August 2003
Beef producers face huge losses as BSE debacle continues
With Asian buyers putting pressure on the United States to keep its borders closed to Canadian Cattle, Canadian producers are hurtingby DON STONEMAN
There's an old saying that in tough times you find out who your friends are. Nothing could have been truer than during the Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE) crisis this summer as former trading partners turned their backs on the number one beef trading country in the world, Canada.No one criticized the effort or single-mindedness that the Canadian Food Inspection Agency displayed as it tracked down cattle associated with the single old cow in northern Alberta found to be infected with BSE in May. After slaughtering and testing 1,700 cattle in herds associated with the disease, the only BSE cow remained the black cow which started the crisis.
Yet Asian beef buyers -- Korea, and in particular Japan -- used their considerable influence to prevent the United States from opening its border to beef imports from Canada, threatening to shut off beef trade with the United States unless it could prove that there was no Canadian content in the beef offered for sale.
Canada exported 1.7 million head of beef cattle to the United States last year, 75 per cent of total U.S. imports and about nine per cent of consumption, according to Purdue University economist Chris Hurt. The United States, in turn, exported roughly $1 billion Cdn of beef to Japan.
Next to the United States and Mexico, Japan and South Korea have been Canada's best beef customers. The Canadian Beef Export Federation, funded by producer and packer dollars, has made a concerted effort to develop alternative markets and has offices in both Tokyo and Seoul.
Bruce County cattle feeders Wally and Ken Schaus lobbied Alliston-based Honda of Canada Manufacturing to put pressure on the Japanese government to ask them to go easier on the Canadians. Honda makes 390,000 cars a year at Alliston, and claims it is the largest car plant in Canada. After meeting with Honda officials during a well-attended protest, Schaus said Honda was willing to connect the beef farmers with the consulate, but didn't want to get involved in the politics.
Charlie Gracey, an advisor to the Canadian Cattle Identification Agency, says the situation is not without precedent. When BSE was found in cattle in Japan several years ago, Canada refused to import gourmet meat products, even though Japan offered to test every animal.
At a protest in front of Honda's factory in Alliston last month, Beaverton beef producer and trucker Bruce Thaxter, who sells about 200 fed cattle a year from his own cows and purchased cattle, warned that the border has to open. Unless export channels are reopened, beef farmers would have to cut back to about 30 per cent of their production to meet domestic demand and that isn't feasible.
There's a joint federal and provincial program in place to help beef farmers, but the financial pain is only just beginning. "The iceberg hasn't tipped over yet," Thaxter says glumly.
The federal and provincial governments combined put $490 million towards a disaster relief program, but Ontario Cattlemen's Association president Ron Wooddisse, Palmerston, admitted it was little help when cattle prices plummeted immediately to 50 cents a pound liveweight and lower.
Before May 20, finished cattle were trading at the Ontario Stockyards at Cookstown for $1.05 to $1.15. "It's just sick, isn't it?" said Wayne Small, a principle in the sales yard.
The first attempt at a federal relief plan frustrated farmers. Ken Schaus said the plan was aimed at a 90-cent market and wasn't helping producers who were selling cattle at barely half of that. We're talking losses of between $350 and $500 a head.
The federal program was quickly ammended and producers thought it would stifle the financial hemorrhaging as long as the packers continued to pay 50 cents a pound, Schaus said, and he thought that packers could afford to do that, considering that retail prices weren't coming down. But if the packers cut their bids to below 50 cents the federal payout would be reduced as well and the red ink would flow deep again. Further to that, Schaus worried that the plan would be shut down if the Americans conceded and partially opened the border to muscle cuts. Far from being relief, he said, it might mean disaster. No aid would be extended to producers who normally ship live cattle south.
Schaus' suggested solution is for the government to put a floor price under beef and perhaps to compensate packers. "It would be a lot easier to deal with a handful of packers than with 20,000 producers."
Meanwhile, retail prices for beef have not fallen and both Schaus and Wooddisse are critical of packers who appear to be making windfall profits during the beef crisis.
And, in an apparent anomaly, Canada's trading partners are aiming more beef at Canada's already swamped markets. Sandra Sobara, the OCA's market information co-ordinator, said beef imports into Canada between May 24 and June 24 totaled 23,742 tonnes, up from 18,795 tonnes the same time the previous year. BF
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Double-identity tagging of cattle likely to be stepped up
The dairy industry across Canada does it. The dairy and beef industries in Quebec do it. The rest of the beef industry in Canada may also have to accept double-identity tagging as a means of tracking every head of cattle back to its herd of origin.Single tagging of cattle works well with fed animals which likely go to slaughter in 12 to 18 months, but it's probable that a significant number of "dangle tags" put in the ears of breeding animals will be lost over time, says Charlie Gracey, an advisor to the Canadian Cattle Identification Agency (CCIA).
