The organization formerly known as the Canadian Cattlemen’s Association on Thursday launched what it describes as a “a new brand identity, highlighting the strong and diverse group invested in raising some of the world’s best beef.”

What’s now the Canadian Cattle Association (CCA) described its new identity as “one that is dynamic, forward-thinking, climate positive and quintessentially Canadian.”

A new logo, visual identity and positioning “reaffirms CCA’s commitment to supporting communities, embracing innovation and contributing to the overall sustainability of Canada’s food system,” the association said in a release.

“For 90 years, CCA has been the voice of beef farmers and ranchers across the country,” president Reg Schellenberg, a southwestern Saskatchewan producer, said in the same release.

“Our organization has grown to include the 60,000 members we represent today. It is important that our name, logo and brand also grow and be reflective of how our organization has evolved.”

The word “cattlemen” is considered by some to already be an accepted gender-nonspecific term with no exclusion or disrespect implied, and suggestions that the word be dropped from associations’ branding have met some resistance.

The Saskatchewan Cattlemen’s Association’s members, during their virtual annual general meeting in February last year, defeated a motion for the SCA to “change its name to better reflect the gender diversity of its members.”

In that meeting’s minutes, the SCA noted there were “no suggestions at hand” and that its name was “discussed at formation [in 2009] and was deemed an overall term.”

For its part, the CCA had said at that time it was having ongoing discussions about the matter and had already changed its bylaws to refer to cattle producers rather than gender-specific terms. — Glacier FarmMedia Network

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Since November, MPs have heard from more than 50 witnesses on the matter — including representatives from the Canadian Cattlemen’s Association, whose president Bob Lowe and executive vice-president Dennis Laycraft testified at a committee meeting Tuesday.

In the CCA’s accompanying brief, seven recommendations on how to “create an environment that will support an optimal Canadian packing system” were provided:

• Establish a Red Meat Industry Export Development Fund;
• Support North American integration by harmonizing Canadian and U.S. shipping requirements for beef to South Korea;
• Extend livestock set-aside program availability into 2021-22;
• Update Canada’s specified risk material (SRM) removal requirements;
• Implement the recommendations of the Labour Workforce Action Plan;
• Support automation in processing plants, and
• Place vaccination priority on agri-food processing workers.

The CCA made clear to MPs that about 77-79 per cent of Canada’s total beef processing has taken place in Western Canada, averaging 56,249 head per week, with an 86 per cent utilization rate over the last five years.

COVID-19 seriously screwed that up: last spring, “temporary slowdowns effectively halted just over two-thirds (70 per cent) of Canadian beef processing capacity over a two-week period and resulted in the first half of 2020’s cattle slaughter being down 11 per cent compared to the same period in 2019.”

A since-processed backlog out west of about 130,000 head ensued, creating millions in feedlot losses.

The CCA contends Eastern Canada’s federally inspected packing capacity flirted with full capacity even prior to the pandemic. Figures provided show utilization rates at eastern packing facilities being above 90 per cent since 2017, and rising each year.

(In 2020, weekly slaughter capacity was 12,550 and the use of it was 100 per cent. The year prior, capacity for 13,250 was used at 98 per cent.)

“This resulted in longer feeding periods, increased costs and lower prices for producers,” read the submission. “This capacity shortage has been particularly acute during the fall and winter months where producers are experiencing delivery and processing delays and a negative price spread to other regions.”

The submission notes that while Ontario’s packing capacity was “keeping pace” during the pandemic, a December 2020 closure at Cargill’s Guelph facility resulted in an estimated backlog of 10,000-15,000 head of cattle during the two-week period.

A set-aside program put in place by the federal government during the pandemic helped bring “stability to the market” but a backlog of 10,000-15,000 head of cattle remains, according to the CCA.

Across Canada in 2020, Canadian federally inspected slaughter capacity averaged 57,681 head per week with a utilization rate of 89 per cent.

But packing capacity taking place in Canada is becoming more and more concentrated in large facilities. Those big packers are highly efficient competitors that proved capable of enduring the pandemic, the CCA said.

Small- and medium-sized packers in the past 10 years have had difficulty competing, and the CCA contends that’s because of efficiencies of scale and regulatory burden.

