Mandatory Age Reporting In Canada

[DiamondSCattleCo]

I just got off the phone with the CCA, and apparently there is going to be a vote at their next meeting on whether or not to press for mandatory age reporting.

Currently, the some selfish larger producers and packers have local producer associations buffaloed into believing that leaving things voluntary is the proper step to take right now. As I called my local CCA reps, I was somewhat staggered by their reasons for NOT pressing for mandatory age reporting. In the interests of full disclosure, I'll lay them out for you:

1) Current premiums would disappear. Right now, on age verified cattle, there can be an up to a 5 cent/lb premium through the barn or on direct sale to the feedlot. Unfortunately, this is only a premium that larger producers can get access to. Why is this you ask? Most barns these days, at least in Saskatchewan, are selling pre-sort. This is a proven way to sell, and generally nets the producer more money than 24 hr stand. Anyway, calves/bankgrounders are sold in lots of 10 commonly weighted and framed animals. If a producer sells 50 or so calves, it would be common for them to see 20 or MAX 30 of their calves able to be grouped together. The rest would get slotted into other pens with other producer's animals. So, if you have age verified cattle, you may see the premium on 20 animals, possibly 30, but all of them. The sale barns DO NOT have time to pre-sort age verified cattle as well, but are willing to announce age verified on easily sorted pens, such as all producer owned.

Your next option is to direct contact the feedlots and sell them you age verified cattle. This is certainly an option, however I think it defeats the price discovery mechanism of the sale barn, and ends up lowering prices. I have yet to have a single feedlot make an offer on my calves that matched what I got at the market when I sold the calves.

2) It would be impossible to ensure producer compliance and some producers would report inaccurate or purposely false birth dates. To this I say, huh? Even if a producer doesn't want to age verify, and he reports a birth date thats 1 month off, this hardly defeats the age verification mechanism. Currently, under the voluntary system, there is MORE impetus to cheat the ages because of the short term premium on selling price.

3) Even if you don't get a premium at the barn, the packer does get a premium when he sells the age-verified beef on the export market. This premium eventually makes its way back to the producer. We won't even bother with this one. Even if the packer sends a PORTION of the premium back in the form of increased bids on fats, the producer has had to do ALL the work and effort, only to receive a PORTION of the premium?

Why do I feel that mandatory age reporting is of benefit?

Right now, on the world stage, Canada is being out-marketed by smaller countries who utilize RFID tracking, age verification, even animal information records. These countries are shipping relatively small amounts of inferior product and have not yet truly begun to hurt us.

We're on the verge of some truly massive markets opening up. Lets use China as an example. While they may not be asking for it right now, China will follow Japan's lead and require age verification on beef shipments. This is not something that any sane or reasonable person will debate.

Current estimates at getting an infrastructure set up to handle mandatory age reporting stand at a little over a year. This includes training new staff and setting up computer hardware to handle additional load. If the tagging system roll out is any indication, we're likely going to be closer to two years. This is not an insult to the people who are doing the work, but simply an unfortunate reality when dealing with systems.

As Canadian producers, we need to be concerned about our export markets. 60% of all calves born on Canadian soil end up outside Canada. The American market is no longer safe for us. Even if the border is fully open, we've seen how quickly it can slam shut at the snap of a lawyers fingers.

I think Canadian beef is the best in the world. Its time our marketing caught up to the producers. Please, protect your export markets, call your local reps, whether they be CCA or provincial beef associations and ask them to represent your interests. Ask for mandatory age reporting.

Rod

 

[Econ101]

Now wait a minute, Rod. Are you going so far as suggesting--no further than that-- saying that cattle producers are being duped into voluntary age verification based on an incentive for that information and then they are not being handed the benefits of it?

That is incredible!!! :shock: I thought that all additional profits are automatically handed down to producers by margin operators. :lol: :lol: :lol:

 

[Big Muddy rancher]

No Econ he is saying he wants every producer to be forced to do with no benefits passed down to the producer.
Rod , Mankota Stockmen's Weigh Company is having a Age Verified Angus calf sale this fall. Maybe you should get a group of producers to work with the auction barn you deal with and put on a age verified sale in your area. Reap the rewards.

