Cattlefacts Comment: "When you simply look at the big picture..., what we see is the legalized prostitution of the Canadian Beef Industry by the largest American agriculture power brokers on the planet. As it stands now, we do nothing to resist." Not our words but the conclusions of a desperate Canadian beef producer trying to wake his fellow producers out of an ignorance and aparthy about their real industry as it flirts with post BSE demise. It also gives readers an excellent insight into the relationship of the huge U.S. cattle market with it's minnow dependents, Canada and Mexico.
Although this story is about the BSE related woes of the Canadian Cattle industry it has been reproduced on our web site for future reference because we consider it highly instructive for Australian cattle producers. Except for the emphasis on BSE, many Australian producers could feel right at home inside this picture. Written by one producer, Cam Ostercamp, it highlights the vulnerabilities of an export dependent beef industry (like Australia's) and how that industry can be brought to its knees by instutionalised ignorance, aparthy and wrong headed thinking. It details the absolute dominance of major buyers and how dependence on them and fear of repercussions from them bind politics, and administrators with thick chords to their needs and outcomes.
It catalogues the all too familiar naivety of so many producers who are so consumed by demands inside their farm gate and so exploited by greedy monopolies and unimaginative administrators outside it, that they become surfs in their own kingdom. Above all it highlights that the outcomes an industry gets is directly related to the quality and accountability of its industry leadership. Neither of which are highly rated in Australia at this time, by Cattlefacts at least. Your comments are welcomed by Cattlefacts
(By: Cam Ostercamp) http://www.pctb.coop/veil.htm
This paper is a compilation of statistics and ideas relating to the Canadian cattle industry both pre and post BSE. The intent is to provoke thought and discussion on answers to the BSE crisis other than the politically popular concept that opening the U.S. border will solve our problems both in the acute as well as the future. The intent here is not to discredit the importance of trade with the U.S. – rather to show that we cannot afford to go back to our pre BSE dependence on the American market to the extent that we were dependent on it prior to May 20/03. This paper is presented in three parts, beginning with an overview of the Canadian beef industry and its inherent problems, followed by a discussion of mandatory BSE testing and concluding with some critical analysis of agriculture and BSE subsidies. The content of this paper is an insight you will never be allowed to receive from industry leaders or provincial/federal Agriculture Ministers. The data is 100% accurate, rounded off to the nearest percentage point. I can verify the validity of all sources of statistics contained herein.
According to the last current stats prior to BSE in May/03, Canada produced approximately 2% of the world’s beef, yet we were the 4th largest exporting nation of beef. That is a very dangerous position to be in, but even more so when you couple this stat with the fact that we only consume domestically 28% of our nation’s production, and at all times are forced to market 72% of our production as an export. In the past, this delicate balance has been exacerbated by beef imports from other countries (i.e., New Zealand, Uruguay, etc.) dictated by trade agreements. What has made our position even more precarious is the fact that over 70% of all our beef exports have traditionally been sold to one customer – the U.S.A. Yet of all the beef we exported to the U.S., that amount annually rarely exceeded 6% of their total nation’s use. This created a huge dependence on America by Canada, but literally no dependence on us by America. Leaders in the Canadian beef industry like to point out that Canada ramped up the beef production here by 60% in the last 10 years; but at what cost and to whom? Ten years ago it was accepted that the net profit from one beef cow was $175.00 - $200.00/head. The last two years prior to BSE, the accepted net return on the average beef cow in Western Canada was $50.00 - $125.00. Shrinking profit margins to the producer drove production levels more so than the health of the beef industry. We had to produce more animals in the last decade in order to generate the same revenue as 10 years previous, all the while accepting escalating operating costs. The profit in the Canadian cattle industry over the last 10 – 15 years seems to have been enjoyed more by Cargill Foods and Tyson Foods than by individual producers. We sucked into the “bigger is better” philosophy. Even if profits were $200.00 per cow, on a 100 cow production herd, the annual net income would be $20,000.00.
In considering the state of the Canadian agriculture situation, we must also bear in mind the marriage between the cattle industry and the grain producer. Roughly 30% of each grain producer’s annual harvest is earmarked for the beef lot sector. If we do not resolve our beef export crisis and are forced to de-populate our beef inventory by 30-40% to accommodate market demands, we have destroyed a viable market for every grain farmer in this country. They can ill afford to lose ground in their sector. Rural economies in Canada are completely intertwined and dependent on some kind of economic health in ALL commodities.