The agency is going to encourage electronic tagging, but another tagging option will likely also be the curl lock tag, familiar to dairy producers who milked cows through the 1960s and '70s when the Canadian government had a tuberculosis and brucellosis eradication program in place. The curl lock tag is considered to be permanent. Dangle tags and electronic tags will still be necessary for easy identification of cattle at packing plants.
In light of the crippling ban on trade imposed on Canada's beef industry since a single black cow was diagnosed with BSE on May 20, all exceptions to the tagging rule are nullified says Gracey. Previously tagging was not required while cattle remained in their herd of origin. As well, truckers and auction yards were allowed to accept untagged cattle as long as they kept records of their movement.
Gracey says auction operators and dealers have already agreed that all cattle must be tagged. When it came to tracking cattle originating from that BSE cow's herd in northern Alberta, the CCIA's tracking system "worked beautifully," Gracey says. Its weakness is that it doesn't work retroactively. The one cow that brought Canada's beef trade to a standstill had been moved into the herd where she was found to be diseased before the tagging system was brought into place in 2002.
It could be another seven years before these cows are all culled from the system.
Even when the border is opened and trade resumes, the Paris-based Office International des Epizooties (OIE), the world body of epidemiologists that oversees trade policies in case of animal diseases, needs to rethink how it deals with BSE, Gracey says. "The world standard for closing borders for a disease of this nature is just absurd," Gracey says. "If this were some kind of dread disease that was going to cause instant high rates of infection, one could defend it. But how does one defend destroying a multi-billion dollar industry when we couldn't spread the disease if we wanted to?" BF
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Utility shocked by stray voltage award
Wisconsin court decision comes at a time when Ontario farm organizations are renewing efforts to solve a problem that has plagued livestock producers for yearsby DON STONEMAN
Farmers across North America are filing an increasing number of lawsuits involving so-called "stray voltage" and "transient voltage". In some cases they are winning substantial awards.Recently the Wisconsin Supreme Court upheld a jury decision and awarded $1.2 million to Allan and Beverly Hoffman of New London, Wisconsin, because current from a deteriorating underground electrical distribution cable along a road adjacent to their family farm shocked their cattle. Production declined and calves died. Sadly, before the Supreme Court ruling, the Hoffman's sold the farm to pay debts.
The Wisconsin Electrical Power Company, which must compensate the Hoffmans is furious; its officials say there are no uniform standards and no method to test what the level of current is that would affect a dairy cow.
Ontario is poised to conduct some ground-breaking research on just that subject, if commodity groups come up with the money.
Ontario Hydro has already conducted research and knows that non-traditional voltage exists, says Lyn Girty, chair of the Ontario Federation of Agriculture's Hydro and Electrical committee. It is now called "non-steady state" electrical voltage. Commodity groups, including Dairy Farmers of Ontario (DFO), are looking at how much it takes to bother livestock.
Several years ago the OFA worked with Ontario Hydro (now Hydro One) to determine if there is such a thing as "transient" voltage by looking at a half dozen farms, many in Oxford County, where producers were experiencing difficulties. "They took reams and reams of readings," Girty says. "They very quickly found that not only did (non-traditional voltage) exist, it existed in far greater volume than anyone ever anticipated, including us."
Ontario Hydro engineers used sophisticated equipment to measured wavelength of the current and determined that the tiny jolts that upset livestock came from many different sources.
"They thought it might be one simple little thing," Girty says." Well, it isn't. It's a whole host of different things." Working with commodity groups such as Dairy Farmers of Ontario (DFO), the OFA has been developing a research proposal for Ridgetown College to discover what this voltage does to dairy cattle and what can be done to protect cows. Beef, pork and chicken farmers suffer from the same problem, but to a lesser degree.
"There have been farms lost to this voltage problem," Girty asserts. Non-steady state voltage is the technical name for electricity that comes from outside of a premise, perhaps from an electrical transmission line.
First, the research barn has to be tested for existing voltage anomalies and then set up for the test. The study will cost $250,000.
Dairy farmers will benefit first, Girty stresses, but pork and poultry operators are concerned also because it affects them. It might even have human health aspects but "cows are more sensitive," Girty says. "If we can figure how to protect cows we can figure how to protect people too."
