The purpose of trade associations is to prevent some problems, suggest solutions for others and provide intelligence for cattlemen to plan. National Cattlemen’s Beef Association (NCBA) held their annual convention Feb. 1-3 in New Orleans, LA.
Despite the failure of El Niño to show up last year and bring more moisture to the western half of the U.S., the outlook is more favorable this year. Two weather experts pointed out indicators in the western Pacific that point to a much better chance of El Niño coming, and the droughts associated with La Niña over the last three years finally phasing out. Three-year La Niña patterns are rare and a fourth year has never been recorded.
The federal government has drastically increased funding for risk management programs for both grazing and feedyard programs, providing opportunity for more cattlemen to use the tools. Certain aspects of the programs have been tweaked to make them more practical and usable. The programs were designed by a private company, are funded and supervised by government departments with ag backgrounds, but are marketed and serviced by thousands of local private companies many cattlemen already know. Providing risk insurance at a reduced cost is the kind of practical assistance cattlemen can use that balances out the vagaries of weather cattlemen cannot control
Weather can put cattlemen out of business, costing consumer/taxpayers more in increased prices, food supply and security problems, and underutilized grasslands than would subsidized insurance programs. The long-term food security concerns illuminated by events like a packing plant fire, pandemic-hampered packing plant workforces, fires in food plants nationwide and the shortage of eggs from avian flu outbreaks have prompted government to provide more usable risk insurance. The approach is the lower cost, less intrusive way to help ranchers stay in business, rather than direct payments like past grain programs.
Speaking of food security, nothing was more concerning than questions of foot-and-mouth disease (FMD), our porous southern border, and traceability and the wording of current regulations regarding an outbreak. Current regulations would require a shutdown of all cattle movement for a minimum of 72 hours, regardless of where an outbreak occurs. That could be extended, meaning no cattle shipped to packing plants, feedyards or auctions, and a shortage of beef quickly occuring. A recent tour of JBS’s big plant in Greeley, CO, showed the plant has a couple days’ harvest in the cooler for grading and a day’s worth of cold storage for boxes, and that’s it. There is beef on delivery trucks, in purveyors’ coolers, foodservice coolers and retail distribution warehouses, but those supplies would not last very long.
A possible alternative approach would be to have the capability to find, contain and hold the outbreak to a state or handful of states and get the regulations changed to allow for partial shutdowns of cattle movement. But that only works if the cattle industry has the rapid traceability capability of electronic identification, so animal movement can be tracked in hours instead of weeks. Rooms and hallways in state veterinarians’ offices filled with boxes and cabinets of paper records won’t cut it.
A panel including government officials, Nevada’s new Department of Agriculture Director J. J. Goicoechea, new NCBA President Todd Wilkinson and NCBA Senior Director of Government Affairs Tanner Beymer discussed the ramifications of real-life cattle movement and the threat to industry survival if FMD was found in the U.S.
We also saw video reports on Fox News and MSN.com on the way home from convention of NCBA President Todd Wilkinson explaining the threat potential of FMD coming over with those entering the country illegally over our southern border.
Some folks don’t like the idea of electronic identification, but many auction markets already have readers installed, many cattlemen have them, branded and breed programs use them, packers have the capability and many cattlemen use them for performance management already.
The threat is real. Australia is very worried about rampant FMD in the nearest big island to them, Indonesia. In Colorado, over 5 million laying hens disappeared in a matter of weeks last summer. We had days this winter where there was not an egg to be found on grocery shelves. China’s African swine fever calamity is well known.
At convention, the Live Cattle Marketing Committee passed a resolution promoting an industry-wide seven-day pickup time for fed cattle. Two prompt payment resolutions had been submitted, but no action was taken by the committee. Super slow mail service has raised the question of amending regulations so that electronic payment could be an option for payment to cattlemen for livestock.
USDA Agricultural Marketing Service Administrator Bruce Summers told the committee work is continuing on an “unfair and deceptive trade practices” proposed rule, with a goal of having a final rule by the end of 2023. — Steve Dittmer, WLJ columnist
(Steve Dittmer is the author of the Agribusiness Freedom Foundation newsletter. Views in the column do not necessarily represent the views or opinions of WLJ or its editorial staff.)
