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Gwendolyn
University of Calgary
If It Ain’t Alberta,
It Ain’t Beef
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LOCAL FOOD, REGIONAL IDENTITY,
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ABSTRACT
::
This paper examines the emergence of Alberta beef as a defining feature of Albertan
identity. Contrary to dominant public discourse, cattle production and beef
consumption are not natural, inevitable nor politically neutral features of Alberta’s
history and culture. Rather, they have been established as such by tourist marketing,
industrialization and market globalization.The emergence of BSE in Alberta’s cattle herd
in 2003 served to galvanize the link between beef and regional identity, and also to
foster a link between contradictory discourses of provincialism and nationalism.
Keywords: regional food, national/provincial identity, BSE, beef production and
consumption
Introduction
::
Drive down any road in the province of Alberta, Canada and you are likely
to spot an automobile with an “I Love Alberta Beef” bumper sticker. On first
glance, this may not warrant critical attention as beef is central to Alberta’s
agricultural, culinary and historical landscapes. Most of Canada’s beef cattle
are raised and processed in Alberta, which also houses the nation’s largest
cattle feeding networks and processing plants. According to food journalist
Cinda Chavich (2001), “Alberta beef is the phrase that slips off the lips of
almost anyone thinking about food in this province.” Some would go so far
to argue that Alberta is beef. Indeed, according to one Calgary newspaper:
Alberta beef has been such a strong provincial symbol, a trademark
for quality that speaks to both our ranching heritage and the quality
of life within the province. Nothing captures the emotional
connections that Albertans have with their province as well as
photos of cattle grazing in the foothills of the Rockies, under a clear
blue Alberta sky. (Gibbins 2003)
Notably, the popularity of beef increased in Alberta, as well as Canada as a
whole, after a case of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) was
detected in a northern Alberta herd in 2003.1 The Canadian beef market
was effectively shut out of global trade, leading to severe economic
consequences for Canadian, and especially Albertan, cattle ranchers and
beef producers.2 Following the trade ban, domestic support for the
beleaguered beef industry was impressive: government funds were made
available to help the beef producers, a cross-country barbeque dubbed the
“World’s Longest Barbecue” was organized by culinary activist Anita
Stewart,3 and restaurants and top chefs began showcasing local beef.
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In Alberta, the promotion of the beef industry was particularly
pronounced: Tourism Alberta centers across the country featured tastings of
Alberta beef, Alberta businesses raised money to support the beef industry,4
and at agricultural fairs across the province, the Alberta Beef Producers
distributed a wide array of beef marketing paraphernalia. Bumper stickers
were one of the most visible symbols of public support for beef.5 As one
writer commented:
Americans may have stopped Canadian beef from flowing over the
border but Albertans fought back with the “I Love Alberta Beef”
bumper sticker. It seemed as though every driver in the province had
slapped a bumper sticker to the tail end of their Chevy, Ford or
Dodge. Their message was simple: Eat more beef. And love it.
(MacDonald 2006: 5)
This public support for beef is significant for two reasons. First, it marks
a reverse direction from a previous trend—due to health, ethical and
environmental concerns, Canadians had significantly reduced their
consumption of beef from an average of sixty-five pounds per person per year
in the mid-1980s to less than fifty pounds in the early 2000s (Dunn 2004).
Second, it marks a stark contrast from consumption patterns in the UK
immediately following its BSE crisis. In 1996, when the British government
announced a connection between BSE and a new variant of CreutzfeldtJakob disease (vCJD), thereby transforming an agricultural problem into a
public health concern, consumers both domestically and internationally lost
confidence in the British beef industry. Although consumption of beef had
already been on a decline in Britain prior to 1996, it was substantially
reduced once the BSE scare was underway and took several years to recover
(Hinde et al. 2001).
I propose that cultural identification is one explanation for why Canadian
support for beef increased after BSE was identified in Alberta’s cattle herd
(Ayers and Prugh 2004). Theodore Plantiga (2003) has referred to this
phenomenon as a form of “mad cow nationalism,” although the reference to
nationalism bears examination. Although beef has a long historical
association with British identity (Rogers 2003), this bond was not reinforced
by the BSE/vCJD crisis. In Alberta, however, the conditions were such that
the bond between beef and provincial identity was strengthened.