Another major point of contention in the feedlot sector is packer ownership of huge numbers of cattle on feed in various custom feedlots around the country. There is no law in Canada controlling packer ownership. This enables packers to purchase tens of thousands of feeder cattle in the fall at the same time private feeders are filling up their empty pens. This is advantageous for custom feedlot operators as their pens are full of cattle at no risk to themselves and their feed bills are paid on time. The problem with this scenario is that these tens of thousands of packer owned cattle finish at exactly the same time as the private feeders cattle do, creating a “captive market” for the American based packers bidding on privately owned cattle. For example, in week one of May or June, the private feeders offer for bid collectively 10,000 head of finished cattle. Cargill Foods also has a big bulge of their own cattle finished and they crop the bid 7 or 8 cents/pound to the private operators. In week two, the private operators who refused to sell in week one at the lower bid now decide to pass the cattle on into week two. In the meantime, Cargill is slaughtering their own cattle and not missing a beat. They then offer the private operators 2 cents less this week than they did in week one and their plant is at capacity. By week three, the private operator’s cattle that he refused to sell in weeks one and two, are quickly approaching overweight status thereby losing grade. The treadmill stops here. Cargill offers them 2 cents less in week three than in week two, the private operator is forced to sell or take major grade discounts, and Cargill never lost a cent in three weeks of operation. The private operator took it on the chin and had his memory refreshed as to what happens when you try to stare down one of the three big North American agriculture power brokers. This is the system that all of the major beef industry leaders, along with provincial and federal politicians want us to get back into.
In all fairness, there are times when the U.S. has a shortage of beef and packers cannot keep up to the demand for beef south of the border, so bids to Canadian feeders heat up and everybody makes a few dollars per head profit. This is when memories get very short and feeders rush out to replace their inventories and compete with one another to own anything in the way of replacement cattle offered for sale by cow/calf producers thereby driving the price up on replacement cattle. This phenomenon does not happen with any regularity or rhythm, but cow/calf producers are constantly trying to guess the trend of this very fickle feature of the market. On average, the cow/calf operator is lucky to hit this wave creating two or maybe three years out of five when he sells his annual crop of calves from September to November each fall.
At this point, one might ask why Canadian beef industry leaders and politicians are not embracing anything that might have a chance of opening export markets beyond the old conventional American single customer outlet. To do so would necessitate mandatory testing of all slaughter cattle in order to relax world fears of our product and meet global demands regarding consumer safety. To understand why this idea has not been embraced you need look no further than south of the border. It is very important to realize that the three huge power brokers in agriculture in America – Cargill Foods, Tyson/IBP Foods and Con-Agra – collectively control almost every food item that hits the supermarket shelf in America and to a large extent, Canada as well. This includes fast food chains, institutional food supplies, and a huge amount of overseas food supply. These three players also control agriculture related commodities such as fertilizers, a big percentage of agriculture chemicals, and most of the North American grain trade. For as long as there has been farming in Canada, almost all agriculture commodity prices have been set for Canada by the Chicago Board of Exchange, the New York Stock Exchange, Wall Street, etc. We live in the shadow of the giant – when they shoot, we dance.