“Creating the right conditions for small, medium and large packers is essential to a resilient Canadian beef sector,” the group said. “Additionally, the integration and thinning of the U.S. border for live cattle and meat trade will further build resiliency within the Canadian beef supply chain.”

Testimony on the matter at ag committee meetings last week also came from representatives for Maple Leaf Foods, Novalait, Canards du Lac Brome and Fraser Valley Specialty Poultry.

— D.C. Fraser reports for Glacier FarmMedia from Ottawa.

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The organizations involved in Canada’s National Beef Strategy — the Canadian Cattlemen’s Association, Canada Beef Breeds Council, Beef Cattle Research Council, Canada Beef, The National Cattle Feeders’ Association, Canadian Meat Council and Canadian Roundtable for Sustainable Beef have announced new 2030 goals.

Goals have been announced on three topics so far — greenhouse gas and carbon sequestration; animal health and welfare and land use and biodiversity — with another four topics to come next year.

Strategy organizations have set a goal to “safeguard the existing 1.5 billion tonnes of carbon stored on lands managed with beef cattle,” on top of sequestering an additional 3.4 million tonnes of carbon every year through grazing management and a focus on soil health.

Those gains would reflect the change if all tame pasture and hay acres sequestered carbon at half of the 70-year historical rate, the team developing the goals have said.

The goals would also see the industry’s greenhouse gas emission intensity drop by 33 per cent.

“We looked at what our long-term performance was in a number of areas and said, ‘What if we just continued to do what we have historically?'” said Brenna Grant, Canfax manager and one of the presenters of the goals at their launch on Wednesday (Sept. 16).

“And then we talked about some major breakthroughs — major breakthroughs in terms of technology and innovation or major breakthroughs in terms of adoption rates for certain practices.”

Those breakthrough scenarios are anticipated to create the desired emissions drop.

On animal health, organizations hope to see a 92 per cent reproductive efficiency across the industry (up from 85 per cent reported in 2018), refocus breeding on traits that support animal health such as calving ease and polled genes, encourage management strategies around things like pain relief, and create a national monitoring system to track practices. Other goals would better outline best antimicrobial practices to, “ensure the effectiveness of existing and future antimicrobials is preserved.

Other goals orient around maintaining the native grassland used for beef production and encouraging ecosystems on grazing land. The 2016 census of agriculture noted a 4.4 per cent decline of tame and native pastures from 2011 to 2016 as more producers opted for annual crops.

“We knew that we needed a market mechanism in order to achieve this,” Grant said. “So yes, focusing on economic viability of producers, but also by supporting programs that incentivize conservation and working with other crop groups across Canada to make sure that this happens.”

Dennis Laycraft, executive vice-president of the Canadian Cattlemen’s Association, said the implementation of those goals will depend largely on increasing the efficiency of each operation.

According to documents on the strategy’s website, some of those tools include increased vaccination, the adoption of different pasture management and low-stress handling, increased extension, encouraging feed plans, body condition scoring, and feed testing, pursuing more research on pasture management, and more extension and education, among others.

“They’re ambitious goals,” Laycraft admitted. “But our producer network that we worked with when we set this up really encouraged us to follow ambitious goals. I think Canada will be one of the world leaders and, at the same time, it is our goal to make sure whenever we do this we actually make our industry stronger in the process.”

The organizations expect to launch 2030 goals on water; beef quality and food safety; human health and safety and technology next year.

For more details, keep an eye on upcoming issues of the Manitoba Co-operator.

— Alexis Stockford is a reporter for the Manitoba Co-operator.

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The association on Friday announced the Canadian Beef Breeds Council (CBBC) has officially joined the Beef Cattle Research Council and Canfax among the divisions of the CCA. The move follows a cost-benefit review by an advisory committee.

CCA and CBBC “have worked closely together on a number of initiatives, so the integration made sense from both a logistics and a philosophical perspective as both organizations work to grow the industry,” the CCA said in a release.

“Having CBBC as a division of CCA further unites our industry under one roof, which will return more value to beef producers for their investment,” CCA president Bob Lowe said in the same release.

CBBC incorporated in 1994 as a national not-for-profit body working on behalf of Canada’s beef breeds and 8,000 registered beef cattle breeders, with a mandate to support, promote and represent the Canadian beef cattle seedstock sector.

