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TIDBIT

per

Well-known member
Did you know that Canada is the largest supplier of gas and oil the US.? How does that fit in to the conversation? It is called trade. As a student of economics SH you might recognize that trade is an essential part of the economic engine. No country is an island and stopping trade is step number one to recession.
 

Sandhusker

Well-known member
per said:
Did you know that Canada is the largest supplier of gas and oil the US.? How does that fit in to the conversation? It is called trade. As a student of economics SH you might recognize that trade is an essential part of the economic engine. No country is an island and stopping trade is step number one to recession.

Who wants to stop trade?
 

Sandhusker

Well-known member
per said:
It just appears that as you lobby for more barriers that maybe you do.

The problem that I see is that anything can be called a trade barrier. That word is about as overused and meaningless now as the word "change".
 

per

Well-known member
Sandhusker said:
per said:
It just appears that as you lobby for more barriers that maybe you do.

The problem that I see is that anything can be called a trade barrier. That word is about as overused and meaningless now as the word "change".


Either we are going to trade or not. When either country cherry picks it doesn't work so well. Don't remember using the term "trade barrier". I certainly don't expect much "change".
 

per

Well-known member
Well I could edit the last comment out or just wait until you point out the semantics of the use of barrier without the word trade.
 

Sandhusker

Well-known member
per said:
Sandhusker said:
per said:
It just appears that as you lobby for more barriers that maybe you do.

The problem that I see is that anything can be called a trade barrier. That word is about as overused and meaningless now as the word "change".


Either we are going to trade or not. When either country cherry picks it doesn't work so well. Don't remember using the term "trade barrier". I certainly don't expect much "change".

When a consumer is denied simple information that they deem important because that would be a trade barrier, our priorities are skewed.
 

PORKER

Well-known member
Who’s selling COOL?
2/10/2009

Leaving the National Cattlemen's Beef Association’s (NCBA) annual convention last week, two things were clear: We are going to have a significant amount of U.S. labeled beef on grocery shelves, and we are going to have a go at rewriting the beef checkoff.

The former became clear to this reporter during a discussion with Ken Bull, head buyer at Cargill. He said his company would devote a northern plant to mixed Canada and U.S. origin cattle and a southern plant to Mexican and U.S. cattle.

Asked why not just continue to label almost everything as possibly a product of all three countries as he and his competitors have been doing, he said, “We don’t think it’s in the spirit of the law….we think they have the votes (in Congress)” to remove any leniency USDA chooses to provide.

In the same vein, Chandler Keyes of JBS told us, “COOL is the law of the land. We think it’s time to move on.”

So we are about to have something of a U.S. “brand.” It will include Certified Angus Beef cattle and it will include canners, cutters, Holstein cows and rawboned, no-roll, one testicled bull/steers fresh from 3-year-careers in weed control on hobby farms. I’m not sure what our unique selling point will be, but I am sure that if we’re to have a brand, we need a marketing program to support it.
Which brings us back to the checkoff. Both the Cattlemen’s Beef Board (CBB)and NCBA voted to promote changes in the checkoff program. What they want—what about anybody must agree they need—is to increase the per-head fee.

They know the chances of that passing a new referendum without major changes is remote, despite the fact that their surveys show, in general, widespread support for the program. “In general” supporters don’t vote as reliably as energized members of opposition groups, and without a rewrite of the checkoff act, there would be plenty of those.

So they suggest several changes, and the CBB goes so far as to say they now believe checkoff funds could be used to support a U.S. brand. Assuming, at least, it is an official brand.

I hope somebody has given that a lot more forethought than I’ve seen evidenced. Again, this “brand” of beef will include every grade and quality of beef this diverse industry produces. Had we had it identified the last few years, this “brand” would have been at the root of every e. coli scare the government has traced and one of the two BSE scares. It includes 95% of the beef in the mix and it will probably produce 95% or more of the bad headlines and 95% or more of the bad (as well as the great, of course!) eating experiences.

The packers and grocers will have little if any incentive to push the product harder than the Canadian or Mexican beef they’re buying at, presumably, discounted prices.
The post-harvest segments fought COOL, and the beef industry made no friends among them in pushing the program down their throats. The value of a COOL program—providing the rudiments of a trace back program that will allow regulators and consumers to more quickly isolate and segregate the source of problems—can be considerable, long term.

It will take more than country of origin labeling to realize that value, however. COOL will provide the nucleus for that system one day—and I suspect a lot of COOL supporters, when ordered by their buyers to provide enough information to allow total traceback will set up a howl that will dwarf the noise they’re already making about the National Animal Identification System.