To fully grasp this situation, one must have a rudimentary understanding of the American beef industry. For every cow in Canada, there are 8.5 beef cows in America. Statistics show that America consumes 90% of their beef and exports 10%. However, when you examine their situation, they eat literally every pound of beef they produce nationally and export what they purchase annually after processing and adding value. That’s good business. Bear in mind that what they buy from Canada is only 6% of their annual use. They also buy 4% of their annual use from Mexico in the form of live cattle coming north into southern state feedlots, which , by the way has created the greatest internal American opposition to Washington’s “country of origin labeling law” proposed by Congress. Southern state feedlots depend on this supply of cheap Mexican feeder cattle to exist. There are many other beef imports/exports in the American Industry, but those mentioned set the agenda and are the control forces. Basically, America eats its own production and buys its exports, processes them and ships them out of the country with value added as an export commodity. If they lose their export market, their own domestic production is still being processed and consumed at home with little or no effect on the U.S. producer, processor or any other sector of agriculture or industry. This is evidenced by examining cattle market prices in Canada one month after BSE and in America one month after BSE. In Canada, May1/03 slaughter cow prices were from approximately 52 – 58 cents/pound (Cdn.) live weight. July 15/03 slaughter cow prices ranged from 2 – 12 cents/pound live weight if you could find a buyer. Feedlot slaughter cattle (young finished beef) on May1/03 was approximately $1.08/pound live weight in Canada. By July 15/03, the price had dropped to as low as 36 cents/pound live weight for the same finished cattle. In contrast, in America on December 18/03, slaughter cow price was 44 cents/pound (U.S. $) live weight. One month after their Washington state BSE case hit the media, U.S. slaughter cow price was 42 cents/pound live weight. Young feeder finished cattle in America on December 18/03 were $1.02 - $1.08/pound live weight and on January 20/04 the same finished cattle were fetching $1.00/pound live weight. BSE did not affect the U.S. cattle industry because they do not depend on selling beef outside their borders.
Consider the number of packing plants on both sides of the border. In the U.S., there are over 40 plants capable of 1000 head or more per day kill capacity. In Canada, there are barely 6 plants capable of over 1000 head per day kill – the two largest being American owned – Cargill in High River and IBP/Tyson Foods (Lakeside Packers) in Brooks. Both of these U.S. plants are capable of over 4000 head per day kill. The other four plants in Canada are barely 1000 head/day kill. Knowing that BSE did not affect the American beef industry, that U.S. per capita beef consumption has not dropped, that their cow numbers are not sufficient at this time to quite supply their domestic demand and most importantly that all of the major packing plants in the U.S. and Canada are American owned buy the three big power brokers who control all of the U.S. agriculture and food production, why indeed would they consider going to the unnecessary expense and effort to implement mandatory BSE testing? They especially do not want to see Canada go the way of mandatory testing because of the real fear that if Canadian consumers are eating 100% tested beef, American consumers will soon demand the same. While it may be a bargain for Canada to implement testing in its few plants, it is seen as a huge nightmare by the power brokers in America to install labs in all of their plants. It is viewed as unnecessary in America and, as such, they can afford to tout the mantra “science says you don’t have to test”. The three big players control the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the USDA controls agriculture policy and in turn, we are controlled by U.S. agriculture policy in Canada as well.
Try as you might to find a politician in power in Canada either federally or provincially who will even discuss the hypothetical merits of BSE testing (with the exception of, I believe, Jon Lord an MLA from Calgary) I haven’t heard one who will entertain the notion. Ask any leader of any beef industry lobby association (i.e., Alberta Beef Producers, Canadian Cattlemen’s Association, Canada Beef Export Federation, etc.). They all give the same hollow, pat answer – “Science says …..”. It is simply too big a stretch of the imagination to think that all of these collective minds have arbitrarily arrived at the same negative opinion of other options and other markets at the same time. You don’t suppose their strings are being pulled?
Another factor at work in Canada that does not lend itself to speaking out in favor of BSE testing and expanding our export markets beyond America is simple fear. Most private, non-custom feedlots in Canada are on such a short tether to their banks that they are not looking to the future past the end of their current fiscal quarter or the batch of cattle currently on feed. Their survival depends entirely on success or failure in the immediate. Cow/calf operators are looking at two, three or maybe four or five years down the road. Private intensive feedlot operators cannot see beyond this summer because their operating line of credit is pinned at the maximum and they face foreclosure. They are the squeaky front wheel in the cattle industry and they are not about to whisper a word about BSE testing because their American buyer, and the only buyer they have, does not want to go there. Neither will the feedlot operator who feeds the tens of thousands of packer owned cattle, for obvious reasons. His custom feedlot ticks along quite nicely, full of American packer owned cattle and his success is assured as long as he maintains that relationship. If there is any chance of getting this industry to look at other options for export, it must come from the individual producer level.
