A new report says BSE, the high Canadian dollar and impending country-of-origin labelling are putting pressure on cattle producers that must be alleviated.
However, Scott Eklund, 24, probably the youngest beef producer in a small crowd that gathered to watch the Agricultural Producers Association of Saskatchewan release a study it had commissioned to address the problem, said he wasn’t sure any of the identified policy options would help.
One recommendation in the report called for a review of the regulatory costs associated with BSE.
Eklund, who raises purebred Angus with his father, Clarence, at Glentworth, Sask., said he questions the value of the regulations and monitoring that were in place after BSE was discovered in Canada in May 2003.
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“Are we just in the same boat?”
He said the federal government should pay these regulatory costs because it allowed BSE to occur by not strictly enforcing feed bans at feed mills.
APAS president Glenn Blakley said regulations are necessary.
“The challenge that we see … is it doesn’t always equate to more money per pound.”
Other policy options included a grass protection payment of $30 per acre, changes to business risk management programs, reviewing community pasture rates and opposing country-of-origin labelling.
Eklund didn’t like the idea of a grass payment and questioned whether opposing COOL would accomplish anything.
He said perhaps Canadians should focus on marketing products at home. He asked whether there is a market for smaller carcasses of hormone-free barley-fed beef in Europe.
“The Canadian public has to be informed that the cheap food policy does not work anymore.”
He said hormone-free beef could be worth 10 to 15 cents a pound more than conventional beef.