While the Calgary-area organization doesn’t directly buy or sell genetics or live breeding cattle, it works to connect buyers and sellers and to promote beef breeds’ genetic attributes both within Canada and internationally, crafting international promotional initiatives and developing marketing strategies.

“This is an important time in the Canadian cattle industry and aligning organizations with similar goals will create opportunities that will have long-term benefits for the entire beef industry,” CBBC president Dave Sibbald said in Friday’s release.

The current COVID-19 pandemic has shown the beef sector “needs to work together to address challenges as they arise,” the two groups said.

Having strong organizations, “with the capacity to deal with any situation, is key to building and maintaining resiliency in the Canadian beef industry,” they said. — Glacier FarmMedia Network

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“We’re having unprecedented volatility for markets. Having tools in place for farmers and ranchers has never been more important,” executive vice-president Dennis Laycraft said during a telephone town hall Thursday.

Premiums for the insurance program, which used to cost $15-$20 per head, are now about $70, CCA officials said.

“Some of our risk management tools that we have historically used, such as price insurance, have become too expensive to use,” said Fawn Jackson, director of government and international relations. “High premiums have been caused by market volatility. We’re essentially seeing stalled participation in the program when it is really needed most.”

The CCA wants Ottawa to pay for part of the premium.

“We think that’s an example that can be adapted to COVID-19 times,” Jackson said. “Addressing these unaffordable premiums would balance the risk management uptake in the beef sector and get some confidence in the market, when large numbers of backgrounding cattle are coming to market this spring.”

Eastern Canada is still operating without a price insurance program and CCA would like to see one developed there quickly.

The association also wants a set-aside program for both Eastern and Western Canada, similar to one used during the BSE crisis, in case there is a major disruption such as a packing plant closure.

Such a program would match the number of cattle coming to market to processing capacity. Government would provide financial assistance for the cost of feeding cattle held back from the market.

The CCA also wants several changes to AgriStability, including removing the $3 million cap on payouts and removing reference margin limits.

Uncertainty in markets and short-term interruptions could last well into 2021, Laycraft said.

— Alexis Kienlen reports for Alberta Farmer from Edmonton.

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Responding Thursday to the report from the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the CCA said Canada’s beef production system is an “excellent example” of what the report described as a “resilient, sustainable and low-GHG (greenhouse gas) emission system.”

Specifically, the IPCC said, “Balanced diets, featuring plant-based foods, such as those based on coarse grains, legumes, fruits and vegetables, nuts and seeds, and animal-sourced food produced in resilient, sustainable and low-GHG emission systems, present major opportunities for adaption and mitigation while generating significant co-benefits in terms of human health.”

The CCA said research shows Canadian beef “has one of the lowest (GHG) footprints in the world, accounting for only 0.04 per cent of the world’s (GHG) emissions.”

In Canada alone, the CCA said, the beef industry chalks up 2.4 per cent of the country’s total GHG footprint while contributing $33 billion to the Canadian economy and storing “substantial amounts of carbon” in managed rangelands.

Canadian beef cattle also “help to preserve one of the world’s most endangered ecosystems,” the CCA said, quoting the World Wildlife Fund as saying half of the northern Great Plains have already been lost to cultivated agriculture.

The beef sector preserves wildlife habitats under threat from cultivation through “well-managed grazing” on uncultivated land, housing at-risk species such as the swift fox, sage grouse and monarch butterfly, the CCA added.

Land managed by beef producers provides habitat capacity for 68 per cent of wildlife on only 33 per cent of total agricultural area in Canada, the CCA added.

The IPCC report also calls for action on conservation, including protecting remaining grasslands from crop agriculture and restoring native grasslands to provide habitat and increase carbon storage, the CCA said.

‘Greater consumption’

That said, the IPCC report also notes “food system emissions are growing globally due to increasing population, income, and demand for animal-sourced products. Diets are changing on average toward greater consumption of animal-based foods, vegetable oils and sugar/sweeteners, with GHG emissions increasing due to greater amounts of animal-based products in diets.”

The report suggests that by 2050, “dietary changes” could free up several million square kilometres of land and provide “technical mitigation potential” of 0.7 to eight gigatonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent per year “relative to business as usual projections.”

