Opportunity?

[jensend]

On the other hand it could be one of those insurmountable opportunities.

[cakadu]

In the South American countries, they can leave the cattle on grass year round and aren't forced to feed for a good portion of the year. Same thing happens with sheep coming in from Australia and New Zealand - they can get it here for cheaper than it costs us to produce it because we have to feed.

One of the stumbling blocks that I know of with respec to grass fed beef is the lack of consistency and this is coming from chefs. One order will be really good, the next will not be so good. With some consistency in product, I'm sure it will see a boost in sales.

I've often wondered though what will happen when these South American countries get their hoof and mouth problems cleaned up and are able to export to many more countries than they can right now. Brazil is said to have something like 160 million cattle all grass fed - we can't compete with that or at the very least we'll have to differentiate some how and in my mind it won't be any different than what we as lamb producers face. We have a far superior product, but cost wise we can't compete with off shore imports.

Granted, the beef industry may have a little more sway in getting some of that kept out or at least having high tariffs placed on it, but the lamb industry is not big enough (so the government says) to implement tariffs.

How any one in the meat industry is going to get ahead right now is anyone's guess. How are pork and poultry faring now that there is this "cheap" beef hitting the market - does anyone have any idea?

[rusty1]

I found the best claification on this who BSE issue - it's a must read. Finally something that makes sence @ http://www.leiss.ca/chronicles/125
William Leiss is a prof at the U of Calgary.

[kato]

There are different markets for different types of beef.

I have a niece who went to Texas to work as a nurse. Texas is supposed to be the beef capital of the world, isn't it? Then why, as soon as she returned home, did she ask us to barbeque some steaks? The fact was that she said she couldn't find good beef down there to save her life. Two year old corn fed steers just aren't the same as our young barley fed ones. Premium young tender beef, without that yellow fat and flavour that the corn produces is hard to beat. We have a superior product, and should be promoting the fact.

There are places where price is the driver, and places where quality is the driver. Just look at Canadian wheat. There is a reason why the Americans are always pushing to dismantle our marketing system, and that's due to the quality of our product. (Please don't start a Wheat Board discussion.....we've all had enough of that!) In the grain business Canada has always placed top priority on quality, and it pays off.

We need to stick to our guns. I don't know about everyone else, but around our neighbourhood, there is very little grass this year. We had a neighbour just pull 500 steers out of the pasture because there is nothing for them to eat. Personally, I wouldn't put all my eggs in the grass fed beef niche without a very very reliable source of grass...irrigation or something like that. It would be a nice way to feed cattle, but we have to live with our climate, like it or not.

[grassfarmer]

Cakadu, Re the potential of the South American countries once they get their hoof and mouth problems cleared up... As far as I understand these problems are history - the outbreak that occurred at roughly the same time as the UK 2001 outbreak seemingly was cleared up very quickly. I personally would doubt any South American country has the infrastructure and organisation to effectively deal with a disease like this yet the story they told the world was good and I believe they were able to export beef again before the UK could! It's a classic case of ignore the facts and tell a good story instead - perhaps we should try doing the same?

[rusty1]

grassfarmer - Brazil is actually farther along than we are in many respects. They have manditory national ID. And in fact are using some RFID tracking complete with GPS coordinates from pickup to delivery.

[ALICIA]

Rusty- what is RFID tracking and GPS cordintes.

[ValueChainFX]

RFID is in reference to Radio Frequency Identification, which we use in a limited way in Canada. Several tests are presently be done with these tags as well. The biggest challenge to date has been cost per tag. Also the ability for the producer to use the tag seems to be an issue as well. We have looked at several RFID tags and there is some hope here as technology gets better and less costly. I am pretty sure the future will see us going this direction or a combination of this direction and another technology in combination.

The GPS coordination is a method of pin pointing a location via satellite of a signal on earth.

Even though trials are underway I wouldn't throw away the bar code tags yet!

[ALICIA]

So I take it that these tags are being used in the bush to locate your cattle. you wouldn't need them at the packing plant. Well maybe you would, then the computer could read the tag going thow the shot, but once the head is gone hopefully the cattle are hung in the right order of reading the tags.

[ValueChainFX]

The tags are read with an electronic reader in the plant. since the carcass flow on a rail one after the other once the head is gone a roller with an electronic reader or holes in the roller and read with laser light indicates the carcass ID. This works up to the fabrication and then the side is broken into many pieces on as many as seven tables with up to fifty employees per table, this is were the trace back ends!

[ALICIA]

So what all does these tags read. and what is a sample of what is read.

[ValueChainFX]

ALICIA the tag can be used to identify the lot of cattle that is on the kill floor (actually an animal in the lot) once the tag goes through the reader it is added to the CCIA retirement list. The tag is then retired or the CCIA knows the animal has been slaughtered.

There is other information that could be collected in used but at this point most of that info is not available to the CCIA or the producer. This would be the type of information that may come from the Vision grading system.