Drawing from scholarship on national cuisines and collective identity, I
examine the discursive conditions that enabled beef to be linked with
Albertan identity.6 This process is more complex than simply rooting
provincial identity in agricultural commodities (Alberta beef versus
Saskatchewan wheat, for example) or in a sense of belonging to a specific
agricultural locale (the western prairies and foothills). I am referring to the
process by which Albertan culture is defined as alienated, and hence
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distinct, from the rest of Canada. Although beef retains a regional (not a
national) identification in Canada, BSE facilitated a support for the beef
industry in Canada as a whole. This can be explained, in part, by viewing
BSE as an agent that articulated two contradictory discourses: provincialism
and nationalism.
Local Food, Regional Identity, National Unity
::
Discourses of Canadian nationalism, although complex, can generally be
read in terms of two divergent themes: a desire for a unifying national
identity versus a turn towards provincialism (or regionalism).7 As Ian Angus
(1997) argues, the politics of national identity is a familiar theme in Canada
as “identity” is a primary way in which the idea of an independent Canada
has been expressed. Discourses of a unified Canadian identity have been
forged on a narrative that combines the staple theories of economic
dependency with concerns over cultural autonomy. These concerns,
although often associated with left-leaning nationalists, have become a
defining feature of the cultural landscape in Canada.
The staple theory of economic dependency is an attempt to explain the
distinctiveness of Canadian economic development from European and
American histories. The key feature of this theory is that Canada needs to
be considered in relation to the exploitation of its staple resources (fur,
lumber, wheat, fish, etc) by an imperial center. Canada has been an
economic colony of France and Britain and, some might argue, even the
United States. The work of Harold Innis, George Grant, and, to a lesser
degree J.M.S. Careless have substantiated a view that Canada (as a whole
and also regionally) is best understood via core–periphery power dynamics
(Careless 1989; Grant 1970; Innis 1972). Underlying this core–periphery
relationship, both in reality and in a general mythos, lies a tension between
an industrial center and a peripheral (ostensibly) undeveloped, primitive
wilderness (Angus 1997). This economic analysis dovetails quite nicely with
discourses of national identity as identity is a relational term, forged by
distinguishing a “self” from an “other.” As such, the identification of a shared
problem or a common enemy (in this case, an external center of power)
fosters the construction of a unified identity (Laclau and Mouffe 1985).
As recent scholarship has highlighted, food can also play a central role in
constructing and maintaining national identity (Appadurai 1988; Cusack
2005; Penfold 2002; Wilk 2002). Benedict Anderson’s concept of the nation
as an imagined community points to the myriad discursive strategies that
organize our sense of belonging to a particular geographical location via the
communities we inhabit and the identities we incorporate (Anderson 1991).
National identities are intimately bound up with personal identities; they
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“work” by producing meanings about the nation with which we can identify,
meanings contained in the stories and images we construct, the memories
we hold, the rituals in which we engage and the foods we share. Food can
serve as a powerful agent in nation building because it appears to be a
benign aspect of a culture, effectively distancing itself from overtly
nationalistic and political rhetorical strategies. When a food or cuisine serves
as a defining feature of a region, it is not a politically neutral process. Like
most cultural phenomena, dominant foods emerge from struggles over
meaning amongst contingent historical, social and political alliances.8
According to Sydney Mintz (1996), a national cuisine is essentially a
contradiction in terms for there are really only regional cuisines, of which
certain ones become articulated with the nation. The staple symbols of
Canadian food (maple syrup, back bacon and even the Tim Horton donut)
are more firmly rooted in eastern Canadian gastronomic practices and
narratives than western Canadian ones. As Steve Penfold (2002) has noted,
what passes for official nationalism is often southern Ontario regionalism,
which resists precise territorial definition as this area has the cultural capital
to represent what counts as Canada’s national cultural production.
Alberta beef is noteworthy precisely because it retains its regional
emphasis and is not subsumed into a broader discourse of the nation.