“Consumers certainly have the right to choose the food they eat,” the CCA said Thursday in response. “However, reducing meat consumption is not a solution to climate change. Research continues to show that reducing food waste will have a far larger impact on mitigating climate change.”

In Canada alone, the CCA said, “the estimate is that consumers waste 40 per cent of their food, much of which has been refrigerated and transported for great distances to get here.”

The IPCC report concurs that reducing food loss and waste will also help lower GHG emissions and “contribute to adaptation through reduction in the land area needed for food production.”

Toward that end, it lists technical options such as improving harvesting techniques, on-farm storage, infrastructure, transport, packaging, retail and education.

However, the report also cites projections out to 2050 from the UN Food and Agriculture Organization as showing “global-scale evidence that rebalancing diets is key to increasing the overall sustainability of food and agricultural systems worldwide.”

A 15 per cent reduction of animal products in the diets of high-income countries by 2050 would “contribute to containing the need to expand agricultural output due to upward global demographic trends,” the report said.

“Not only would GHG emissions and the pressure on land and water be significantly reduced but the potential for low-income countries to increase the intake of animal-based food, with beneficial nutritional outcomes, could be enhanced.”

‘Life cycle analysis’

In defense of ruminant livestock overall, the IPCC report also notes that “analyzing ruminant meat production is highly complex because of the extreme heterogeneity of production systems and due to the numerous products and services associated with ruminants.”

Often, the report notes, the cattle sector’s emissions are all allocated “only to human-edible meat and the boundaries are set only within the farm gate.”

But less than 50 per cent of slaughtered cattle weight is human-edible meat, the IPCC said, and one to 10 per cent is lost or incinerated, depending on a country’s rules around specified risk materials (SRMs) such as nervous system tissues.

The rest of the animal’s mass, the IPCC noted, provides inputs to “multiple” industries such as clothing, furniture, vehicle coating materials, biofuel, gelatin, soaps, cosmetics, pet foods, fertilizers and chemical and pharmaceutical industrial supplies.

In turn, the report said, “this makes ruminant meat production one of the most complex problems for LCA (life cycle analysis) in the food system.” — Glacier FarmMedia Network

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Les producteurs de bovins du Quebec (PBQ) announced its membership in the CCA during the provincial body’s annual meeting Wednesday and Thursday in Quebec City.

“At a time when new frontiers are continually opening up and our buyers have new requirements, this new membership is a reflection of our desire to grow, and to enhance our ability to face new industry challenges,” PBQ chairman Claude Viel, a cattle feeder and dairyman in the Bas-Saint-Laurent region, said in a release Friday.

CCA membership allows the Quebec organization to sit on “pan-Canadian” working committees and access more information on files such as foreign trade, animal welfare, sustainable beef and cattle production’s carbon footprint, the PBQ said.

According to the CCA, its provincial member associations serve as the “communications link” between the national body and cattle producers.

“We are pleased to welcome (PBQ) and look forward to their working alongside all our provincial association members in our efforts to represent Canada’s beef industry,” new CCA chairman David Haywood-Farmer said in the same release.

CCA’s outgoing chairman Dan Darling and director of government affairs John Masswohl attended the PBQ meeting for Viel’s announcement.

Founded in 1974 and known as the Federation des producteurs de bovins du Quebec until 2016, the PBQ represents about 15,600 cattle producers on 11,000 farms in the province through 14 regional syndicates and is an affiliate of Quebec’s Union des producteurs agricoles (UPA).

According to the provincial body, Quebec’s cattle producers market over 710,000 cattle per year, representing farm gate sales of about $1 billion, making beef and veal cattle the fourth biggest livestock sector in the province by value.

The PBQ, in its release, noted it’s now working to prepare a development plan targeting a 50 per cent increase in Quebec cattle production by 2025.

CCA’s eight other member organizations include Alberta Beef Producers, the Saskatchewan Cattlemen’s Association, Manitoba Beef Producers, Beef Farmers of Ontario, the B.C. Cattlemen’s Association, Nova Scotia Cattle Producers, New Brunswick Cattle Producers and Prince Edward Island Cattle Producers. — AGCanada.com Network

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David Haywood-Farmer was elected by acclamation as president of the Canadian Cattlemen’s Association at the group’s annual general meeting last week in Ottawa.

