ABP must first fix profitability issue
I just finished reading your front page story on Alberta Beef Producers refundable checkoff (Oct. 9). Although ABP claims to represent and lobby for all producers, they seem to have no understanding of the core problem within Canada’s beef industry.
A cow-calf producer feeds a cow and raises its calf over a full year and makes a profit of approximately $200. A feedlot purchases that calf and feeds it for four to five months for a $50 profit. Two foreign-owned packers, JBS from Brazil and Cargill from the U.S.A., own the animal for one day and make $500 to $1,000 per head in profit. Between 50 and 80 percent of the total profit within the beef chain goes to two foreign owned entities.
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Until this inequity is rectified through appropriate government policy, no amount of lobbying on any other issue is relevant. No producer body can expect the cow-calf sector to provide one percent of their net profit or the feedlot sector to provide four percent of their net profit for funding when two foreign-owned companies are making most of the profit and supplying no check-off dollars.
Fix the profitability issue for producers and I can assure you all sectors of the supply chain will fully support you. Leave it as it is and watch the industry die.
Jim Wiese,
Westlock, Alta.