As it stands now, the Canadian beef industry also faces another major obstacle – a drastic lack of infrastructure in slaughtering capacity No where is this problem felt more acutely than with the situation of mature cattle or “cull cows” as they are called within the business. Mature cattle are typically older cows and bulls that for whatever reason are unable to continue producing calves. They almost all go into hamburger and have always had a very high demand. Since BSE hit, we have had no export market for these cattle, of which we have 800,000 head annually. In the past, approximately 75% of these cattle were sold and shipped alive to the U.S. for slaughter. Since May20/03, not one of these 800,000 head has left the country and we do not have plants to kill them. IBP/Tyson Foods in Brooks was the largest slaughter plant for mature cows in Canada prior to May/03 at up to 1200 head/day at times. Excel Beef in Calgary also slaughtered up to 800-900 head/day at times. Since this beef cannot leave the country and IBP/Tyson is making too much money stealing young finished beef from Canadian feedlot operators and firing it into the red-hot U.S. market as boneless, boxed beef, virtually no mature cows get killed in Canada, at least nothing like we were used to prior to May/03. Cargill in High River never have killed mature beef and say they never will. So, with our complete lack of capacity to process mature animals in this country, they continue to have birthdays on our farms regardless of whether they are producing for us and they are consuming valuable feed daily.
The federal and provincial government solution to this debacle was instead of having the vision last summer to fast track mandatory BSE testing and help initiate private industry to build the “bricks and mortar” of slaughterhouse capacity so that Canada might someday create a climate for producers to survive, they initiated another very costly subsidy called the BSE Cull Cow Recovery Program -- one of the greatest wastes in the last twelve months. This program will likely total in excess of 300 million dollars but when evaporated out to each producer in the country it amounts to approximately $1800.00 for an operator who owns 100 breeding cows. Some producers refused to apply for it out of sheer common sense. This is an example of the mishandling of the BSE crisis that we are protesting today. To date, there have been approximately 2.2 billion tax dollars spent on federal/provincial so called recovery programs, yet to the best of my knowledge, not one dollar has been invested by government or promised to be made available to private industry to build much needed slaughter capacity in Canada for Canada. Nor have there been any policy changes made provincially or federally to create a climate that Canadian agriculture can survive in both now and in the future. On the contrary, Canadian governments have aided and abetted American commerce to flourish in Canada. By buying Canadian fed animals at a highly discounted price from Canadian producers, processing them in their American plants operating on Canadian soil, and firing processed, boneless boxed beef into the American market (which for the last twelve months has been anywhere from 30% to 80% higher than the captive Canadian market) American players have profited on the backs of Canadian producers. Again, at what cost and to whom have we developed the Canadian beef industry? The picture painted is accurately portrayed and proven by history and statistics. Unless we convince policy makers to do a 180 degree turnaround on how we do business globally and immediately put huge efforts into Canadian owned infrastructure working for the benefit of the Canadian bottom line, our industry cannot help but decay at the producer level. Accommodating the demands of the global customer is paramount – i.e., we must test ALL beef exports. Building the infrastructure to work for the Canadian interest rather than seeing our Canadian beef funneled into foreign plants with foreign interests profiteering from it is also crucial to climbing out of the hole we are currently in. It was largely weak Canadian government policy federally and provincially that set the stage for our crisis to develop and it will take major policy change by both governments to allow private industry to stop this hemorrhage. Innovative solutions by Canadians are currently being hobbled by onerous government policy and waste.
The following is a profit/loss graph for Western Canada feedlots from 1979 – 2002 showing a net loss over that period of $4.85 on a twenty year average. (Source: Can Fax Trends) One explanation as to why this situation was allowed to continue year after year is that the feedlot industry in Canada was predominantly filled with thousands of head of cattle bought by people late in the fiscal year to avoid paying 50% tax penalties to Revenue Canada. It was a more savory option to buy hundreds of weaned calves, dump them into a custom feedlot, pay feed bills on them until slaughter, then have them hauled to one of the big American meat packing plants and sell them into the fed cattle market. The fact that they may lose $100 - $150 /head was favorable to paying $0.50 on the dollar to Revenue Canada the previous year. Some years, feedlot operators actually made $30 - $75/head and created that much more of a tax problem so they would buy more cattle the next fall and repeat the process all over.
Another reason this became an accepted practice was that the feedlot industry was so tied to all other sectors of agriculture (i.e., millions of tones of grain per year are marketed through the feedlot industry). So, ridiculous as it appears, losses per head were offset by the boost the feedlot sector gave the other related sectors including, of course, the ramping up of cattle and beef production and exports in Canada. But again, at what cost and to whom? Per capita farm income was steadily declining well before May 20/03.
