union has become cozy with the American beef protectionist group known as R-CALF. The NFU issued a news release yesterday about a meeting in Billings, Montana that included Canadian, American and Mexican farm groups. The NFU release rails against corporate concentration in the beef industry and talks about how free trade deals need to be renegotiated or eliminated. The NFU release doesn’t talk about the much despised R-CALF organization, but if you get a copy of the R-CALF news release from the same meeting, there are lots of quotes from the National Farmers Union. Neil Peacock of the NFU is quoted as saying, “We no longer view R-CALF as a threat because our cattle producers are facing the same challenges as independent U.S. cattle producers.” Jan Slomp of the NFU is quoted by R-CALF as saying, “I can totally understand and defend R-CALF in public now. We need to be allies with R-CALF.” Funny how the NFU wasn’t brave enough to say those things in its own news release. The truth is that R-CALF is against trade and without trade the Canadian beef industry would have to contract to about half its current size. That’s a tough sell on this side of the border. I’m Kevin Hursh.

[kato]

I figured a whole lot of out of context politic'in would go on after this. I reasearched the organizations involved and could just see it coming.

The way I see it, it's time for R-Calf to put it's money where it's mouth is and show it's true colours. They "say" they aren't against Canadian cattle producers. They "say" that MCOOL is about food safety. They "say" that they are innocent of trade protectionism.

Now prove it.

If they are really serious about working together with Canadians, then they need to put aside their campaign to shut down trade. They need to acknowledge the long tradition of travel back and forth between our countries and the fact that WE ARE NOT THE ENEMY.

This is a golden opportunity. A dialogue has been opened, misquoted and capitalized on as it already has been, it's a dialogue none the less. Will they use it to move forward to help solve our mutual problems? Or will they grasp it as another opportunity to exploit the media for their own selfish ends, to the detriment of their potential allies, and therefore strengthen those who profit at all of our expenses? Anyone want to take bets???

If they choose to just use the quotes of two Canadian cattle producers in a cheap and exploitive way to further their own agendas, then I guess we all have the proof of their true intentions. We will know that further talk is pointless.

Go ahead, re-open NAFTA. Give it a shot. It's not working now anyway. A trade agreement that's only followed and adhered to by one party is worse than no agreement at all. At least with no agreement we would be free to take care of our own problems without big brother to the south breathing down our necks and threatening us with actions that are going to happen anyway.

I for one am tired of being on the side that is the only one playing by the rules.

[grassfarmer]

Nice try Farmers-Son, I guess you are one of those folks described as being in the established order...trying to discredit the NFU because you want to protect the status quo.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE FEBRUARY 19, 2009

CANADIAN NFU COMMENTS ON R-CALF AND INTERNATIONAL MEETING

Canada’s National Farmers Union is not working with the US cattle organization R-CALF, we have no plans to do so in the future, and we have no agreements to collaborate with R-CALF on any initiative. Until NFU officials first met R-CALF CEO Bill Bullard at a 14-organization, international meeting in Billings, Montana last week, no one from the NFU had ever spoken to him. Thus, we are surprised to see media commentators linking the NFU to an organization that we have never worked with and rarely, if ever, communicated with. To make such links is to mislead farmers.

The NFU strongly defends Canada’s Wheat Board and the interests of cattle producers. Thus, the NFU has profound disagreements with R-CALF in its attacks on the CWB (1999) and on cattle farmers’ interests—especially R-CALF’s courtroom attempts to keep the Canada-US border closed to cattle following the discovery of BSE (2003 to present).

The NFU does acknowledge that R-CALF has done very effective work in drawing attention to the damaging power of large meatpacking corporations in North America and in educating farmers about packer ownership of cattle (captive supply).

“On many issues—on analysis as well as tactics—the NFU vehemently disagrees with R-CALF and will continue to do so. But in order to resolve pressing problems within the North American cattle sector, we are willing to listen to the positions of a broad range of organizations to understand their analyses of packer power and corporate concentration,” said NFU Board member Neil Peacock.

Incorrect inferences about a connection between R-CALF and the NFU flow from an R-CALF news release that included statements by NFU members. What is missing from media reports is the context of those statements: R-CALF’s work on captive supply, the takeover of North American packers by JBS corporation, and anti-trust actions against large packers. The last sentence of the R-CALF release provides that context, saying: “We were pleased to learn that Canadian producers support R-CALF’s efforts to prevent further concentration in the meatpacking industry and to eliminate anticompetitive cattle procurement practices going on in each of our countries. We look forward to sharing information with Canadian producers that will help both Canada and the U.S. restore competition for all cattle farmers and ranchers.”

Since the NFU released its groundbreaking report on the cattle price crisis in November, our organization has had tremendous success helping farmers, policymakers, and journalists come to understand that cattle farmers are making too little because packers and retailers are taking too much. Many in the established order find themselves threatened by the NFU’s disclosures about who’s taking the profits in the cattle and beef sectors. These interests find it convenient to discredit the NFU in any way they can. However, farmers must not be distracted. The issues are packer and retailer power, farmers’ prices, and who’s pocketing the profits.

Last week’s Billings, Montana meeting included 14 organizations from Mexico, Canada, and the US. This broad-based meeting focused on hog, cattle, food safety, and trade issues in all three nations. The meeting did not create any formal agreements to work together. The NFU did find common ground with organizations such as Western Organization of Resource Councils (WORC) and Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy (IATP) on issues such as captive supply and reform of trade agreements (see the NFU’s February 13 release at www.nfu.ca ). The NFU looks forward to sharing information with a broad range of international organizations on how we can end the cattle price crisis and defend family farms against those who are threatening them.