Consider, for example, when George W. Bush made his first visit to Canada
in November 2004, and Canada’s Chief of Protocol Robert Collette arranged
for a private banquet featuring Alberta beef, not Canadian beef, on the
menu. Although a lot of “what if” jokes circulated about the potential risk of
Bush falling victim to mad cow disease, in an interview with Gwen Ifill on
PBS’ NewsHour, he made light of the situation, as well as the US border
closure to Canadian beef by stating that “23 percent of America’s exports go
directly north, and more than 80 percent of Canadian’s exports go to my
country. With so much trade, there are bound to be some disagreements. I
proudly ate some Alberta beef last night … and I’m still standing” (OnLine
NewsHour 2004). Bush’s confusion about vCJD notwithstanding (the
disease has a slow rate of progression, taking up to ten years to manifest
symptoms), his comment draws attention to the trade dynamics between
Canada and the US. Although to claim that “there are bound to be some
disagreements” significantly understates the trade issues at hand, he does
illuminate the extent to which Canadian exports are dependent on the US
market.
Furthermore, this emphasis on beef ’s regionalism is noteworthy (“I
proudly ate some Alberta beef”). “Alberta beef” does not simply refer to a
geographically located agricultural commodity; rather, in very complex ways,
it is bound up with regional identity. As food scholars have long argued, the
successful construction of a link between a particular food and collective
identity involves mediating already existing cultural values (Ohnuki-Tierney
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1993; Pilcher 1998). As such, Alberta beef “works” as a marker of identity
only to the degree that it links with prior beliefs and assumptions about
Alberta as a region.
Alberta is a modern, urbanized province, deeply integrated with national,
continental and international commercial and political networks. However,
in popular mythos, it is portrayed as a maverick agrarian region that is
distinct, politically, socially and economically, from the rest of Canada.
Albertan culture is characterized by a high degree of consensus due to the
strange phenomenon of long periods of one-party rule as well as the ways in
which Albertans ostensibly vote en masse, with little to no alternatives to
dominant conservative (or “right-leaning”) politics. This political culture of
consensus is best understood by two persistent themes: western alienation
and a common public interest shared in dominant commodities (usually oil
and gas, but also beef). As Leslie Pals (1992) argues, these forces produce
an artificial homogeneity that imparts a sense of collective identity in spite
of the deep conflicts that exist between social groups, geographical regions
and political affiliations.
The sentiment of western alienation is not limited to Alberta, but has a
particularly strong resonance in the province (Gibbins 1992). It has been
shaped primarily by Alberta’s historical economic reliance on natural
resource extraction and agricultural production. Although Alberta is one of
Canada’s most prosperous regions, this prosperity is bound up with the state
of international resource markets, which suffer from instability and
uncertainty. The provincial economy tends to reflect this uncertainty,
oscillating between periods of boom and bust. As such, Alberta’s political
culture is marked by a quest for economic stability and security (Gibbins
1992: 69).
One explanation for Alberta’s perceived alienation from the rest of Canada
is that the province’s history has been characterized by core–periphery power
relations (Careless 1989).9 Alberta provides the raw materials (primarily
food and fuel) for the large manufacturing centers in Ontario and Quebec.
As a result, many Albertans feel that certain parties within the Canadian
federation have taken advantage of them. This sensibility was exacerbated in
the 1980s by the then Liberal government’s National Energy Program (NEP)
initiative that sought to increase Canadian control and ownership of the
energy industry. Via price controls and federal taxes on oil and gas
production, the government tried to protect Canadians from surging oil
prices. Many Albertans were upset over the NEP because they felt it was a
federal intrusion over resources that fell under provincial jurisdiction, taking
control and economic prosperity away from the province. To this day, the
NEP remains a sore spot with many Albertans, and is often used as an
argument in favor of western separatist movements.