It is a fact that the USDA has taken a stand against mandatory testing for BSE because it is viewed as cost prohibitive to the three big players in the U.S.. It is virtually unnecessary to them, as they eat everything they produce domestically. It is also a fact that they are telling Canada not to initiate a policy of mandatory testing because if we did, consumers would get nervous in America and demand the same. We are being expected to knuckle under to these demands under the veil of “science”. The world obviously has lost confidence in science in terms of food safety and with good cause. One need only consider examples such as the controversy over genetically modified foods, the relationship between pesticide use and cancer rates, avian influenza, honey from China containing antibiotics, along with BSE and the mysteries and hypotheses that surround it. For instance, what are the connections between CJD, BSE and Alzheimer’s disease? Scientists, at the moment, are at some disagreement surrounding these issues and consumers are caught in the middle of the controversy.
Do I think my beef needs to be tested for my family’s safety? NO! Do I think my beef needs to be tested in order to regain the confidence of that part of the world that demands that it be tested? YES! Perception is almost always reality in business, or to put it another way, the customer is always right. All governments in power and beef industry leaders have spun the same hollow line at us for months - “science says we don’t need to test.” They back up their position only by stating that “these countries have never guaranteed to buy our product even if we did test all of it”. However, these countries have told us that they definitely won’t buy it if we don’t test it and it seems like no one has approached them with a serious offer to test it. Cost is another excuse not to test. When I buy a vehicle, every option I ask for on that vehicle I pay for. You don’t suppose that these countries we approach may be prepared to cover our costs of testing in the purchase price in exchange for the confidence to their consumers that all is well in what goes down the throat? The logistical problem incurred in the assembly line slaughter plants is another article thrown out against testing. I have personally toured Cargill’s High River plant during operation and I know several people employed there, some in management positions. When an animal falls, its bar-coded ear tag information is immediately entered into the computer tracking program. From that barcode, the plant system knows down to the minute and seconds when John Doe’s shipment of beef for the day died, where they are in the plant and what grade their carcass had applied to it by the privately employed un-biased grader. The carcass must remain in Cargill’s coolers for 24 hours as that is the minimum time required to cool it to the centre of the bone. Japan has pioneered quick tests for BSE as have other countries. The time lapse for test results is apparently far less than 24 hours. Also, one must remember that the lab required to process these tests at the slaughter plant level has only one purpose – BSE testing. It does not have to serve as a research facility and should not be prohibitively expensive as an initial cost of setup. What is more expensive – the 2.2 billion dollars so far thrown at this crisis (not including lost revenue to the industry and the loss of equity to producers) or realizing that we must help to create a “new normal” in this industry, bite the bullet and give global customers what they demand?
Of major significance in the question of testing for BSE is Japan. Prior to Canada’s BSE crisis, Canada only exported 20,000 tonnes of beef to Japan as America was their main supplier. At that time, America supplied Japan with over 58% of its beef needs, Canada only 25%. However now that the U.S. has acquired BSE status globally, they’ve lost their export markets also. They’ve taken the hard line on testing and Japan is not likely to relax its requirement for testing. Australia has become Japan’s new main supplier because they haven’t yet been cursed with BSE status. It is well known that North American beef is favored by consumers world wide on a palatability basis. The choice is grass fed, Australian beef killed at a mature age vs. grain fed, North American, well marbled young beef. This scenario lends credence to testing our Canadian product and working hard to not only regain Japanese and Asian markets but expanding on them exponentially, hoping all the while that America continues to try and teach the world that “science says you don’t need to test everything”! Politicians and beef industry leaders seem to have placed themselves onto a higher plane than we common folk indicating that they know best what is good for us, that we should trust them to deliver us from this crisis. I THINK NOT.
BSE testing is not a new fad. Japan implemented it only 6 months after BSE was discovered and they tested every animal slaughtered from the initial startup. Japan, incidentally has a much bigger domestic beef industry than most of us realize. In 2003, Japan slaughtered 1,160,000 head of cattle and tested every one of them. Their cumulative cases of BSE to December, 2003 are 11 animals. Their per capita consumption of beef increased to near or above their pre-BSE levels after 100% surveillance was implemented. As mentioned, Japan pioneered much of the research towards BSE testing and should be looked to for assistance since it has one of the best protocols globally.