What’s important now is for somebody to get busy organizing a “brand” the checkoff can promote. Maybe it’s just “buy USA” but it must be there to help educate people and get them looking for that label. And, while we’re at it, get the minority of people who care about the source of their beef—the Lou Dobbs fanatics—to begin demanding their the restaurants they frequent to begin sourcing U.S. beef.

There’s not much demand for that now. But there has never really been a way for cafes—even those advertising “All American Beef” to really know where their beef began its life. There is now going to be a world of that product available if Ken Bull and Chandler Keyes are right. They might as well get pressured to buy it.


As McDonalds has proven time after time, it only takes a bit of consumer pressure to make food service folks think they’re up against tectonic shift. Hey, it’s the law of the land. Good law, bad law--we may as well squeeze what we can out of this thing.

Steve Cornett is editor emeritus at Beef Today. You can reach him via e-mail at [email protected]
 

mrj

Well-known member
BMR, aren't you numbers incomplete? It seems that with a Canadian population of just over 30Million and a US pop. of well over 3ooMillion, and the fact that a considerable number of Canadian cattle are fed in the USA, adding pounds to the carcass, your numbers don't tell the whole story.

Then there is the additional variable of how many Canadian cattle are processed in the US versus how many US Cattleare fed and/or processed in Canada.

Add in the amount of Canadian beef that is shipped from the USA to third party nations, and it all equals a much more complex situation than your simple numbers would indicate, doesn't it?

I wonder........how much does the attempt by some cattle producers in either or both countries to micro-manage the beef industry beyond their own gate about which most have little knowledge, and which often use very selectively in such discussions) hold back the success of the cattle business in both countries????

mrj
 

PORKER

Well-known member
Maybe it’s just “buy USA” but it must be there to help educate people and get them looking for that label. And, while we’re at it, get the minority of people who care about the source of their beef—the Lou Dobbs fanatics—to begin demanding their the restaurants they frequent to begin sourcing U.S. beef. ( THEY DO in SOME STATES )

There’s not much demand for that now. But there has never really been a way for cafes—even those advertising “All American Beef” to really know where their beef began its life. There is now going to be a world of that product available if Ken Bull and Chandler Keyes are right. They might as well get pressured to buy it.
 

Tex

Well-known member
mrj:"
I wonder........how much does the attempt by some cattle producers in either or both countries to micro-manage the beef industry beyond their own gate about which most have little knowledge, and which often use very selectively in such discussions) hold back the success of the cattle business in both countries???? "

Yep, the big boys want to keep you about as dumb as they can keep you so they can get away with cheating producers without a complaint. Their goal is to pay the lowest price for their supplies. I wonder how many people inconveniently get in their way.
 

mrj

Well-known member
Tex, do you understand that raising your cattle right for your target market (if you are raising cattle, that is), earning a reputation for honesty, and working to further the cattle/beef industry has value to others in the businesses turning cattle into beef ?

Those you term "the big boys" are business people and probably have about the same percentage of honest ones amongst them as do those in the business of raising cattle......hopefully more so, based on some comments I've heard from cattle growers over the years and across the nation.

Those who see evil in most people make one a bit suspicious of themselves, IMO.

mrj
 

Tex

Well-known member
mrj said:
Tex, do you understand that raising your cattle right for your target market (if you are raising cattle, that is), earning a reputation for honesty, and working to further the cattle/beef industry has value to others in the businesses turning cattle into beef ?

Those you term "the big boys" are business people and probably have about the same percentage of honest ones amongst them as do those in the business of raising cattle......hopefully more so, based on some comments I've heard from cattle growers over the years and across the nation.

Those who see evil in most people make one a bit suspicious of themselves, IMO.

mrj

mrj, you are in bed with people who have you fooled. They are buyers of your product and all of them want to get your product as cheap as possible and increase their margins (at your expense) to the extent of breaking the law and going to other countries to undercut you and reduce the price you get for your products. They will come up with arguments that seem rational to only the most gullible (like we can't get enough beef in the U.S. so we have to go elsewhere to get it).

I wouldn't rationalize their crooked or anti producer behaviors if I were you. It makes one a bit suspicious of your ability to think rationally. I don't approve of dishonesty with any of those you mention and you shouldn't either.
 

Big Muddy rancher

Well-known member
mrj said:
BMR, aren't you numbers incomplete? It seems that with a Canadian population of just over 30Million and a US pop. of well over 3ooMillion, and the fact that a considerable number of Canadian cattle are fed in the USA, adding pounds to the carcass, your numbers don't tell the whole story.