Haywood-Farmer, a cow-calf producer at Savona, B.C., about 40 km west of Kamloops, was the BCCA’s president from 2012 to 2014 and past-president until 2016, and was CCA vice-president from 2016 up until last week. As president he replaces Dan Darling of Castleton, Ont., who had led the group since 2016.

A third-generation rancher on a century farm, Haywood-Farmer has been a member of the CCA board of directors since 2014 and chaired its foreign trade committee and domestic agriculture policy and regulations committee.

Haywood-Farmer, in a CCA release Friday, said his priorities at the CCA helm include “a focus on trade and environment and ensuring a sustainable future for beef production.”

On the trade file, those priorities include pressing for “swift implementation” of the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP); obtaining a free trade agreement with China; and resolving technical barriers in the Canada-European Union free trade pact.

“The CCA has achieved significant progress on a number of key files and I am determined to keep that momentum going,” he said.

Replacing Haywood-Farmer as CCA vice-president is Bob Lowe, the former chair (2015-17) of Alberta Beef Producers and a CCA board member since 2009. Lowe feeds cattle at Nanton in southern Alberta, about 30 km south of High River, and has a cow-calf operation at Eriksdale, Man., about 140 km northwest of Winnipeg.

Lowe, named vice-president last week by acclamation, has chaired the CCA environment committee, represents the national body on the Canadian Roundtable for Sustainable Beef and chairs the Canadian Cattlemen’s Foundation.

New directors officially named last week to the CCA board include Brian McKersie of Canal Flats, B.C.; Charlie Christie of Trochu, Alta.; Miles Wowk of Beauvallon, Alta.; Gord Adams of Deloraine, Man.; Jason Reid of Thunder Bay, Ont.; and Craig McLaughlin of Whitewater Region, Ont.

The CCA also elected directors Doug Sawyer, Cathy Sharp, Pat Hayes and Ramona Blyth to its executive committee. — AGCanada.com Network

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I’m tapping out this column a few days before President-Elect Donald Trump’s inauguration. To be honest, it’s hard not to tail spin into hyperbolic anxiety when I think of Trump. But it’s worth stepping back and trying to see the bigger picture instead of focusing on Trump’s personality and the latest allegations (troubling as they are).

It’s worth noting that although Canada’s relationship with the U.S. hasn’t always been smooth sailing, we haven’t had a major military conflict since before Confederation. That is something most of us take for granted, but it is a remarkable feat.

The reality is that we are quite interdependent, especially when you consider our trade. David Frum, a senior editor of The Atlantic and former speech writer for George W. Bush, delivered a keynote at CropSphere in January. In a media scrum afterwards, he pointed out the U.S.-Canada relationship doesn’t run entirely through the national capitals. Provincial delegations have told Frum that they’re on the phone to their U.S. counterparts in state capitals all the time.

“These are integrated relationships that look a lot like the domestic economy, frankly,” said Frum. That means if Ottawa tries to slap the U.S., western Canadians are likely to howl that it hurts them more than the Americans (or vice versa).

Despite protectionist rumblings, producers groups aren’t lighting their hair on fire yet, as Ryder Lee, CEO of the Saskatchewan Cattlemen’s Association, said back in November. I caught up with Lee during Canadian Western Agribition, and he was quite reassuring, even though there was talk of breathing life back into mandatory country-of-origin labeling (COOL).

Lee expected to hear plenty of proposals from the new administration right up to Trump’s inauguration and beyond. He compared those proposals to spit balls. “They’re waiting to see what sticks and what doesn’t.”

That doesn’t mean the beef industry is ignoring them, Lee added. The Canadian Cattlemen’s Association has staff on the ground, talking to elected officials and staff, and reminding them of the trade history between the two countries, Lee said. Canada is well-equipped for another trade disruption, he said, with people who learned a lot going through BSE.

Lee said COOL is recent enough that everyone should know about the WTO rulings and what’s on Canada’s retaliation list. But those kinds of trade actions are always a risk, he added. “It’s a garden that needs tending all the time.”

