Real Agriculture
The World Trade Organization’s ruling on the country of origin labelling (COOL) legislation brought some small sense of victory to the Canadian beef industry. The excitement over that victory was short-lived however as producers realized that any tangible results stemming from that ruling would be a long way off. The potential for an appeal by [...]
With over 200 days of travel as the President of NCBA, Bill Donald has been busy. Donald has reign at the top of NCBA at a time that has been very good for Canada / United States trade relations. With Canada shipping fat cattle south and Canada purchasing one billion dollars of US beef [...]
This years NCBA conference saw a more positive outlook from producers and industry members than there has been for a while. That outlook comes with some qualifiers as well as some questions that have to be answered as we look ahead to the rest of 2012. I spoke to Duane Lenz of CattleFax about the [...]
If you’re in the cattle feeding business, you know how tight margins are. With feed costs continuing to be expensive and feeder prices looking toward potential record highs this year, the importance of improving feed efficiency becomes magnified. Watching cattle struggle through wet pens to get to that feed in the spring can be hard [...]
If a person were to describe the overall mood of this year’s NCBA Conference, it would be descibed as price bullish and margin bearish. As we have mentioned before, it’s a cautious optimism for feeders and packers, which comes with a recognition of the volatility that producers have gone through and are also facing in the future. [...]
Temple Grandin’s work in the livestock industry cannot be understated. Her designs and innovations in the areas of livestock handling revolutionized the industry and brought a more humane system into existence. Those insights and contributions are made all the more impressive by the fact that Dr. Grandin is autistic. That condition is part of the [...]
There is the assumption that in general, because the world population is increasing, the demand for meat, in particular beef, will naturally grow and expand. That generalization may make sense from a North American perspective, but eating habits here aren’t eating habits everywhere and any growth in the industry has to take place in export [...]
Volatility was the recurring theme in the cattle industry over 2011. The fact is that the mood created by that volatility has carried into 2012. Even with things looking up for producers, the violent swings of the 2011 market are tempering any optimism with caution. Those sentiments were apparent at this year’s Tiffin Conference as [...]
The Canadian Cattlemen’s Association released information this morning that South Korea has lifted its ban on Canadian Beef imports. This news is long overdue and we have to realize that trade resumption doesn’t happen overnight. Learning from our agreement with China, Canada must complete all of the more detailed technical issues as quickly as possible [...]
Charlie Gracey is one of Canada’s more renowned experts on the beef industry in Canada. Charlie very much understands the relationship of the rancher, feeder and packer. At the Tiffin Conference in Lethbridge, Charlie discussed at length the things that the Canadian industry must do to increase markets and increase supply concurrently. Charlie believes that [...]
