Canada: Computerized Cattle Rush Underway as Cattlemen Flood Registry
Canadian Press, September 25, 2005
CALGARY (CP) - It's a cattle rush of a different kind. Canadian cattlemen have flooded a computer registry in recent weeks to log the birthdate of animals born in the last 18 months, hoping it will be easier to get them to foreign markets.
More than 550,000 young cattle have been registered in the federal database since Sept. 1 for a total of 682,000 animals. That's up from 10,000 at the end of May.
"It's happening very quickly," said Julie Stitt, executive director for the Canadian Cattle Identification Agency. "It's really neat to see the industry jumping on this in terms of submitting records."
After the mad cow crisis, many countries only want meat from animals less than 30 months old and age verification is key to broadening export opportunities.
Producers were initially slow to sign on to the voluntary program, a process which takes only minutes on the agency's website. Some were skeptical the extra paperwork would mean a payoff for anyone but meatpackers.
Auctioneer Blair Vold says in the last month, feedlots have been asking that calves to be sold in the fall run have their age verified.
"There's more pressure from feedlots, dealers and buyers to get the message out to producers," said Vold, whose operation in Ponoka, Alta., is the largest in Canada.
"They've got the tags in their calves' ears. It's a matter of attaching their birthdates to that tag number and that's what we're trying to get producers to do."
Of 8,000 animals offered for sale at a satellite auction Friday, 6,000 had age verification documents, Vold said.
Producers won't have a choice much longer. Alberta will make age verification mandatory by the spring of 2007.
The process is easier and less intrusive than having a veterinarian determine the age of an animal by examining teeth.
Although Vold isn't promising cattlemen a premium for the certificate, some buyers are willing to pay extra for the documentation.
"I'm betting these animals will be worth more," said Kee Jim of Okotoks, Alta., who has been paying about $15 more for each age-verified calf.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture has said it will accept age verification for exports. And a technical team from Japan reviewed the process earlier this month in Calgary, said Stitt.
"We demonstrated the system and they complimented us on how it met all of their requirements," said Stitt. "So far, we've not heard that we need to change anything or require producers to do anything additional."
There's still a long way to go. About five million calves were born in Alberta this spring alone.
But Canada is years ahead of the United States. The U.S. government has no plans to verify the age of cattle and won't have a national identification system in place until 2009.
For the last three years, Canada has also required animals to have eartags with identifying bar codes before leaving their herd of origin. Authorities can then quickly trace and isolate potential threats from the three cases of bovine spongiform encephalopathy detected in Canadian cattle.
Shipments of beef processed from young animals kept the Canadian cattle industry afloat in the two years after mad cow disease was discovered in May 2003 and before live cattle trade resumed with the United States.
Global sales of boxed beef were worth $1.9 billion in 2004 - $1.5 billion to the U.S. alone.
Producers have lost more than $7 billion in exports during the crisis, but most believe foreign markets will begin to resume trade with Canada by 2007.
Ted Haney of the Canada Beef Export Federation says there's nothing like economic incentive to speed up age verification. That may only happen after the first beef is exported to Japan.
"When the price premium is actually in the system, when access to Japan isn't theoretical but actual, that's when we'll start to see significant numbers," says Haney.
At the federation's recent annual meeting, increasing the number of age-verified cattle was cited as key to the success of an ambitious mad cow recovery plan. That plan would see exports ramped up sharply over the next decade while reducing reliance on the U.S. market.
Canadian Press, September 25, 2005
CALGARY (CP) - It's a cattle rush of a different kind. Canadian cattlemen have flooded a computer registry in recent weeks to log the birthdate of animals born in the last 18 months, hoping it will be easier to get them to foreign markets.
More than 550,000 young cattle have been registered in the federal database since Sept. 1 for a total of 682,000 animals. That's up from 10,000 at the end of May.
"It's happening very quickly," said Julie Stitt, executive director for the Canadian Cattle Identification Agency. "It's really neat to see the industry jumping on this in terms of submitting records."
After the mad cow crisis, many countries only want meat from animals less than 30 months old and age verification is key to broadening export opportunities.
Producers were initially slow to sign on to the voluntary program, a process which takes only minutes on the agency's website. Some were skeptical the extra paperwork would mean a payoff for anyone but meatpackers.
Auctioneer Blair Vold says in the last month, feedlots have been asking that calves to be sold in the fall run have their age verified.
"There's more pressure from feedlots, dealers and buyers to get the message out to producers," said Vold, whose operation in Ponoka, Alta., is the largest in Canada.
"They've got the tags in their calves' ears. It's a matter of attaching their birthdates to that tag number and that's what we're trying to get producers to do."
Of 8,000 animals offered for sale at a satellite auction Friday, 6,000 had age verification documents, Vold said.
Producers won't have a choice much longer. Alberta will make age verification mandatory by the spring of 2007.
The process is easier and less intrusive than having a veterinarian determine the age of an animal by examining teeth.
Although Vold isn't promising cattlemen a premium for the certificate, some buyers are willing to pay extra for the documentation.
"I'm betting these animals will be worth more," said Kee Jim of Okotoks, Alta., who has been paying about $15 more for each age-verified calf.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture has said it will accept age verification for exports. And a technical team from Japan reviewed the process earlier this month in Calgary, said Stitt.
"We demonstrated the system and they complimented us on how it met all of their requirements," said Stitt. "So far, we've not heard that we need to change anything or require producers to do anything additional."
There's still a long way to go. About five million calves were born in Alberta this spring alone.
But Canada is years ahead of the United States. The U.S. government has no plans to verify the age of cattle and won't have a national identification system in place until 2009.
For the last three years, Canada has also required animals to have eartags with identifying bar codes before leaving their herd of origin. Authorities can then quickly trace and isolate potential threats from the three cases of bovine spongiform encephalopathy detected in Canadian cattle.
Shipments of beef processed from young animals kept the Canadian cattle industry afloat in the two years after mad cow disease was discovered in May 2003 and before live cattle trade resumed with the United States.
Global sales of boxed beef were worth $1.9 billion in 2004 - $1.5 billion to the U.S. alone.
Producers have lost more than $7 billion in exports during the crisis, but most believe foreign markets will begin to resume trade with Canada by 2007.
Ted Haney of the Canada Beef Export Federation says there's nothing like economic incentive to speed up age verification. That may only happen after the first beef is exported to Japan.
"When the price premium is actually in the system, when access to Japan isn't theoretical but actual, that's when we'll start to see significant numbers," says Haney.
At the federation's recent annual meeting, increasing the number of age-verified cattle was cited as key to the success of an ambitious mad cow recovery plan. That plan would see exports ramped up sharply over the next decade while reducing reliance on the U.S. market.