Instead of acknowledging this fact, federal Agriculture Minister Bob Speller and Ted Haney of the Canadian Beef Export Federation keep trying to beat it into the Japanese that “science says you don’t need 100% testing”. Bob Speller and Ted Haney are not powerful enough to interfere with Japanese protocol; they are selling meat. The Japanese people are steeped in protocol. In 2001, the Japanese government tried to keep the nation’s first case of BSE from their citizens for 6 weeks. After the news became public, the Japanese governments’ attempt to hide the fact nearly cost them power. Are we to think that those same government officials who were very nearly removed from office over this issue would dare announce that they would resume imports of Canadian beef? They would have to confess that the Canadian product is not tested but Canadian government officials have given assurances that “science says you don’t have to test all of it.” It is not hard to understand why the Japanese people would be very unreceptive to this prospect.
The other side of the globe tests more animals on a weekly basis than we know. France has a small fraction of the U.S. cattle population, yet they test more animals in a single week than the U.S. has tested randomly in the last ten years combined. Canada is currently increasing its random testing to 8000 animals out of 3,700,000 head slaughtered annually. If we found one case of BSE when testing only .09% in 2003 (the 2003 random test number was only 3377 animals tested) why would Japan or any other potential export market not wonder how many animals infected with BSE happened to slip through the gaping cracks along with the other 99.01% that went untested?
On the other hand, if we test all animals and periodically report a positive test to the world, it would be proof that the screen is catching them, we could build data to track epidemiology, we could eventually regain BSE free status by proving there are none showing up, etc.. We would be viewed as proactive by reacting to BSE in a positive and I believe a truly scientific way. Not by using science as a veil when Cargill, IBP/Tyson, and Con-Agra tell us “don’t go there…”
There truly is no symbiosis between the cattle industry and government policy. Industry, from the producer level is struggling to hang on. Banks will stick with us for another very short while, but we must pull a rabbit out of the hat this year or we will begin to fall. At the same time, government and beef industry leadership are wandering through a maze of mirrors in a dazed fashion trying only to get back to the only way of doing business that they have ever known – the horse and sparrow marriage of America to Canada. It is a relationship that is certainly not mutually beneficial. In a sense, we are America’s mistress – when they need us we are considered useful and when they don’t we are cast aside.
According to latest census data, Canada counts 32 million citizens while America is closing in on 300 million. The European Union tallies right on 500 million. Assuming a similar tax base to population, for every $10 Canada spends on agricultural subsidies, America can spend $100 and the E.U. can spend in excess of $150.
In spite of these discrepancies, Canada competes globally in markets heavily swayed by agriculture subsidies. As is obvious from the numbers given above, it is hopeless for Canada to attempt to prop up a lagging sector of any economy with taxpayers dollars – they are simply spread too thin to compare to the other two global players. Immediately following the announcement of BSE in Canada, approximately $750 million was pledged by our governments as aid for the feedlot sector. This was arguably the only well spent money of all the approximately 2.2 billion dollars allocated so far in this crisis. This first infusion did put some money in the hands of feedlot operators to restock in the fall and fill pens back up, thus creating a market for the individual producer to sell fall calves into. The problem with government announcements of huge cash infusions is that the packers simply drop the price they bid for fat cattle, knowing that the producer is going to sell because the government has guaranteed to make up the difference between actual cash received from the packer and the benchmark price the government determined to be an industry average. At times last summer, the packer bids dropped to as low as 30 cents/pound live weight, leaving the government to pay as much as 60 cents or more to prop the feedlot operator back up. Had government been a little more secretive as to how it would administer the cash poultice to the wound, packer bids may not have dropped so drastically.