 

[Econ101]

No Econ he is saying he wants every producer to be forced to do with no benefits passed down to the producer.
Rod , Mankota Stockmen's Weigh Company is having a Age Verified Angus calf sale this fall. Maybe you should get a group of producers to work with the auction barn you deal with and put on a age verified sale in your area. Reap the rewards.

BMR, are you denying what Rod just posted is happening? Are the benefits being passed down or not?

 

[Mike]

Econ, don't you understand? If it's made mandatory and everyone does it......there won't be premiums anymore. Makes you wonder if the premiums are being paid by the one's who don't comply and given to the ones that do.

That way, the packer is not paying the premiums at all.

 

[Tam]

No Econ he is saying he wants every producer to be forced to do with no benefits passed down to the producer.
Rod , Mankota Stockmen's Weigh Company is having a Age Verified Angus calf sale this fall. Maybe you should get a group of producers to work with the auction barn you deal with and put on a age verified sale in your area. Reap the rewards.

BMR, are you denying what Rod just posted is happening? Are the benefits being passed down or not?

As of now they are where they can be. If you are selling Age verified fat cattle to the packers they are paying a premuim. So if you, as the producer have retained ownership you recieve the premium. If Rod doesn't want to work with his auction barn and see if they would consider an age vertified pre sort sale then that is his lose. First his complains about the options other have in selling THEIR CATTLE and wants their options to be limited and now he want all producer to be forces to do something so there is no premiun to those that have the fore thought on how to market THEIR CATTLE to recieve the extra beneifit for their work. This has nothing to big verses small producers this is about ROD wanting to limit and force ALL PRODUCERS INTO HIS WAY OF MARKETING SO HE DOESN'T HAVE TO EXPLORE OTHER OPTIONS TO RECIEVE THE BENEIFITS THE SOME PRODUCERS RECIEVE.

 

[Econ101]

No Econ he is saying he wants every producer to be forced to do with no benefits passed down to the producer.
Rod , Mankota Stockmen's Weigh Company is having a Age Verified Angus calf sale this fall. Maybe you should get a group of producers to work with the auction barn you deal with and put on a age verified sale in your area. Reap the rewards.

BMR, are you denying what Rod just posted is happening? Are the benefits being passed down or not?

As of now they are where they can be. If you are selling Age verified fat cattle to the packers they are paying a premuim. So if you, as the producer have retained ownership you recieve the premium. If Rod doesn't want to work with his auction barn and see if they would consider an age vertified pre sort sale then that is his lose. First his complains about the options other have in selling THEIR CATTLE and wants their options to be limited and now he want all producer to be forces to do something so there is no premiun to those that have the fore thought on how to market THEIR CATTLE to recieve the extra beneifit for their work. This has nothing to big verses small producers this is about ROD wanting to limit and force ALL PRODUCERS INTO HIS WAY OF MARKETING SO HE DOESN'T HAVE TO EXPLORE OTHER OPTIONS TO RECIEVE THE BENEIFITS THE SOME PRODUCERS RECIEVE.

I think it is him wanting to make sure the benefits trickle down to those who are doing the actual work, the producers.

 

[DiamondSCattleCo]

Actually Econ, its much less political than that, although I certainly don't feel the small producers have been educated to the long-term value of Mandatory Age Reporting and larger producers/packers are able to reap gains of this ignorance.

No Econ he is saying he wants every producer to be forced to do with no benefits passed down to the producer.

How did I know this was going to be the result of that post?

What I am saying BMR is that we producers need to ensure there are sufficient numbers of age verified animals to ensure an export market outside of the USA exists for the future. Voluntary age identification will NOT ensure this happens. When the Chinese market begins to open up, it will be a FLOOD, not a trickle. If Canada isn't ready for it RIGHT AT THAT MOMENT, we will get run over by other countries who are ready for it. And there are countries ready for it. Ask Porker, he's the guy that educated my butt on the ID stuff. So China is not going to wait 2 years for Canada to deliver an adequate supply of beef to them.