Given the dramatic changes that have occurred in Alberta since the
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inception of the province in 1905, from globalization, industrialization and
immigration, the only way in which the cultural mythos of Alberta as a
socially homogeneous, politically alienated and primarily agricultural region
can work is if Alberta’s citizens consent, on some level, to its logic.10 A
shared sense of cultural identity must be actively transferred and maintained
as it has no automatic supremacy. This maintenance is particularly difficult
if there is a large gap between the region’s image and its historical and
contemporary reality. Marc Lisac, for example, contends that Alberta is a
region soaked in self-deception:
Alberta, as it exists in the public consciousness, is a façade—a false
front like the two-storey walls standing in front of one-storey
buildings in countless western movies and real western towns. Its
false images of itself are reproduced across the country. (Lisac 2004:
2)
As Tamara and Howard Palmer describe, Albertans differ only marginally
from people living in other parts of Canada. As Alberta becomes more
urbanized and less dependent on farming as a source of income, a growing
number of people are “considerably less familiar with the smell of the
barnyard and the work of the cowboy and the farmer than they are with
Toronto and New York stock markets, international travel and gourmet
cuisine” (Palmer and Palmer 1990: 337).
In spite of this, the image of Alberta as an agrarian culture alienated from,
and at times under siege by the rest of the nation still captures the public
imaginary. This is best exemplified by the representations of the region’s
cattle industry, in particular, those created by the Alberta Beef Producers
(ABP).11 The ABP’s marketing strategy relies on a dominant tourist image
associated with Alberta: a wholesome, wild, unsettled cattle country,
relatively untouched by the advances of urban and technological culture,
and miraculously retaining the spirit of the wild western frontier. One of its
dominant discourses is that Albertan (and by extension Canadian) beef
producers are in need of protection in order to save a way of life and a mode
of production historically rooted in Alberta’s history and culture. However,
images of expansive, wild land as well as preindustrial ranching methods
belie the reality of Alberta’s contemporary beef production industry, which is
technological and deeply integrated with international markets.
If It Ain’t Alberta, It Ain’t Beef
::
The term “Alberta beef” was popularized in the late 1980s with the help of
the ABP’s award-winning marketing campaign entitled “If it ain’t Alberta, it
ain’t beef.” Intended to create wider recognition for the Alberta beef
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industry, the project commenced in 1988, in time for the Winter Olympic
Games in Calgary. The initial campaign ran from 1988 to 2001, and featured
three cowboys in posed in front of a mountain range. In a second campaign,
launched in 2002, the original cowboys were replaced by three female
Albertan rancHers (sic), who, according to ABP, reflected the contribution
made by women to Alberta’s ranching legacy as well as women’s role as
primary household food purchasers.12
With these campaigns, the ABP effectively branded the term “Alberta
beef,” primarily through appeals made to traditional and “authentic” modes
of cattle production. One of their postcards in this campaign features a
tagline “Taste the tradition” with a pictures of the three rancHers, as well as
preindustrial images of a lone cowboy on a horse, and a farmer throwing hay.
Another poster, mimicking aged poster paper, reads, “Wanted! To say thank
you to the citizens of this fair province for the ongoing support of Alberta
Beef Producers,” with “A tradition and way of life since the 1800s—
Providers of the best tasting beef in the world” at the bottom.
I draw attention to the ABP’s marketing campaign as it is one way in
which Alberta beef has been incorporated into the cultural imaginary. To
focus solely on this marketing discourse, however, would miss the
complexity of the ways in which Albertan identity has been linked with
beef. This campaign is useful as a starting point for discussion as it
provides a site in which images that resonate with a broader cultural
sensibility have been articulated. One of the ABP’s mandates is to increase
the market for domestic beef. In terms of this projected goal, its marketing
campaign has been very successful. However, it is the forces behind this
success that interest me, for this campaign has managed to articulate a
public sentiment that beef cattle production occurs at a small-scale level
and that it is an authentic part of Alberta’s history. As the ABP marketing
division describes:
Consumers continue to be moved by genuine images of rugged
ranchers in the heart of Alberta’s cattle country where the air is fresh
and there’s an abundance of rangeland, the right conditions for
producing the world’s best beef. (Alberta Beef Producers [no date])
The ABP’s marketing strategy dovetails with a broader national initiative
to foster culinary cultural tourism.13 According to the Canadian Tourism
Commission, tourism and cuisine play a major role in the affirmation of
Canadian identity and cultural development. Furthermore, food is often
cited as a key aspect of the travel experience, where tourists claim that
experiencing a region’s food is essential to understanding its culture
(National Tourism and Cuisine Forum 2001). One of the key aspects that
draw tourists to a regional cuisine is its perceived authenticity with relation
to the regional culture.
