Boxed Beef

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Jake

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Dad and I have been talking... how much boxed beef is there really coming accross the border right now from Canada? I think everybody here fairly well knows my feeling on the border reopening, but what I wanna know is how much beef are we being supplied with right now?
 
Reasd the whole thing at:

http://www.meristem.com/topstories/ts04_35.html
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Canadian beef industry weaning itself from US market
October 18, 2004
Concern about putting too many eggs in one large basket has prompted Canada to look farther abroad to find buyers for beef.

With ambitious plans to increase beef exports to about 1,000,000 metric tonnes by 2007, the Canadian beef industry is working to build a new life with greatly reduced dependence on the U.S. market over the next two to five years, says the head of the country's chief beef marketing group.

The plan is for Canada to be self sufficient in beef processing over the next couple years and find new world markets for at least 450,000 tonnes of beef, Ted Haney, president of the Canada Beef Export Federation (CBEF) told the federation's recent annual meeting.

"We are now undertaking a made-in-Canada solution to the cattle price crisis," Haney told about 100 CBEF members and guests at a recent two-day meeting in Calgary. "Central to this strategy is facilitating expanded beef processing capacity in Canada, while providing transition assistance to Canadian cattle producers."

Ambitious expansion plans
With packing plant expansion underway on several fronts, it's expected processing capacity will increase from about 3.5 million head before BSE to about five million head annually by the end of 2006. It's forecast the Canadian industry will produce about 650,000 more tonnes of beef by 2007 than it did prior to BSE.

With continuing support from federal and provincial governments which have pumped millions of dollars into shoring up the beef industry since the BSE issue erupted in May 2003, the Federation is working with both Canadian and international governments and meat wholesalers and retailers to re-establish old beef export markets and court new ones.

The CBEF proudly reports since January 2004 Canada has exported about 244,000 metric tonnes of beef to 41 countries. That's considerable progress considering world markets slammed shut 18 months ago after the first case of BSE was discovered.

Stimulating industry growth
Reducing Canada's market dependence on the United States is critical to the survival of the Canadian beef industry. While the US will remain an important trading partner for Canadian beef products, the objective is to develop new markets and spread the risk.

Canada expects to sell about 307,000 tonnes of beef to the US this year. That figure is close to the annual average for the past seven years. Canada hopes to maintain that average over the next five years at least. The greatest change in export strategy, however, is to develop new international markets to consume Canada's expected increase in beef production.

"We need to re-establish and increase sales to markets outside the US for Canadian beef products in order to stimulate industry growth and decrease export dependence on the USA," said Ben Thorlakson, an Alberta cattle feeder and chairman of the CBEF board.

"Our goal is to increase exports of Canadian beef products to 214,000 tonnes by 2005 and 300,000 tonnes by 2010 - providing markets for 20 percent of Canadian beef production in Asia and Mexico and reducing dependence on the US market to below 50 percent."
 

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