So short-term, the large producers will need to give up their premium and so will the packers to ensure the long term health of our market. Imagine the benefits and prices that producers will get for their product if we are no longer restricted to the US market as our chief export market? there are 1 Billion, 300 million Chinese people. If they all eat 1 hamburger/year, think about how much that would mean to the Canadian producer if we were the guys supplying that burger?

Tam, don't even bother with your arguement about me not working with my barn. I grow weary of you pointing fingers at me and calling me lazy or making other baseless insinuations. So do me a favor and the next time you post on one of my threads, engage your brain and actually bring something to the table other than bluster and insults. I do not have the time nor the patience to deal with it any longer.

I've discussed this with 5 barns in Saskatchewan, and other than having a single age verified ONLY sale, they CANNOT spare the manpower to pre-sort animals based on age verified or not. So this means the average producer will not benefit from age verification anyway.

And before anyone says anymore, I have started the wheels rolling for an age-verified sale at the barn I deal at. I'm too late for myself this year, but since I have a little extra time, maybe I can help some others out.

I was in on M-ID right from the beginning, and I find it odd that the SAME arguements being used against M-ID are now being used against M-Age. Will any Canadian state that M-ID has been a bad thing?

If someone wants to bring a logical, non-theatrical arguement to the table that shows M-Age would be bad for the industry, I would love to hear it.

I also find it interesting that the only two Canadians who have argued this with me are above average sized producers. The AVERAGE cattle ranch in Saskatchewan, as of 2 years ago, was 50 animals. Whose looking out for the AVERAGE producer?

Rod

 

[Big Muddy rancher]

Rod do you have horns on your cattle? I just got in from dehorning some cattle that my father bought and is now sending them to a feedlot. Some of these cattle had horns and were bought at a discount. The producer could very easily taken these horns off as calves. I know they were from smaller producers. Why couldn't a smaller producer do just as good a job as manageing his cattle as a larger producer. We have had the horn cattle penalty for years. It costs the producer twice . Once for the horn tax and again when the cattle are sorted into the second cut pen. When age verification becomes the norm those that will do it will reap the rewards.
As we move forward with this RFID tag more sale barns will have readers and will be able to pull up that info. The packers and feedlots can't access the owners of those cattle just the birth dates. The privacy of the tags was a main selling point of M'ID.

 

[DiamondSCattleCo]

BMR, thank you for a civil debate, however horned, dehorned or polled cattle have absolutely no bearing on our ability to export livestock. Its a management issue, plus ALL cattle producers can easily dehorn their livestock, whether they be large or small. Small and average producers do NOT have easy access to the benefits of age verification. I haven't had a chance to complete my poll of all the Saskatchewan sale barns, however there is only 1 who is currently offering a specific age verified sale, 5 who would be willing to do one, as long as a minimum of 2000 animals were guaranteed to be there. All 6 barns are unwilling to sort stock by age verification during standard OR pre-sort sales. By the way, by the time I was done shipping my stock to the single age verified sale I could find, the trucking fees would have killed the premium.

If the cattle associations are unwilling to support the average sized producer with mandatory age verification, then at the very least, the associations should provide the necessary tools and manpower to the auction barns so that ALL PRODUCERS have equal access to age verified premiums.

Just like ALL producers can dehorn their livestock.

And no-one has yet to refute my arguement about us needing Age verification to export to overseas markets. Since the impetus is not there for the MAJORITY of cattle producers to age verify, we still cannot guarantee our access to the overseas markets next year, or the following year. All this risk to our industry to preserve the premium of a few producers who have access to it?

Rod

 

[Tam]

BMR, thank you for a civil debate, however horned, dehorned or polled cattle have absolutely no bearing on our ability to export livestock. Its a management issue, plus ALL cattle producers can easily dehorn their livestock, whether they be large or small. Small and average producers do NOT have easy access to the benefits of age verification. I haven't had a chance to complete my poll of all the Saskatchewan sale barns, however there is only 1 who is currently offering a specific age verified sale, 5 who would be willing to do one, as long as a minimum of 2000 animals were guaranteed to be there. All 6 barns are unwilling to sort stock by age verification during standard OR pre-sort sales. By the way, by the time I was done shipping my stock to the single age verified sale I could find, the trucking fees would have killed the premium.