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The cowboy is a central agent in the construction of this perceived
authenticity as this image can be read as fulfilling the symbolic function of
the pure and timeless “folk,” usually associated with national identity.
Although national identity is inextricably linked with the modern nationstate, discourses of national identity tend to be grounded in timeless,
foundational myths that emphasize continuity and tradition (Hall 1992).
Hence, they erase the historical, political and economic changes so integral
to the formation of modern communities. Appeals are often made to a set of
traditions rooted deep in a pre-modern past as well as a pure, original people
with whom these traditions are associated. These historical narratives,
however, are selectively chosen; they serve to make the confusions of history
and politics intelligible and manageable under a banner of common unity.
The cowboy is part of Alberta’s heritage, but this indentured laborer had a
limited heyday during what Edward Brado (2004) calls the “cattle kingdom,”
the open range ranching period from the late 1860s to the late 1880s.
During this time, cattle provided a lucrative operation for investors and
entrepreneurs in western North America. Cattle drives began as
entrepreneurial Texans found markets for Texas longhorn cattle in the
northeastern states. Cowboys were hired hands who drove the longhorns
from Texas to railheads in Kansas, Missouri and Wyoming. Although
speculators and investors made a lot of money during this “beef bonanza,”
the open range ranching system in the United States ended precipitously
due to a host of factors including severe winter in 1886, poor range
management, and falling cattle prices. The upsurge of new immigrants
settling the plains, as well as the invention of barbed wire in 1873,
transformed the open range system into agricultural settlements (Brado
2004; Seiler and Seiler 2004). Although the cattle system dominated a great
deal of territory in the United States, in Canada it was limited to a fairly
small region in the southern parts of British Columbia, Alberta and
Saskatchewan. Canadian open range ranching ended in 1906, one year after
the inception of the province. Canadian ranching did not adhere to the pure
open range ranching of the United States; rather, it was marked more by
mixed farming operations (Seiler and Seiler 2004).
In spite of the short history of the open range cowboy, its image was
captured, packaged and distributed by entertainment, advertising and tourist
industries. “Buffalo Bill” Cody’s Wild West show opened in 1883 in
Nebraska to dramatize the frontier life that was fast passing away. This show
toured successfully in North America and Europe until 1913 (Seiler and
Seiler 2004: 159). By the First World War, most “Wild West” shows had
faded from public notice, although the romantic image of the cowboy was
kept alive by novels, country and western movies, magazines and western art.
The rodeo replaced the Wild West show in the 1920s, and in Alberta, the
romanticized image of the cowboy and the rodeo was taken up by the
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“greatest show on earth,” the annual Calgary Stampede, a rodeo and fair
celebrating southern Albertan history. Every July, the Calgary Stampede
packages and sells cowboy culture as way to increase tourist revenue to the
region.
Although the image of the cowboy figures centrally in contemporary
representations of Alberta’s agricultural sector, modern cattle production is
strikingly different from its nineteenth-century predecessor. The link
between beef and Albertan identity is facilitated by the mythos of the
cowboy as the “folk” of the region, but it also required specific technological
and industrial changes in the beef commodity chain. Alberta did not
establish a dominant cattle industry until almost half a century after the
disappearance of the open range system with which the cowboy is
associated. It was not until Alberta developed an integrated, highlytechnological beef industry, which included feedlots as well as meat
processing and packing plants, that “Alberta beef” could gain a meaningful
place in the public imaginary.
According to Max Foran (2003), up until the 1950s, Alberta’s beef cattle
industry did not produce “good” Alberta beef especially for the average
Canadian, as ranchers and livestock farmers reserved quality cattle for
lucrative export markets. The centrality of the export market detracted
attention from the establishment of an integrated feeding industry, both
regionally and nationally, because feeding was not essential for the export
market as most importing countries, in particular the US, would finish beef
in their own processing plants. Furthermore, it was assumed that the
domestic market would not pay more for finished beef products.
