OTTAWA — The beef industry’s on-farm food safety program is being enhanced.
Animal welfare, environmental care and biosecurity components have been added to the verified beef program to ensure customers that Canadian beef comes from responsible and sustainable operations.
The voluntary program documents animal health and husbandry practices.
Rob McNabb of the Canadian Cattlemen’s Association said the en-hanced program should demonstrate sustainability and follow recognized codes of practice.
“This program potentially affects many of our people, organizations and other initiatives that we have underway,” he said at the association’s annual meeting, which was held in Ottawa March 10-12.
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The program is delivered through provincial co-ordinators, and McNabb said New components must be piloted in the field soon.
McDonald’s Canada will likely rely on this program to help find beef that fits its sustainability guidelines, which are still being written.
Canada needs to move quickly because McDonald’s is conducting a sustainability pilot study that ends next March.
“McDonald’s needs some sort of affirmation that we will be ready in order for them to invest in the industry and make sure we are first out of the gate,” said Bob Lowe of the CCA’s value creation committee.
The association envisions the program as a marketing advantage, in which Canada makes good on a promise to deliver a safe product raised in a sustainable manner.
The program requires written record keeping of practices on the individual farm.
Participants go through a verification process once they attend training workshops.
CCA president Dave Solverson has taken the workshop but has not become a verified producer yet.
The cow-calf producer from Alberta said he wants a science based program. He does not want a mandatory program where producers must be certified to sell their cattle.
“Most of them are doing it anyway. It is just some documentation,” Solverson said.
The program must evolve, he added, and cow-calf producers may give it some consideration if extra money is offered in the marketplace.