Wes Lane, director of communications for DFO, says the board helped to fund the analysis of the information collected by Ontario Hydro and still hasn't seen the report on the outcome of that research. Further discussions may take place in the fall. Perhaps then more money will be committed to the Ridgetown research project. BF
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DFO soon to start promoting "the whole family of dairy products"
With a national marketing director to be hired, promotion of fluid milk will be combined with that of industrial products from Ontario to the Maritimesby DON STONEMAN
Ontario's fluid and industrial milk promotion efforts are going to be combined for the first time. It's part of a scheme to integrate fluid promotions in the P5 (five eastern dairy producing provinces) with the national promotion of industrial products. Most important, Ontario may begin to ratchet its spending up so that it can reintroduce previously profitable fluid promotion schemes.The integrated promotion program is due to begin Aug. 1. A national marketing director will be hired and will be co-ordinating the national cheese, butter and yogurt promotion and nutrition efforts under one roof, as well the fluid promotions for Ontario, Quebec, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island, says Bob Bishop, chief executive officer, Dairy Farmers of Ontario (DFO).
The plan has been in the works for more than a year. "We think there will be some benefits or we wouldn't be doing it," says Gordon Coukell, DFO's chairman. He points out that the Maritime provinces amalgamated their fluid milk promotion efforts several years ago. Now Ontario and Quebec will be joining in. With a quasi-national program in place, the major change in the DFO office is that promotion staff will "promote the whole family of dairy products" rather than focusing only on fluid milk, says Coukell.
Ontario producers pay a license fee for promotion of $1.10 per hectolitre on all milk shipped and this is aimed at promotion. The disbursement of the fee varies a little from year to year depending on volumes and share of market by province, but in the last dairy year approximately 77 cents of every $1.10 was forwarded to Dairy Farmers of Canada to fund the national program. The rest was used to fund fluid programs in this province.
Currently, the DFO office in Mississauga handles fluid milk promotions in Ontario. Dairy Farmers of Canada handles promotion of industrial products, such as cheese, butter and yogurt on a national basis. But DFO has had its hands tied on fluid promotion since it joined the P5.
In the mid-1990s, Coukell notes, Ontario producers sank $1.34 into milk promotion for every hectolitre shipped and fluid consumption appeared to be increasing.
The fluid promotion funding was cut back when the common dairy pool across eastern Canada was established in August 1997. Quebec was a stumbling block. Its producers weren't paying nearly as much for fluid promotion and dairy farmers' organizations lacked the political will to try to increase fees to the same level as in Ontario.
Combining industrial and fluid promotion will produce some "efficiencies," Coukell says. Meanwhile, the Western provinces will have to go back to their producers and talk about joining up. There are now two promotion groups promoting fluid milk production in Western Canada. The Prairie provinces have formed one group while British Columbia promotes fluid milk on its own.BF
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Are we in danger of triggering a sudden climatic convulsion?
There is increasing evidence that, if pushed hard and fast enough, the climate system can go into sudden convulsions. Global warming over the next century might just be all that is needed to produce such a changeby HENRY HENGEVELD
I think all of us dislike fevers. Even though we may realize that fever is the body's way of trying to heal an illness, it leaves us sweaty, weak and often delirious. It makes us irritable. However, while we may suffer from a fever, we generally manage to survive it none the worse for wear -- as long as it doesn't get too high!High fevers, on the other hand, can become dangerous. Once our body temperature pushes beyond a critical threshold, we can go into convulsions. If severe enough, these convulsions can cause brain damage or even death.
It seems that the Earth's weather and climate system works a lot like this as well. If the planet encounters moderate levels of climate stress, reactions take place that try to compensate for that stress and return the system to stability. The process may cause some upheaval and discomfort, even serious pain, but eventually it settles down again, much like the self-healing process of our body.
However, there is now increasing evidence that, if pushed hard and fast enough, the climate system can also go into sudden convulsions -- and the implications aren't exactly pleasant.
That evidence comes from a rich supply of indicators in the Earth's soils, lake and ocean sediments, ice cores, corals and other sources that inform us about how the climate has behaved in the distant past. Over the years, experts have ferreted out from these "paleoclimatic" data all kinds of details about rates and patterns of past climate change, and have theorized on the possible natural factors that may have caused them.
These data tell us that, over the past 400,000 years, the Earth has weathered four glacial periods, when ice covered most of Canada. Each of these long cold spells was followed by a shorter, much warmer interglacial period. The one we live in now came into full swing about 10,000 years ago, and should be around for at least another couple of thousand years.