If the cattle associations are unwilling to support the average sized producer with mandatory age verification, then at the very least, the associations should provide the necessary tools and manpower to the auction barns so that ALL PRODUCERS have equal access to age verified premiums.

Just like ALL producers can dehorn their livestock.

And no-one has yet to refute my arguement about us needing Age verification to export to overseas markets. Since the impetus is not there for the MAJORITY of cattle producers to age verify, we still cannot guarantee our access to the overseas markets next year, or the following year. All this risk to our industry to preserve the premium of a few producers who have access to it?

Rod

Rod how did we verify the age of beef before we had a system that we could record birth dates? How is the US age verifing beef they don't have a system in place? If we don't have enough age verified by Birthdate cattle we have other options open to get the cattle we need to export just like all other countries. If the Producers see their neighbors getting the premiums that they are not because of non age verified they will either age verify or lose out. The more producer that age verifiy the more the sale barns will cater to them soon the normal will be age verified and the non will be in the second cut pen just like the horned cattle. We have have other options for age verifing until we can get enough producer on board without risking the integrity of a system we are depending so heavily on to do want you want it to which is guarantee to the Export market the age of the cattle we are sending to them.

 

[DiamondSCattleCo]

Rod how did we verify the age of beef before we had a system that we could record birth dates? How is the US age verifing beef they don't have a system in place? If we don't have enough age verified by Birthdate cattle we have other options open to get the cattle we need to export just like all other countries. If the Producers see their neighbors getting the premiums that they are not because of non age verified they will either age verify or lose out. The more producer that age verifiy the more the sale barns will cater to them soon the normal will be age verified and the non will be in the second cut pen just like the horned cattle. We have have other options for age verifing until we can get enough producer on board without risking the integrity of a system we are depending so heavily on to do want you want it to which is guarantee to the Export market the age of the cattle we are sending to them.

The countries we currently export to are not all asking for age verification, HOWEVER it is around the corner. China WILL require age verification on a grand scale. Talk to some people in the industry and you'll understand. Age Verification will be necessary to ensure the health of our export markets. Voluntary verification will NOT spread fast enough to keep up with the export requirements. Some of the CCA reps I talked to agree with me, however they did have a valid arguement: Keep it voluntary for one more year, at least until people can get used to the process a little more. Maybe, but I don't think we should risk it.

As far as other age verification tools, please feel free to lay them out here, as well as their associated costs. And why should we simply "Do what others are doing"? We need to do what others are doing BETTER otherwise we simply become an "also-ran" versus a world leader. To think otherwise is dangerously short sighted.

And how are we risking the integrity of a system we are depending on by making age verification mandatory? Like I said, there is more impetus to cheat in the voluntary system than there ever would be in a mandatory system. And people recording wrong age dates doesn't destroy the integrity of the traceback system. I'm sorry, but I see no logic in your arguement.

Rod

 

[Anonymous]

Rod how did we verify the age of beef before we had a system that we could record birth dates? How is the US age verifing beef they don't have a system in place?

Been done down here for several years with hot iron brands and signed affidavits......

 

[Mike]

There source and age verified sales going all the time down here.

Just a few of many:

http://www.cattlenetwork.com/verifiedsales.asp

 

[DiamondSCattleCo]

There source and age verified sales going all the time down here.

Just a few of many:

http://www.cattlenetwork.com/verifiedsales.asp

Thats great Mike. We don't have them here in those kinds of numbers. Not to mention that the US does not rely NEARLY as heavily on export sales as we do. 60% of our calf crop ends up outside our borders. When the Chinese market opens up, that number will climb, and the sheer numbers of age verified beef that will be required to satisfy that market will boggle the mind. Canada could corner that market, or at the very least, corner a LARGE portion of it, all it would take is some education of the producers and few genuine leaders.