Then there is the additional variable of how many Canadian cattle are processed in the US versus how many US Cattleare fed and/or processed in Canada.

Add in the amount of Canadian beef that is shipped from the USA to third party nations, and it all equals a much more complex situation than your simple numbers would indicate, doesn't it?

I wonder........how much does the attempt by some cattle producers in either or both countries to micro-manage the beef industry beyond their own gate about which most have little knowledge, and which often use very selectively in such discussions) hold back the success of the cattle business in both countries????

mrj



Yes MRJ they are just a "Tidbit". Of course the US population is 10x the size of Canda's. That is what we spend/person on each others beef. The US kill the last week of Jan. was 632,800 in Canada 62,607.
Looks like we probably when all balanced out Canadians still spend more /person on US beef then the other way around.
 

PORKER

Well-known member
New USDA report: 36% of farmers don’t have computers
By Ethicurean @ 10:27 am on 17 August 2009.
Farm 2.0? Not so much: A report released Friday by the USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) tallies the numbers for farm computer usage for 2009. It finds:

Only 64 percent of farms have access to a computer, leaving 36 percent with no computer access.
59 percent of all farms–so nearly all of those with a computer–have Internet access, up 2 percent from the last survey, which was conducted in 2007.
DSL has surpassed dialup as the most common method of farm Internet access, with 36 percent of all farms using it. Dialup use dropped from 47 percent of farms in 2007 to 23 percent in 2009.
Only 13 percent of the farms with Internet access get it through satellite or wireless. 11 percent of farms have cable-based systems.
(USDA [pdf], via farmpolicy.com)

Some grist for the mill: A number of policy proposals making the rounds in Washington would require farmers to use electronic (i.e. computer-based) systems to track the movement of livestock or crops, ostensibly in the name of food safety. The National Animal Identification System (NAIS), which is already mandatory for livestock producers in some states, would require food animals to be tagged with electronic tracking devices and their movements recorded in an online database. The Food Safety Enhancement Act, which recently passed the House, would fund a pilot program to track produce from farm to retail using an electronic tracking system. For farmers, that would likely mean having to tag produce boxes with unique IDs, like SKU codes, and scan the ID into the system before the boxes leave the farm.

To the programs’ conceptual falacies, we’ll add a logistical issue: How can they be expected to work if more than a third of US farmers have no computer access? Or does Uncle Sam plan on instituting a “one laptop per farm” program?
 

Tex

Well-known member
PORKER said:
Who’s selling COOL?
2/10/2009

Leaving the National Cattlemen's Beef Association’s (NCBA) annual convention last week, two things were clear: We are going to have a significant amount of U.S. labeled beef on grocery shelves, and we are going to have a go at rewriting the beef checkoff.

The former became clear to this reporter during a discussion with Ken Bull, head buyer at Cargill. He said his company would devote a northern plant to mixed Canada and U.S. origin cattle and a southern plant to Mexican and U.S. cattle.

Asked why not just continue to label almost everything as possibly a product of all three countries as he and his competitors have been doing, he said, “We don’t think it’s in the spirit of the law….we think they have the votes (in Congress)” to remove any leniency USDA chooses to provide.

In the same vein, Chandler Keyes of JBS told us, “COOL is the law of the land. We think it’s time to move on.”

So we are about to have something of a U.S. “brand.” It will include Certified Angus Beef cattle and it will include canners, cutters, Holstein cows and rawboned, no-roll, one testicled bull/steers fresh from 3-year-careers in weed control on hobby farms. I’m not sure what our unique selling point will be, but I am sure that if we’re to have a brand, we need a marketing program to support it.
Which brings us back to the checkoff. Both the Cattlemen’s Beef Board (CBB)and NCBA voted to promote changes in the checkoff program. What they want—what about anybody must agree they need—is to increase the per-head fee.

They know the chances of that passing a new referendum without major changes is remote, despite the fact that their surveys show, in general, widespread support for the program. “In general” supporters don’t vote as reliably as energized members of opposition groups, and without a rewrite of the checkoff act, there would be plenty of those.

So they suggest several changes, and the CBB goes so far as to say they now believe checkoff funds could be used to support a U.S. brand. Assuming, at least, it is an official brand.

I hope somebody has given that a lot more forethought than I’ve seen evidenced. Again, this “brand” of beef will include every grade and quality of beef this diverse industry produces. Had we had it identified the last few years, this “brand” would have been at the root of every e. coli scare the government has traced and one of the two BSE scares. It includes 95% of the beef in the mix and it will probably produce 95% or more of the bad headlines and 95% or more of the bad (as well as the great, of course!) eating experiences.