This cycle of cold and warm periods appears to be triggered by regular variations in the Earth's orbit around the sun, which alters the amount and seasonality of sunlight reaching the earth. This initial change in climate then induces changes in atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases, mainly carbon dioxide, that amplify it and thus cause much larger and sustained periods of warm and cold.
Various researchers have provided evidence that the climate prefers to stay in either the cold or the warm state, and that it takes a strong push beyond a critical threshold to get it to move from one to the other. When it finally does, it suddenly seems in a hurry to do so, particularly as it goes from cold to warm. Furthermore, when it is poised between the two stable conditions, it takes only a very small push to cause it to wobble from one side to the other and back.
This is much like driving your tractor in a rutty field. It is almost impossible to move the wheels gradually from one rut to the next. Rather, the wheels stay in the rut until the pressure to move passes a critical point. Then it jumps abruptly to the next rut. However, if you can manage to balance the wheel on the ridge between the ruts, it takes only the smallest nudge to cause it to lurch one way or the other.
In late March, an international team of leading experts on past climate behaviour published a review paper on these abrupt changes in climate in the prestigious American technical journal, Science. They noted that regular variations in solar energy during the past 10,000 "warm" years have caused climates to fluctuate every two to three thousand years, but that these have been rather modest.
Not so during the period of deglaciation prior to that, as the climate moved rather rapidly between its preferred stable cold and warm conditions. During this period, the same solar variations appear to have triggered very abrupt changes in climate that caused, for example, the Greenland temperatures to change by 10(C or more in the space of a decade. Their concern is that another period of rapid warming over the next century -- now caused by humans -- could once again send the climate system into convulsions. The more rapid the warming, the greater the risk.
In other words, not only will a large rapid warming cause a lot of direct problems for our ecosystems and society, but it could increase the possibility of a jump to new climates for which these systems are completely unprepared. If that happens, the consequences would indeed be disastrous.
It seems that we humans, as we push our climate towards the unknown, are playing a game of double jeopardy. The harder we play, the greater the jeopardy. Unfortunately, while the current generation is the one gambling, future generations will have to deal with the consequences. BF
Henry Hengeveld is senior science advisor on climate change at Environment Canada.
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How to control excess surface water around manure and livestock
Excess water run-off can interfere with good manure management. Just because it isn't as dramatic as a manure spill doesn't mean it is less importantby MURRAY BLACKIE
Are you a farmer who hopes for rain or one who dreads it because of the way excess surface water run-off frustrates your efforts to control manure and manure run-off from you livestock operation? Wet yards and tobacco-coloured run-off make for a visible reminder of the chronic manure management problems that exist on livestock operations.The significant number of manure spills each year has received more attention than chronic, day-in, day-out water quality problems, such as run-off or cattle access, which continue to pollute our surface and ground water. They also continue to frustrate farmers who want to be good environmental stewards. We shouldn't minimize the cumulative impacts of chronic problems just because they have traditionally resulted in a less dramatic reaction than manure spills from the Ministry of the Environment (MOE).
The likelihood of water quality impact from a manure spill or discharge can be minimized by good planning and management, but in many cases management goes beyond having adequate manure storage and following sound nutrient management practices. Operations with open manure storage, feed storages prone to run-off and outside feeding operations must be able to collect and store manure on an ongoing basis and apply it to the land at appropriate times. Operators must also have regard for the control of manure run-off from all aspects of their operation.
Run-off of uncontaminated surface water can frustrate manure management efforts. Uncontaminated run-off should be intercepted and drained to a suitable outlet or storage for future use. It should be diverted away from any area where it may become contaminated and contribute to the total manure management requirements of an operation. Use eaves troughs or surface berms to divert rain water away from manure. Intercept surface run-off so it doesn't enter barnyard areas and manure storage and redirect or collect it in perimeter ditches, if practical.
If surface run-off is likely to be contaminated from pasture areas, consider limiting the timing and duration of grazing parcels susceptible to run-off. Also reduce animal numbers per acre and systematically move alternative feeding and watering facilities to help keep the soil vegetated and less likely to create contaminated, overland run-off. Contact the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture and Food or your local conservation authority to get technical advice and ask about availability of incentive grants for water quality improvement projects.
In the case of a chronic discharge problem, those responsible are legally required, under the Ontario Water Resources Act (OWRA), to report the discharge to the MOE at the local office or through the MOE Spills Action Centre at 1-800-268-6060.
