Meatpackers, USDA come under fire at R-CALF convention
By Sheri Monk
Maple Creek News – Canada
February 26, 2008
R-CALF USA carries a certain mystique north of the border. Access to the activist group has been difficult for Canadian journalists who are told outright that R-CALF will speak only with their domestic American media.
Their annual convention was held Feb. 20-23 at Omaha and members attended from all over America to convene on the state of their cattle industry. R-CALF unapologetically seeks to stop Canadian cattle from moving south into America. Mad cow disease (BSE) hit Canada for the first time in 2003 and the landscape of the cattle industry in both countries was changed forever.
"We heard the news, it was auction day and the sale still went on, but the prices were dropping and there wasn't a smile on anyone's face," said a Montana rancher at the conference.
The American border slammed shut in May of 2003 and flaws in the Canadian cattle industry that had been neglected for years were finally illuminated, but without any avenue of escape for producers caught in the crisis.
Canada, as with many other industry segments, had built an export economy tailored upon the low value of the Canadian dollar and the mass market of the U.S. situated just a couple hours south of most major Canadian cities. When the border closed, cattle producers were raising more cows than Canadians could eat and there were too few packinghouses to kill them all.
The Canadian government worked feverishly to reopen the border and in 2005, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced cattle under the age of 30 months (UTM) could cross the line.
R-CALF won a temporary injunction to keep the border closed, but the injunction was lifted in appeals court.
On Nov. 19, 2007, the USDA fully opened the border and Canadian cattle older than 30 months (OTM) could be imported. The highest number of Canadian cattle ever shipped to the U.S. was around two million head annually–seemingly small potatoes to a country with 100 million head of cattle. R-CALF members, however, maintain it was the timing of the imports that hurt them.
"I'll tell you what, the packers you have up north, they're American and they wanted the border open worse than anyone else," said a rancher from Montana. "We'd see our prices start to get a little high and all of a sudden, the packers stopped buying. Three weeks they went once and never bought a cow and the feedlots are all of a sudden full of Canadian cattle. They showed up with a price they wanted to pay, we said it was too low and that's how they'd fix it."
While Canada and BSE were addressed at the convention, topics ranged from animal health management, international trade agreements, animal identification and movement tracking, the shrinking middle and working classes, agricultural law, income taxes, country of origin labeling, property rights, check-off and global market analysis.
R-CALF CEO Bill Bullard addressed the crowd and chastised the meatpackers he feels are exploiting producers while warning that without action, the beef industry will change forever. "You will become producers only at the invitation of the handful of packers," said Bullard.
R-CALF is affiliated with another influential producer group. John Carter with the Australian Beef Association crossed the ocean to address the crowd and spoke of their producers' national animal identification system.
"Don't let anyone take you down this suicidal path. This is a ploy to give jobs to bureaucrats and create money for multi-national tag manufacturers," said Carter.
The Aussie claimed that the RFID (radio frequency identification) system was a wreck from the start and was never subject to a cost-benefit analysis. Before flying to America, he checked what their system had recorded about his herd. "I had 22 head on the ranch this system claimed were dead that never died. I had 60 head reported as sold that I never owned. We hot brand, we run a careful operation, I know what we have."
Australian producers were told McDonalds had requested the program. Carter called McDonalds and the fast food chain denied having anything to do with the program. "So I say this to you–fight this to the last cowboy," Carter urged to a standing ovation.
If there was one entity that received the wrath of R-CALF at the convention, it was the USDA. Over and over, there were messages of how the agency has failed not only to protect American livestock producers, but the American public. "We have a tough battle, but it is an important one," said Russ Frye, who provides legal counsel for R-CALF. "Even the pets in Canada have better protection from BSE than our public in America," said Frye.
R-CALF has applauded Canada's recent improvements to the feed ban, which far exceed that of the United States by removing the parts of cattle that are known to host the infectious agents of BSE. Called "specified risk material" (SRM), Canada removes the tissues, renders and disposes of them to prevent the material from entering any part of the animal feed chain. It is widely believed the cause of the massive mad cow outbreak in the U.K. resulted from feeding cow tissues to cattle.
America prohibits ruminant to ruminant feeding, but still permits SRM to be used in other feeds such as dog food and chicken feed. Litter from chicken cages can be used in cattle feed. The chances of accidental contamination and feeding errors are greatly reduced by removing SRM from the food chain entirely and R-CALF strongly criticizes the USDA for their failure to ensure the same safety standards that Canada has.
The price of removing SRM is estimated to cost between $15 and $30 per head at the packinghouse level.
SRM cannot be sold and it's expensive to have it picked up and hauled to the single disposal site in western Canada. "With this border wide-open now and our dollar being the same, it'll be cheaper for Tyson and Cargill to buy your cattle and bring them into America for slaughter because here, they'll still make their money on SRM," said a South Dakota rancher.
R-CALF will continue to try to block Canadian beef imports. The organization strongly feels that BSE in Canada poses a health risk to their national herd, to their markets and to their beef consumers. The convention featured Professor Jason Bartz, an expert in BSE research from Creighton University who spoke about classical BSE and two other strains of BSE that little is known about. America has had three cases of BSE, the first was in an imported Canadian cow and was of the classic variety, the same strain of mad cow from the U.K. outbreak and the same strain in all of Canada's 11 BSE cases. The other two American incidents of BSE were of a strain called "atypical H type." R-CALF sees this difference in the strain as another reason to segregate Canadian and American cattle until more can be learned of the disease.
Information was available to members at the R-CALF convention on the history of BSE in Canada. These visual aids were presented to the judge at a court case on Feb. 19 to block older Canadian cattle from entering the U.S.
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