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R-CALF beating the wrong drum
by Paul Beingessner
(Monday, June 30, 2003 -- CropChoice guest commentary) -- Of the voices demanding a continued ban on the import of Canadian cattle and meat products into the US, none has been stronger than R-CALF USA. This grassroots organization of farmers and ranchers has insisted that Canadian cattle be banned from the U.S. until Canada meets the World
Organization for Animal Heath standard for being declared BSE free. The
World Organization for Animal Heath has a seven year waiting period
after discovery of a BSE case in native cattle before a country can
again be considered BSE-free.
Given that the single cow with mad cow disease has proven to be just
that, single, R-CALF's position on this issue looks an awful lot like
political posturing. And why not? In the dog-eat-dog world of
international agriculture, how can it be wrong to kick a guy when he's
down?
R-CALF couches all its concern in the rhetoric of safety, of course. It
talks about protecting the American consumer and the American cattle
herd from BSE. In doing so, R-CALF is pandering to one of the worst
aspects of modern society: the inability to judge between levels of
risk. Human beings are notoriously unable to judge the risk inherent in
various behaviors. If they were more competent at this, they would first
of all end the reign of the personal automobile, since driving is the
riskiest behavior any of us undertake.
One, or even ten mad cows that happened to enter the food chain would
not generate a measurable risk to consumers. There is no scale small
enough to calculate that! The British experience with BSE shows that an
entire nation consuming mad cows for years had 130 cases of variant
Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease in humans over a decade. The natural form of
Creutzfeldt-Jakob, which occurs with no known cause, kills 60 Brits each
and every year.
So, what is behind R-CALF's desire to keep out Canadian cattle? Simply
self-interest. No big surprise there. Farmers and ranchers are having a
tough time around the world. Rural populations are shrinking in every
country. While claiming to be concerned about the American consumer,
R-CALF is attacking the Canadian farmer in order to keep cattle prices
in the U.S. high. Who could blame R-CALF?
American farmers should be aware that a seven year ban on cattle exports
from Canada would devastate Canadian agriculture and create massive
unemployment, especially in western Canada, as the meat packing and
feedlot industries contracted rapidly. Tens of thousands of farmers
would be bankrupt and thousands more, big and small, would close up
shop. Are farmers really the enemy?
R-CALF would do well to focus on the real causes of the decline in the
cattle industry. There are two that are obvious in the U.S. One is the
decline in the farmers' share of the retail dollar spent on beef. R-CALF
itself has correctly identified concentration in the beef packing
industry and packer ownership of cattle on feed as a major problem for
farmers.
A second problem for American farmers is the high cost of land. A
comparable acre of pasture in Canada sells for one-half of that in the
U.S. This gives Canadian farmers a competitive advantage, but, even
here, land prices are generally higher than can be justified by
productive capacity.
These two problems have proved immensely difficult to tackle. R-CALF has
been fighting packer ownership of cattle on feed for many years with no
success. Taking on Canadian farmers is a much easier battle at the
moment.
Perhaps R-CALF could take an analytical page from the American Corn
Growers Association (ACGA). In a June presentation to some American
Congressmen, ACGA discussed farm policy over the past decade. It
concluded that the big winners have been "multinational food and grain
processing and exporting companies". Farm policies world-wide have left
these powerful entities with "a plentiful supply of low cost commodities
to process, transport and sell around the world at the expense of
farmers, laborers, taxpayers and consumers".
If the ACGA analysis is correct, and it is hard to argue with, R-CALF
should be looking to work with Canadian farmers, and farmers everywhere,
in a radical re-examination of agriculture policy and agriculture
production. R-CALF should realize that it is hard to kick someone who is
down when you are also on the ground. Maybe it would be better to stand
up together, and find the real culprits.
(c) Paul Beingessner (306) 868-4734 phone 868-2009 fax
Editor's note: Kansan Mike Callicrate noted today that "as soon as the Canadian government approved $300 per head in assistance for Canadian cattle owners, Tyson and Cargill lowered cattle prices by approximately that amount. They have now pushed prices much lower. Finished cattle in Canada brought 9 cents per pound this week.
Tyson and Cargill are profiteering on the backs of Canadian cattlemen with the Mad Cow disaster in Canada and essentially wiping out Canada's beef industry." -- RS | |