In the next issue of Better Farming, I will discuss other opportunities to manage manure proactively and pursue the elusive goal of constant environmental improvement. BF
Murray Blackie is a former agricultural specialist with the Ministry of the Environment and is now a consultant, expert witness and writer on agro-environmental issues.
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Time to act on conserving Canada's farm animal breeds
The genetic diversity of the farm animal population is narrowing as international practices grow more similar. Canada needs to move now on conserving potentially useful genes and gene combinationsby JIM DALRYMPLE
Modern agriculture has made good use of the science of genetics and breeding to produce efficient, high-producing farm animals. But, in the process, the world is losing many breeds and strains of animals and poultry that were important historically. These diminishing breeds can serve as insurance in the form of gene pools.The recent concern over mad cow disease (BSE) could have proven disastrous if large numbers of minor breeds had had to be destroyed. We need insurance against future changes in the environment, feed supplies, health concerns and changing human needs for animal products.
Much of the genetic variability of farm animals is the result of several distinct breeds developed within each species, many of which are now in danger of becoming extinct worldwide.
As agriculture has moved from small production systems to larger commercial units, uniformity in consumer products has occurred but genetic diversity has declined. Selection goals and production environments are now very similar throughout the developed world. And the genetic diversity of animal populations has narrowed because of the following factors:
But if we have the best breeds, why be concerned about preserving genetic diversity? There are a number of compelling reasons:
- Modern reproductive technologies, such as semen collection, have resulted in selected individuals producing large numbers of progeny. One Canadian bull has over 200,000 daughters throughout the world.
- Modern transport has allowed rapid and efficient distribution of germplasm.
- World industrialization and a world economy have made production levels the criteria for selection.
- Breeding programs have been increasingly conducted by national and multinational companies.
- These developments have resulted in pork being produced almost entirely from three breeds, ninety-five percent of the milk production coming from Holsteins and very few poultry breeds in commercial use.
Both the Canadian Farm Animal Genetic Resources Foundation and Rare Breeds Canada are involved in conserving Canada's animal and poultry genetic resources. As with wild animals and plants, an inventory of potential endangered breeds is necessary. Existing stocks of endangered breeds must be characterized for phenotype and genotype, using technologies such as gene mapping.
- Canada needs to conserve potentially useful genes and gene combinations. Scientists are only now beginning to understand the complexity of genes and how they interact to produce phenotypic characteristics.
- Genetic conservation allows the industry to take advantage of hybrid vigour or heterosis. Heterosis is the increase above the average of the parent stocks by crossing genetically diverse breeds. If only a few breeds are kept, the opportunity to develop good crosses is lost.
- Selection plateaus, which occur when genetic variation is lost, could be reduced. No further change is possible when a selection plateau is reached, because animals age genetically alike.
- The effects of climate change, the spread of disease, concerns about animal welfare and environmental sustainability, and selection errors can all be addressed through genetic conservation initiatives.
- Our history is closely linked to agricultural practices and the use of particular breeds. The Canadienne cattle breed, Chantecler chicken, Lacombe swine and the Canadian horse are all breeds with cultural significance. Poultry breeds such as the Barred Plymouth Rock and heavy horse breeds, such as the Percheron and Clydesdale, were common on farms.
- Control (unselected) lines are used to measure genetic progress in selection. Identification of specific genes, which regulate traits such as products, quality and health, is made easier by comparing very different groups.
The breeds to choose for conservation must be determined based on potential value, cultural rationales and the threat of extinction. The method of conservation -- live animal, cryopreservation or through DNA collection -- must be determined. Whether the breeds are kept as live animals or as frozen material, the site locations must be secure and provide safe storage capabilities.
The commercial animal industry, individuals, conservation groups and federal and provincial governments all have a role to play in conserving Canada's genetic diversity.
At the international level, many countries have embarked on programs to conserve breeds of interest in their country. The United States has initiated a National Animal Germplasm program centred at Fort Collins Colorado which is assessing all species including dairy, beef, swine, sheep, poultry and aquaculture.
The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) is playing a major role in assisting individual countries with conservation programs. The FAO Web site at www.cfagrf.com and Rare Breeds Canada's Web page www.trentu.ca/rarebreedscanada each provide considerable information on the subject, and links to programs underway in Canada and throughout the world. BF
J.R. (Jim) Dalrymple, P.Ag., CAC, is a former Ontario government swine specialist and owner of Livestock Technology Services in Brighton.
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