SASKATOON – An American free trade proponent says beef producers should remain concerned about R-CALF and other protectionist groups.
Steve Dittmer, executive vice-president of the Colorado-based Agribusiness Freedom Foundation (AFF), said people who join such groups are angry at the mainstream industry because it doesn’t support their views, such as a preference for government regulation and the right to farm or ranch rather than treating it like a business. He said this makes them ideal partners for left-leaning consumer groups and politicians.
Dittmer said these groups gained more influence as they adopted the strategies of larger activist consumer and environmental groups.
Read Also
VIDEO: British company Antler Bio brings epigenetics to dairy farms
British company Antler Bio is bringing epigenetics to dairy farms using blood tests help tie how management is meeting the genetic potential of the animals.
Since Dittner spoke in Saskatoon in mid-June, R-CALF has again made news by instigating a court action.
On July 3, a U.S. district court judge ruled that the rule allowing older Canadian cattle to enter the U.S. must be reopened for public comment.
Dittmer told the Saskatchewan Stock Growers Association that the crystallizing moment for him was seeing a photo of two consumer group leaders and R-CALF’s chief executive officer urging Americans not to eat beef.
Dittmer said the beef industry founded the AFF to fight the rhetoric of these groups with facts, rational analysis and blunt talk.
It doesn’t have members but relies on contributions mostly from the agricultural sector.
“We don’t have to be diplomatic like some of the associations who do lobbying work, for example,” he said.
“We can really explain what some of the true motivations and the real agendas are.”
One example is the response to Canada’s first case of BSE. Dittmer said some groups offered arguments that were unfair, restrained trade and made life difficult when it didn’t need to be. They scared consumers when there was no food safety problem involved, he added.
Dittmer said these groups did so because they hold minority views and haven’t been able to convince the majority to adopt them.
In the case of BSE, he said, the border battle cost millions in lost sales throughout the beef chain, resulted in lost efficiencies at feedlots and packing plants and posed a serious risk to consumer confidence.
Protectionism cheats consumers out of the best the world market offers, he said.
The fear that some Americans have of Canadian beef is unreasonable, he added, because there is room in the market.
“Only two countries, the U.S. and Canada, produce high quality beef.”
Scott Jones, president of the South Dakota Cattlemen’s Association, said the U.S. has to move beyond “backward looking organizations” such as R-CALF, a cattle group in the western United States that favours restricting beef trade with Canada.
However, he said free trade agreements are being viewed more negatively in the U.S. and Congress is less likely to approve them in the future.
Jones said mandatory country-of-origin labeling in the U.S. is the wrong way to proceed, but cattle producers are tired of the fight.
“If Canadian beef is discounted, I don’t doubt consumers will buy it.”
Dittmer said instead of fighting within their own industry, American cattle producers would be better off worrying about real threats to production such as the ban on horse slaughter.
“Agricultural renegades have joined national activists to destroy mainstream ag as we know it,” he said.
“They may try to do the same thing up here.”
