Murgen said:
While I obviously can't argue that we're shipping into Japan, we're shipping just a fraction of what we had pre-BSE. If the tracking system was all it took, why have we not seen exports return to pre-BSE levels?
Rod, all I've heard also, is that there aren't enough age verified, but that the numbers are increasing quickly. My point is that testing is not required to ship to Japan. Age verification is sufficient, and the least cost option!
I understand, but lets just look at it from a marketting perspective and compare against what our competitors are doing.
I hear the arguement that all it takes is M-ID to ship to Japan (not necessarily from you, but from others). That logic is flawed, as if that were true, our exports should have returned to pre-BSE levels.
Why haven't they returned to pre-BSE levels? Because we are now a BSE country. No matter how low a risk we are, we are still a BSE country.
Now Australia is not a BSE country. Obviously that has a great deal to do with their current export levels. HOWEVER, they also have a traceback system AND the willingness to BSE test anything that their customers want tested. They're willing to cater to the demands of their customers to make the sale.
Canada (and the US) are BSE countries. That means, in one not so insignificant way, that our beef is inferior to another countries. Now you and I both know that our beef, quality and taste wise, will blow away much of the Australian stuff. But to Japan, safety is paramount and quality takes second place. We are considered inferior when it comes to safety. That means that we have to market even harder. We can't afford to let another country have our imports, and we should be doing everything we can to take those imports back.
I find it frustrating that more isn't being done. The CCA and CFIA are against voluntary BSE testing, which is complete and utter nonsense. Hell, the CCA couldn't even give me a good reason to not allow voluntary testing. Just that they were against it. With rocket scientist thought like that, we will be forever locked into the US as our only real export customer.
Just step for one moment and take a long thought on it. We have better quality beef. So we age verify it AND we BSE test it, or at the very least, allow voluntary BSE testing. Now we have equalled Australia's safety AND we have a better quality product.
By the way, the numbers of age verified beef is on the rise, unfortunately, the smaller business concerns are being outbid on it. The big guys are buying it and shipping it to the US. We're losing healthy premiums by shipping into the US.
Rod