In my opinion, the ball was dropped and lost
at the point of emptying the glut of overweight cattle out of feedlots in September –
October 2003. Boneless beef began to move, so all leadership focused entirely on the
re-opening of the border. You could not get anyone in a leadership position or any
agriculture minister – provincial or federal – to even entertain a conversation
about testing and relieving our dependence on America by bending to world demand and
selling BSE tested beef to Japan or any other Asian country. They knew best and think they
still do but are turning their backs on huge potential markets while at the same time
painting themselves into a corner because America continues to refuse entry of our product
beyond boneless boxed beef. So, provincial and federal agriculture ministers put their
collective heads together and came up with the Cull Cow Program; probably the greatest
waste of all the BSE subsidies.
Under this program, each producer in Canada receives $180.00 on 8% of his breeding herd.
If we do the math, we see what a ridiculous waste of money this is. It may have been good
political publicity foisted on a public that doesn’t generally understand the
business but it certainly did not fool any of us who are in the cattle business.
$300,000,000.00 evaporated out to each cow/calf producer in Canada does absolutely nothing
to solve the problems we face as individual operators. Yet that government money cost the
doctor, the baker and the candlestick maker so to speak; that money was literally wasted.
A 100 head cow herd may yield the producer a welfare check of around $1800.00 – the
government’s answer to addressing our woes. It is important to remember at all times
that the only situation in which America lets beef into their country from Canada is when
they need us. Provincial agriculture ministers, Canada Beef Export Federation, Alberta
Beef Producers, Canadian Cattlemen’s’ Association, etc. would all have you
believe that they and their efforts are responsible for getting the border open last
September to boxed beef. That is a complete fallacy. The only reason the border opened
then was due to the drastic shortage of beef in America at that time. Remember, the
marriage of the horse to the sparrow. When we announced our case of BSE to the world last
May, all of our exports were slammed to a halt. The U.S. big three swooped in and picked
up that business. This was at a time when U.S. mother cow numbers were at an all-time low
due to drought driven cow slaughter in America over the previous four or five years.
Suddenly, America began experiencing the hottest beef market they’ve seen in recorded
history. For the first time in 25 years, American producers are not whining and lobbying
Washington against the big three power brokers, Cargill, IBP/Tyson and Con-Agra. American
producers are riding the crest of the wave for the first time in years. Hence RCALF
lobbies successfully to keep Canadian beef in Canada. We are witnessing the Americans
trying to get their mother cow numbers back up so that they can produce more beef. When
they do – and they will – we will no longer be useful and will once again be
cast aside. Make no mistake about it; we did not open that border last September because
of the good work of Canadian politicians and lobbyists. The U.S. cracked it open a bit
because they needed us at that time, period.
Are we to continue begging America to be big brother and let us have a piece of the pie while we keep doling out taxpayer dollars to a sickened sector of the Canadian economy? We cannot. We must get out of the old box and recognize possibilities beyond the American border.
A sickening fact that hasn’t gotten enough notice is that the Canadian governments cut a cheque to Cargill Foods for somewhere between 40 and 100 million dollars on the feedlot bailout subsidy last summer. Remember the tens of thousands of head of packer owned cattle? The two levels of government in this country acknowledge that under existing policy and law, they had no choice but to cut Cargill a cheque for every head they owned at that time. I defy anyone to try and pin governments down as to the amount paid to Cargill – they do not want to discuss it. Maybe science has something to do with that too. Political science says you don’t have to test that one on the public. Isn’t it ironic that the two foreign packers operating on Canadian soil, stealing captive beef from Canadian producers, selling it into their American market at a 50 – 70% markup, should also qualify to collect a subsidy cheque of somewhere between 40 and 100 million dollars from all of us – the doctors, the bakers and the candlestick makers of this country they are raping. We are a very patient people.
We have not begun to recognize the extent of subsidy and the end cost to the taxpayers of this country. Federal and provincial governments have scraped the old NISA program in favour of the CAISP – Canadian Agricultural Income Stabilization Program. No one yet knows what this program is going to cost the doctor, baker and candlestick maker, but rest assured it will be huge coming into play in the times we are in. Yet none of our politicians or industry lobby groups want to discuss fundamental changes to policy and law at home in order to strengthen our position abroad. When you simply look at the big picture, removing all emotions and industry bafflegab as well as the illusions of industry leadership and political surveillance, what we see is the legalized prostitution of the Canadian Beef Industry by the largest American agriculture power brokers on the planet. As it stands now, we do nothing to resist.
Copyright 2004 - Cam Ostercamp http://www.pctb.coop/veil.htm
