PORKER
Well-known member
Anti-establishment
Frustrated Canadian beef groups create a new alliance outside the industry's mainstream
(MEATPOULTRY.com, January 28, 2008)
by Steve Bjerklie
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Frustrated by previous attempts to lift the Canadian beef industry from its post-BSE doldrums, including those made by the Canadian Cattlemen's Association, a consortium of five producer groups has banded together to forge a new path back to profitability.
At the suggestion of Alberta's provincial government, representatives from the Alberta Cattle Feeders Association, the Beef Initiative Group (BIG), the Western Stock Growers Association, the Provincial Feeders Association of Alberta and the Alberta Beef Producers met in early in January with provincial officials to discuss ways to address the Canadian cattle industry's economic problems.
Already, however, there has been disagreement: in November, all of the organizations except the Alberta Cattle Producers endorsed several new strategies. According to Randy Kaiser, vice president of BIG, "the government saw the light and realized they had really dropped the ball on BSE and after. They want to hear some new ideas." But, he added, the same isn't true of the industry's mainstream: "The Alberta Beef Producers and the CCA, they've become a distorted kind of lobby group. Producers are disgruntled and don't want much to do with them anymore."
Over the past five years the Canadian beef industry has been hit hard twice, first by BSE, which was first found in Canada in Alberta in May 2003 and which resulted in the loss of dozens of key export markets, and second by the devaluation of the U.S. dollar compared to the Canadian dollar, which has encouraged Canadian producers to send their cattle south of the border and has made Canadian export beef more expensive abroad than competitive U.S. beef. Moreover, the BSE problem hasn't ever really gone away after the initial discovery: to date, 11 BSE-infected bovines have been discovered in Canada, the most recent announced last December. The Canadian Food Inspection Agency said in December that it expects to continue to find more BSE-infected animalsover the next 10 years "as Canada progresses towards its goal of eliminating the disease from the national cattle herd."
Kaiser, who runs a 200-head cattle operation focused on the Welsh Black and Galloway breeds and who heads the Natural Celtic Beef Alliance, told MEAT & POULTRY that "the main thrust" of the five-member consortium's approach will be to rebuild the value-chain. To do that, it wants to establish a new brokerage to grow Canada's beef trade with non-NAFTA member nations. The plan, said Kaiser, involves custom-slaughtering Canadian cattle at Canadian plants, then exporting the beef overseas, possibly under a special brand such as "Canada Gold." "The main goal is to reduce our dependency on the American market," he said. "We've already talked to Cargill and Tyson in Alberta about it, and they're very interested. Of course, they have an interest in keeping Canadian cattle in Canada to keep their capacities up at their plants" in High River and Lethbridge, Alb., respectively. All the cattle the consortium produces will be age-verified and will have to meet certain quality specifications.
Last November's agreement proposes a producer-owned brokerage corporation to allow producers and feeders to maintain ownership of their livestock all the way through to the point of sale as beef. The aligned groups want to become full participating parts of the value-added chain and to create and support partnerships with feedlots. The agreement states that inclusion in the value-added market is essential to the future of Canada's beef industry: "We must be allowed to cease selling cattle on the hoof at a discount and become marketers of beef."
The five aligned organizations also want to reconstitute the Canada Beef Export Federation (CBEF) and the Beef Information Centre. The agreement from last November states: "CBEF has been hamstrung by both industry leadership and packer domination for too long. Current Canadian major packers obviously favor the north-south trade."
"We're in this as a business. This isn't about being protectionist," Kaiser told M&P, adding, "If we'd been more proactive on BSE a few years ago, we could have put ourselves in a much better position than we're in now. That's why we've got to do something now before it gets even later."
Frustrated Canadian beef groups create a new alliance outside the industry's mainstream
(MEATPOULTRY.com, January 28, 2008)
by Steve Bjerklie
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Frustrated by previous attempts to lift the Canadian beef industry from its post-BSE doldrums, including those made by the Canadian Cattlemen's Association, a consortium of five producer groups has banded together to forge a new path back to profitability.
At the suggestion of Alberta's provincial government, representatives from the Alberta Cattle Feeders Association, the Beef Initiative Group (BIG), the Western Stock Growers Association, the Provincial Feeders Association of Alberta and the Alberta Beef Producers met in early in January with provincial officials to discuss ways to address the Canadian cattle industry's economic problems.
Already, however, there has been disagreement: in November, all of the organizations except the Alberta Cattle Producers endorsed several new strategies. According to Randy Kaiser, vice president of BIG, "the government saw the light and realized they had really dropped the ball on BSE and after. They want to hear some new ideas." But, he added, the same isn't true of the industry's mainstream: "The Alberta Beef Producers and the CCA, they've become a distorted kind of lobby group. Producers are disgruntled and don't want much to do with them anymore."
Over the past five years the Canadian beef industry has been hit hard twice, first by BSE, which was first found in Canada in Alberta in May 2003 and which resulted in the loss of dozens of key export markets, and second by the devaluation of the U.S. dollar compared to the Canadian dollar, which has encouraged Canadian producers to send their cattle south of the border and has made Canadian export beef more expensive abroad than competitive U.S. beef. Moreover, the BSE problem hasn't ever really gone away after the initial discovery: to date, 11 BSE-infected bovines have been discovered in Canada, the most recent announced last December. The Canadian Food Inspection Agency said in December that it expects to continue to find more BSE-infected animalsover the next 10 years "as Canada progresses towards its goal of eliminating the disease from the national cattle herd."
Kaiser, who runs a 200-head cattle operation focused on the Welsh Black and Galloway breeds and who heads the Natural Celtic Beef Alliance, told MEAT & POULTRY that "the main thrust" of the five-member consortium's approach will be to rebuild the value-chain. To do that, it wants to establish a new brokerage to grow Canada's beef trade with non-NAFTA member nations. The plan, said Kaiser, involves custom-slaughtering Canadian cattle at Canadian plants, then exporting the beef overseas, possibly under a special brand such as "Canada Gold." "The main goal is to reduce our dependency on the American market," he said. "We've already talked to Cargill and Tyson in Alberta about it, and they're very interested. Of course, they have an interest in keeping Canadian cattle in Canada to keep their capacities up at their plants" in High River and Lethbridge, Alb., respectively. All the cattle the consortium produces will be age-verified and will have to meet certain quality specifications.
Last November's agreement proposes a producer-owned brokerage corporation to allow producers and feeders to maintain ownership of their livestock all the way through to the point of sale as beef. The aligned groups want to become full participating parts of the value-added chain and to create and support partnerships with feedlots. The agreement states that inclusion in the value-added market is essential to the future of Canada's beef industry: "We must be allowed to cease selling cattle on the hoof at a discount and become marketers of beef."
The five aligned organizations also want to reconstitute the Canada Beef Export Federation (CBEF) and the Beef Information Centre. The agreement from last November states: "CBEF has been hamstrung by both industry leadership and packer domination for too long. Current Canadian major packers obviously favor the north-south trade."
"We're in this as a business. This isn't about being protectionist," Kaiser told M&P, adding, "If we'd been more proactive on BSE a few years ago, we could have put ourselves in a much better position than we're in now. That's why we've got to do something now before it gets even later."