I don't know why its so difficult to get cattle producers, even those who say they are in leadership positions, to look past today, or even tomorrow and into the next 5 years. We producers need genuine leadership who understand the markets.

Rod

 

[DaleK]

I find it strange to think that it's the larger producers resisting mandatory age reporting. In Ontario, it's almost exclusively the smallest hobby producers with 10 or 12 cows who are resisting it, just as they were the ones who were providing most of the resistance to tagging the cattle, because it's not "fun" when you have to do things RIGHT instead of just doing whatever you want whenever you want to do it.

 

[Tam]

There source and age verified sales going all the time down here.

Just a few of many:

http://www.cattlenetwork.com/verifiedsales.asp

Thats great Mike. We don't have them here in those kinds of numbers. Not to mention that the US does not rely NEARLY as heavily on export sales as we do. 60% of our calf crop ends up outside our borders. When the Chinese market opens up, that number will climb, and the sheer numbers of age verified beef that will be required to satisfy that market will boggle the mind. Canada could corner that market, or at the very least, corner a LARGE portion of it, all it would take is some education of the producers and few genuine leaders.

I don't know why its so difficult to get cattle producers, even those who say they are in leadership positions, to look past today, or even tomorrow and into the next 5 years. We producers need genuine leadership who understand the markets.

Rod

I ask you again what other options do we have to age verify Rod? Do you know for a fact that if we don't age verify our whole herd by birthdate the Chinese will not take our beef using any other option open to us? Forcing producer to put a tag in a ear is far different that forcing that producer to keep auditable record to prove the information he entered is true. We can fine them for not putting the tag in and then put one in for them but if we start fining producers for not providing the correct age the integrity of our system will be compromised. Do you really want to chance that by forcing producer into doing something they don't think is neccessary.

 

[DiamondSCattleCo]

1) I ask you again what other options do we have to age verify Rod?

2) Do you know for a fact that if we don't age verify our whole herd by birthdate the Chinese will not take our beef using any other option open to us?

3) We can fine them for not putting the tag in and then put one in for them but if we start fining producers for not providing the correct age the integrity of our system will be compromised. Do you really want to chance that by forcing producer into doing something they don't think is neccessary.

1) Actually, you mentioned there were other options. I asked you to list them, and their associated costs. And since you mention producers using the wrong information, if you can, please post how they are more accurate.

2) The Chinese have expressly said this is in trade meetings, yes. And if you look around, its the way the world is going. Right now, many countries are asking for it, and paying premiums. Its no stretch that they'll decide to make it a requirement. Age AND source verification is going to be necessary, and so will BSE testing, eventually.

3) The only sure fire way to ensure that the producer isn't lying about age verification is to test the animal itself, and from what I understand, thats a fairly slow process. Slow = expensive. We have RFID. We have the best product in the world. Please quit protecting the pocketbooks of the larger producers and those with access to the premiums and ensure the safety of EVERYONEs markets. Since you and BMR are in the SSGA, its up to you to protect the market for EVERYONE, especially the medium sized guy who doesn't even have the market power of the large producer.

Rod

 

[Manitoba_Rancher]

Rod,

I believe you have way too much time on your hands. If you want to age verfiy your calves then you just go right ahead and do it, but dont pressure everyone else. As of this fall there was absolutely no premium for age verified calves in Manitoba. I personally do resister our calves but I do not think it should be mandatory!! If they try to make it law I think they will have a hell of a fight on their hands!

 

[DiamondSCattleCo]

I believe you have way too much time on your hands.

You can believe that if you want MR, but what I'm doing with my extra time these days is taking the time to learn more about the industry and what I can do to ensure the health of it, not insult people who do actually care about the industry. Short sighted producers fought M-ID, and thankfully, they lost. This is the same issue.

I hear it all the time, producers whine and complain on coffee row about us not having alternate export routes, so then packers, marketers and associations begin making inroads to opening those markets, only to find out that the producers won't do whats necessary to ensure the health of those new markets.

Rod