You may be wondering (as I was) whether Trump really understood the complexities of trade between our two nations. I asked Frum about that, and he reminded me that the U.S. president isn’t the whole of the government. There’s Congress, and there are people working for government agencies who are “very sophisticated” about trade and economic issues, he said. In the U.S., there’s “a constant flow” of people going back and forth between the private and government sectors, he told us during the media scrum.

Frum also pointed out that although Trump has a lot of energy, it is finite. If his negative energy is redirected from issues that hurt Canada, he’ll run out of steam before he gets to us.

Of course, we also trade with other countries, so if Trump does in fact “blow up world trading systems,” as Frum put it, it will affect us too. Frum compared it to slicing one or two of your arteries and thinking the rest of your arteries will be fine.

And then there’s Russia

It was just over three years ago that then federal agriculture minister Gerry Ritz told Country Guide reporter Maggie Van Camp about his relationship with Russia’s ag minister. Ritz said he gave his counterpart a pair of cowboy boots made from the ostriches he once raised, “forging a friendship,” Van Camp wrote (see “Blood, sweat and deals,”at country-guide.ca).

That’s not a criticism of Ritz. He gifted those cowboy boots before Russia moved into the Crimea. It is a sign of how much things have changed between Canada and Russia in the last few years.

Chrystia Freeland, who recently took the helm of Foreign Affairs, has some impressive qualifications. She speaks Russian and Ukrainian (among other languages), she’s written books on the global business elite and Russia’s transition to capitalism, she’s lived in Russia, and she’s a Rhodes Scholar. Not bad for a farm girl from Peace River, Alberta.

She’s also been banned from Russia by Putin for criticizing his annexation of Crimea. It remains to be seen how Freeland’s past criticisms of Russia play out in D.C. Personally, I don’t want to see any of Canada’s cabinet ministers cozying up to Putin these days, although Trump would disagree.

“Having a good relationship with Russia is a good thing, not a bad thing. Only ‘stupid’ people, or fools, would think that is bad!” That is a tweet from the President-elect himself, back on January 7th.

But on the other hand, by January 11th, Trump was tweeting: “Russia has never tried to use leverage over me. I HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH RUSSIA — NO DEALS, NO LOANS, NO NOTHING!”

I guess the one certainty in all this is that it won’t be boring. As Frum said, we are about to see a test of the whole American system. Our federal government will be tested as well.

And we’re going to see a test of ag groups as they try to maintain relationships with the U.S., China, and many other trading partners.

Luckily, it’s not their first rodeo. But I’m betting they haven’t seen a rodeo quite like this. So hold on to your hats. It’s going to be a heck of a ride.

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U.S. President Donald Trump withdrew from the 12-nation TPP on Monday, following through on an election promise days after his inauguration.

“This agreement was so constructed that it can only enter into force with the United States as a ratifying country,” Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland told reporters in Calgary. “So the TPP as a deal cannot happen without the United States being a party to it.”

Earlier on Tuesday, Australia and New Zealand said they hoped to save the deal by encouraging China and other Asian countries to join the trade pact.

Canadian farmers produce far more grain, oilseeds and meat than the country can consume, and some farm groups had hoped to see the deal proceed.

“It’s disappointing,” said Robin Speer, executive director of the Western Canadian Wheat Growers. “We know trade improves productivity, innovation and supply chains, and helps drive economic growth.”

Canada is one of the world’s biggest exporters of wheat, beef and pork.

Ranchers were hoping to expand beef exports to Japan under lower tariffs included in TPP, said Dennis Laycraft, executive vice-president of the Canadian Cattlemen’s Association. Laycraft said Canada should now focus on a trade deal with Japan.

Canadian dairy farmers, who operate in a tightly controlled system that manages supplies and price, have raised concerns about competing against more imports allowed under trade pacts. Dairy Farmers of Canada spokeswoman Isabelle Bouchard said the group has never opposed trade deals themselves, however.

Flavio Volpe, president of the Automotive Parts Manufacturers’ Association, said the Canadian auto sector, especially small- and medium-sized companies, will escape a threat from foreign competitors if TPP dies.

The trade agreement would have allowed parts and autos to enter Canada duty-free with just 30 percent to 45 percent of their content produced by a TPP nation, Volpe said.

— David Ljunggren is a political correspondent for Reuters based in Ottawa. Additional reporting by Allison Lampert in Montreal and writing by Rod Nickel in Winnipeg.

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