The development of regionally situated meat-processing industries played
an integral role in the construction of Alberta beef. MacLachlan (2001)
describes three significant periods marking Canada’s beef commodity chain,
the first of which occurred between 1890 and the Second World War, where
industrialization of the meat-packing industries fostered the development of
an agro-industrial complex in major urban centers, particularly in Ontario.
The postwar period marked a second shift, where processing plants moved
from urban centers to smaller centers, enabled by more efficient refrigerated
truck cattle liners replacing railways, as well as the construction of smaller
beef-processing plants that were closer to ranching communities. The biggest
change occurred in the late 1980s when the Canadian beef processing
industry began the initial stages of a major transformation towards
consolidation of feeding and meat packing. One consequence of this shift
was that feeding and meat-packing plants moved from central Ontario, where
they had been focused for most of the twentieth century, to Alberta. Alberta’s
political culture, with its emphasis on neoliberal trade policies (low taxes, few
regulations for businesses, market liberalization) fostered this move. In
addition, the signing of the Canada-US Free Trade Agreement in 1989, the
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North American Free Trade Agreement in 1994 and the shift from the
General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade to the World Trade Organization in
1995 have encouraged an increased integration of North American
agriculture, with production systems that cross international borders, leading
to more foreign-owned meat processing and packing plants in Alberta. The
trend in Alberta has been a move towards consolidation in the agricultural
sector, resulting in larger but fewer farms. To give a sense of this change, from
1996 to 2004, the number of cow/calf operations in Alberta decreased by
13 percent, feedlots declined by 50 percent, and the number of packing
plants by almost 40 percent (Dunn 2004: 17). As such, the players in
Alberta’s agricultural sector are fewer, but larger. Along with the trend towards
larger cow/calf ranches, the Canadian cattle industry has evolved toward
more specialization in cattle feeding. Feedlots range from a few hundred head
to operations feeding over 40,000 animals at one time. In 2003,
approximately 60 percent of Alberta’s cattle production came from feedlots
over 10,000 head, compared with 30 percent in 1991 (Wooding 2006).
The Underbelly of Alberta Beef
::
Beef functions as a synecdoche of the province of Alberta, representing not
simply an agricultural commodity, but also a means of cultural identification.
The dominant representation of Alberta as a socially and politically
homogeneous region, galvanized by a shared interest in its dominant
commodities, contributed to a narrative of a shared cultural identity rooted
in a single commodity. The tourist industry in Alberta, in particular the
Calgary Stampede, established the image of the maverick cowboy as an
authentic and dominant feature of the province’s heritage. The technological
and industrial changes in the beef commodity chain, although inherently
modern technological processes, have paradoxically fed into the dominant
image of Alberta as a “wild western” agrarian society, simply because they
have provided the material conditions to make beef production a viable part
of the province’s economy. The Alberta Beef Producers marketing
campaigns, both prior to and after the BSE crisis, helped galvanize a link
between beef production, the cowboy and provincial identity. This discourse
of provincial marginalization dovetailed with a broader latent sensibility
within Canada: that of exploitation by external power relations. Canadians,
in a sense, could identify with the plight of Alberta because of a shared
sentiment of marginalization and exploitation. As a result, Alberta beef made
headway into the discourse of the nation—not by losing its regional
emphasis, but by strategically retaining it.
Unfortunately, alongside creating a sense of continuity and cohesion,
collective identification also conceals a certain foundational violence
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because it excludes the differences, contradictions or problems that make
this unity possible. This is perhaps why, with the exception of a few
dissenting voices in student newspapers or vegetarian and environmental
publications, the promotion of Alberta beef is rarely challenged in the
province. The BSE crisis in Alberta in particular has further deepened the
province’s identification with beef, and hence, has contributed to a climate
where critical public dialogue has been discouraged. Albertans (and by
extension Canadians) are supposed to support their beef producers, and are
encouraged to show this support by consuming more beef. Questioning the
consumption and production of beef is akin to being a traitor to the region.