The packers and grocers will have little if any incentive to push the product harder than the Canadian or Mexican beef they’re buying at, presumably, discounted prices.
The post-harvest segments fought COOL, and the beef industry made no friends among them in pushing the program down their throats. The value of a COOL program—providing the rudiments of a trace back program that will allow regulators and consumers to more quickly isolate and segregate the source of problems—can be considerable, long term.

It will take more than country of origin labeling to realize that value, however. COOL will provide the nucleus for that system one day—and I suspect a lot of COOL supporters, when ordered by their buyers to provide enough information to allow total traceback will set up a howl that will dwarf the noise they’re already making about the National Animal Identification System.

What’s important now is for somebody to get busy organizing a “brand” the checkoff can promote. Maybe it’s just “buy USA” but it must be there to help educate people and get them looking for that label. And, while we’re at it, get the minority of people who care about the source of their beef—the Lou Dobbs fanatics—to begin demanding their the restaurants they frequent to begin sourcing U.S. beef.

There’s not much demand for that now. But there has never really been a way for cafes—even those advertising “All American Beef” to really know where their beef began its life. There is now going to be a world of that product available if Ken Bull and Chandler Keyes are right. They might as well get pressured to buy it.


As McDonalds has proven time after time, it only takes a bit of consumer pressure to make food service folks think they’re up against tectonic shift. Hey, it’s the law of the land. Good law, bad law--we may as well squeeze what we can out of this thing.

Steve Cornett is editor emeritus at Beef Today. You can reach him via e-mail at [email protected]

One of the things that gets lost in trade with foreign countries is the fact that packers operating in the United States are ignoring the Packers and Stockyards Act when they buy beef cheaper from foreign sources.

The packers and Stockyards Act clearly states:

(b) Make or give any undue or unreasonable preference or advantage to any particular person or locality in any respect, or subject any particular person or locality to any undue or unreasonable prejudice or disadvantage in any respect; or


In the case of Canadian cattle during the bse crisis, Tyson made out hugely with the depressed cattle prices in Canada while selling the meat on the national market in the United States.

The regulatory agency supposedly policing the industry, GIPSA, ignored the fact that Tyson was buying cattle cheap but selling them at higher U.S. prices just because they came from Canada and from Canadian producers.

This as the reason for bse spread came from the packers who were selling cattle guts to feed to cattle. They created the problem in the first place!!!!

We have an incompetent enforcement of the laws in the United States and an ignoring of all of the laws when it comes to imports.

If the problems of the markets working properly is to be solved, it must consider foreign sources of product by U.S. companies and they must follow the same laws in the United States if they are allowed to sell in the United States via the Interstate Commerce Clause. U.S. companies must not be allowed to compete on the basis of cheating others outside the United States and the Packers and Stockyards Act must be enforced and denominated in the currency of sales by packers.

Our trade policy has been so screwed up by the big plays these guys make and our markets have been hurt by them.

MCOOL will allow people to tell the difference between the packer's suppliers and these international games that can be played on producers by retailers. We still need enforcement of the Packers and Stockyards Act so the big players can not play countries' suppliers off of one another.

Tex
 

PORKER

Well-known member
J Dudley Butler provided no details on new Packers and Stockyards Act rules that the 2008 farm bill mandates. He said a draft of the rules will be published this fall to seek comments from the public.

"They're going to be broad. They're going to cover every segment of the industry. I can't say I'm going to make everybody happy and I can't say I'm going to make everybody mad," he said.

"I truly believe that if you're going to regulate, authority has to be tempered with, as my dad used to say, common horse sense," he said.

"We know that we have an imbalance of power in some industries," he added.
I think the vertical intergators are Quacking like Ducks being shot at!!!
 
A

Anonymous

Guest
Sandhusker: "Who wants to stop trade?"

R-CALF and company want to stop the importation of Canadian cattle.

Who do you think you're deceiving now Sandhusker ??


R-CALF and Co. went as far as to instill unjustified bse fear in consumers to stop importation of Canadian cattle when we had a domestic case of bse in the US. That's why R-CALF got so fumbled up in court over their "zero tolerance" stance. R-CALF's contradicting positions would be humorous if they were not so damaging.

I'm still waiting for proof to substantiate your claims about the safety of Canadian beef. I guess that's like waiting for you to prove any of your baseless allegations isn't it?


~SH~
 
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