American participation in the Trans-Pacific Partnership is in potential jeopardy, says an American forecaster and strategy adviser.
Bob Treadway said the outcomes of current leadership struggles in the United States to determine Democrat and Republican party presidential candidates will affect trade and Canadians should take note.
The TPP is opposed by every candidate who has a legitimate chance for presidential office, he said.
“(U.S. president Barack Obama) formed an alliance with the Republicans, who are all for this,” Treadway said about the TPP.
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“On the other hand, if you have executives who are Democrats who don’t want to follow that and who are being driven by the anger in the United States about the shrinking middle class in that country, how will it play out?
“I think odds are eventually, and I think its going to be at least a year away, I think the TPP gets approved in the U.S., but it could be touch and go.”
Many Canadian producers and exporters are counting on the TPP to increase sales and boost production.
Among those are beef producers, many of whom Treadway addressed in a speech during the annual Tiffin Conference Series in Lethbridge.
In an interview before his talk, Treadway said he was bullish on the future of the beef industry.
“My feeling is that of all of the many segments of agriculture, this one stands to prosper even more, I believe, in the future.
“I don’t think the consumer demand is going to slack off for red meat, red meat products, in the future.”
Like many in the beef export business, he looks to an expanding middle class in developing countries that will create greater demand for meat.
However, beef producers must consider the strengthening environmental movement and its potential effect on how cattle are raised in the future.
Scientists have already produced a cultured beef patty in a lab and although that experiment cost $350,000 per patty, Treadway said those costs have been reduced by 80 percent since 2013. In another five years, the cost could be as low as $4 per pound.
“Will beef be produced over the coming decade in its traditional form and format, with an outdoor animal environment, with all the subsequent things that happen as a result of that, or will it go indoors? Or … will it eventually, at least some portion of red meat, be produced in an industrial environment?”
Treadway said the advantages of industrial lab-grown meat might prove too attractive to resist, with its reduced greenhouse gas emissions, lower water use and other environmental considerations.
However, he said China is going in another direction, by planning to clone 100,000 cattle and raise them in concentrated feedlots.
“They eventually believe that they will scale that up to a million and probably put it in a very concentrated feeding operation, and you tell me what that looks like as compared to doing an industrial process that doesn’t involve creating that many live animals with those sorts of environmental impacts.”
Treadway speculated that in the future, fast food burger chains might opt for industrially produced meat but there will still be a demand for beef produced in more conventional ways at the high end of the marketplace.
barb.glen@producer.com
