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  • From: "Tradingpost" <tradingpost@gilanet.com>
  • To: livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org, nmgreens@yahoogroups.com
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  • Subject: [Livingontheland] Corner Post - Farm & Countryside Commentary
  • Date: Thu, 13 Nov 2003 07:28:45 -0700


Corner Post - Farm & Countryside Commentary by Elbert van Donkersgoed
November 3, 2003

Pork producers have launched an initiative to ban the use of meat and bone
meal in the diet of Ontario pigs by March of next year. The new policy can
be linked to the discovery of one Alberta cow with mad cow disease back in
May. The link is not a scientific one. Feeding recycled animal products back
to animals has developed a perception problem.

Recycling animal products has become a sensitive issue. In 1997 the Canadian
Food Inspection Agency banned the feeding of recycled products from ruminant
animals back to other ruminants, like cattle, sheep, goats, bison, elk or
deer. Pigs are not ruminants but our pork sector is taking the ban a step
further. Pork producers will be buying more expensive protein supplements
for their pig feed.

American pork producers are feeling no need to follow suit. After all, their
country is still officially BSE-free. They will continue to use meat and
bone meal as a cheap source of protein in pig diets; giving them a
competitive advantage over our farmers. They will continue to send pork to
Canadian superstore shelves.

While Canadian farmers go out of their way to produce a quality product with
added features, someone else's product, that meets lower standards, will be
on the shelf right beside it -- at a lower price.

This happens again and again. Canada has not approved the use of a bovine
hormone that boosts milk production. American milk producers use it and can
send their milk products to our grocery store shelves. American fruits and
vegetable growers have access to pesticides not approved in Canada, but
their fruits and vegetables comes north by the truckload.

This scenario is repeated in other countries. British farmers are required
to meet high animal welfare standards but pig meat from around the world is
filling their superstore shelves -- at lower prices. The European Union is
proposing to ban atrazine, a cost effective herbicide for corn production
but U.S. corn, grown with atrazine, will continue to feed European
livestock.

Our first instinct is to label these situations unfair - good intentions and
hard work undermined by cheap imports produced to different standards.
Solution? Demand a level playing field?

Is this really the best solution? A level playing field implies competing
strictly on price - joining the race to the bottom, a treadmill to ever
lower prices.

Marketing the uniqueness of farm products stands a much better chance to
deliver financial rewards for good intentions and hard work. Ontario Pork is
on the right track in its study on costs and consequences of the ban on meat
and bone meal. It will also study marketing advantages for Ontario pig meat
__________
Elbert van Donkersgoed is the Strategic Policy Advisor of the Christian
Farmers Federation of Ontario, Canada. Corner Post has been heard weekly on
CFCO Radio, Chatham and CKNX Radio, Wingham, Ontario since 1997. Corner Post
has an email subscriber list of more than 3,000 and appears regularly on @g
Worldwide Correspondents at
www.agriculture.com/worldwide/correspondents/index.html. Corner Post is
archived at www.christianfarmers.org/commentary/Corner-Post.htm. To be added
to the electronic distribution list of Corner Post send email to
evd@christianfarmers.org with SUBSCRIBE as the message. To remove your name,
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  • [Livingontheland] Corner Post - Farm & Countryside Commentary, Tradingpost, 11/13/2003

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