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$300M Bailout Offered to Producers If They Help Show Alberta Meat is Disease-Free

Posted on: Thursday, 5 June 2008, 18:00 CDT

By Jim Macdonald, THE CANADIAN PRESS

EDMONTON - Alberta is offering beleaguered livestock producers $300 million in bailout money over the next 12 months, but they'll only get half unless they're willing to help the province showcase its beef as disease-free.

Producers will have to comply with age and country-of-origin verification to qualify for a second cheque in January.

"I can tell you that cheques will only be issued after a livestock producer shows they are working within this new system," Agriculture Minister George Groeneveld said Thursday.

The first $150 million is being sent out immediately - no strings attached - to support livestock producers hard hit by high feed and fuel costs, lower prices and the soaring Canadian dollar.

The Canadian Cattlemen's Association welcomed the bailout, but immediately raised questions about why the federal government isn't doing something similar.

"It's unfortunate that this is not a national program," said association vice-president Tony Saretsky. "We have asked numerous times for the federal government to be engaged in this."

Times are tough for cattle and hog producers in Canada, and Alberta has the largest beef herd in the country. The pork industry has been hit so hard that the federal government recently moved to pay pig farmers to destroy 150,000 breeding hogs.

Groeneveld said it's getting tougher to market cattle to foreign buyers who fear mad cow disease and want proof of age and origin. Younger cattle are not believed to carry the disease.

The minister is resorting to some tough talk for producers who refuse to provide the information.

"The changes we are proposing will not be easy and many will not be popular, but they are all necessary," he said.

"Producers who are unable or unwilling to transform their business by meeting these conditions may need to consider ways to exit the industry."

Groeneveld acknowledged the federal government has been reluctant to adopt country-of-origin labelling. But Alberta wants to lead the way in meeting international pressure for tight controls on meat supplies to ensure that diseased cows don't end up in the human food chain.

"We opposed the country-of-origin label in the U.S., but we've also been told it's going to happen. Guaranteed."

Premier Ed Stelmach said some livestock producers have already gone broke or left the industry. He also said he saw the situation beginning to unfold at international trade talks in 2005.

"We allowed the Americans and the Europeans to sell us on the elimination of agriculture subsidies," he said. "But they moved billions of dollars of support from (agriculture) subsidies and put it into ethanol."

That increased corn prices in the United States and also pushed up the price for other grains used to feed livestock, including barley. Higher feed costs mean producers are actually losing money on their livestock, Stelmach said.

"You can sharpen the pencil from both sides and you won't make a profit."

Alberta is also spending $56 million this year to create a new livestock and meat agency that will implement a new long-term plan also announced Thursday.

Groeneveld said livestock producers need to start doing things radically different to stay competitive.

"Another ad-hoc program may be a much-needed Band-Aid, but it certainly is not the cure," he said. "In many areas, the situation is as bad or even worse than it was during the BSE crisis five years ago."

The new Alberta livestock plan calls for a new trade strategy, expanded animal health surveillance and a mandatory tracing system for disease control.

Source: Canadian Press

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