This was best exemplified in 1990 when k.d. lang, in conjunction with the
animal rights organization PETA, recorded a television commercial that
called into question the dominance of the beef industry. In the
advertisement, she stated “If you knew how meat was made, you’d probably
lose your lunch. I know— I’m from cattle country and that’s why I became
a vegetarian” (Bennetts 1993). As a result, lang’s music was removed from
the playlists of Alberta country and western radio stations, and her popularity
in Alberta diminished. This challenge to the beef industry was a serious
transgression of orthodoxy, one that garnered a lot more public hostility than
her subsequent announcement that she was a lesbian. Public reaction to the
commercial was all the more interesting as it never actually aired; rather, it
was reported in a feature on the television show Entertainment Tonite, and
subsequently became a news item.
Unfortunately, current trends in cattle production and beef consumption
are costing Albertans a great deal in terms of tax dollars as well as long-term
social and environmental degradation. These trends are not widely
recognized because of the dominant mythos surrounding Alberta beef. Beef
production in Alberta is a highly-subsidized industry. Even at the inception
of the industry at the end of the nineteenth century, federal subsidies were
integral to the industry’s formation and sustainability. By giving tax breaks as
well as low land prices, the Canadian government was able to attract foreign
investors who would provide the necessary capital and infrastructure for the
beef industry. Government subsidies increased substantially after the border
closures: since 2003, upwards of CAN$8 billion has been allocated from
federal and provincial governments to help beef producers.14 Yet, even prior
to the BSE crisis, the National Beef Industry Development Fund was
developed as a CAN$9.25 million investment of the governments of
Canada, British Columbia and Alberta, for the purpose of promoting and
enhancing the global competitiveness of the beef industry.
These subsidies do not always support the people they are intended to
help. The price paid to Alberta and Canadian ranchers for slaughter cattle
decreased dramatically after the announcement that Alberta was BSE
positive; however, during this time, prices for beef at the supermarkets
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stayed relatively constant. Yet, in the year following the border closure,
Canada’s three largest meat-packing companies (Cargill, Lakeside Packers
and Levinoff Meat) made over 280 percent profit (Dunn 2004). These
companies were also held in contempt of Parliament in May 2004 because
they refused to give financial statements to a federal committee examining
whether the industry had profited from the BSE crisis, by misappropriating
funds meant for ranchers and other small-scale producers. Although they
were exonerated of any wrongdoing by an Auditor General’s report released
in August 2004, the report acknowledged that these companies did profit
from the border closures. Furthermore, the US-owned packing companies
(Cargill Foods and Lakeside Packers) are the only ones licensed by the US
government to export boneless meat to the US from animals under 30
months of age (Kilgour 2004). Even when the US–Canada border was
closed to the export of live slaughter cattle, these packing companies could
still profit from the increase of slaughter cattle by buying them at low costs,
processing them, and selling them to the US market.
Michael Broadway has documented the impact of the foreign-owned
meat-processing industries of Cargill and Lakeside Packers in the
communities of High River and Brooks, Alberta (Broadway 2001). Although
these industries have brought jobs to these communities as well as supplied
a market for locally raised cattle, they have also led to increased rates of
violent crime, domestic violence, homelessness as well as increased demand
for social services. This is in part due to the nature of the industry. Jobs
within meat-packing industries are characterized by low pay, high injury
rates, and physical and emotional stress. These conditions lead to a high
employee turnover. As such, these industries recruit workers from outside
the region, with an emphasis on highly-mobile adult single males and recent
immigrants. This leads to a highly-transient working population, making
community cohesion difficult. However, under the mandates of fiscal belttightening and debt reduction, the provincial government has systematically
cut social services, including healthcare and education, and has therefore
passed much of the costs of the beef-processing industry to local
communities and charitable organizations.
Conclusion
::
Alberta beef did not emerge naturally nor inevitably from the historical
particularities of the region; rather, tourist marketing, industrialization and
market globalization served to transform it into an “authentic” feature of the
province’s heritage. Alberta beef might feed a deeper hunger for western
Canadians to occupy a viable national and global subject position because
this commodity allows Alberta to make its economic and political presence
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noticed. When BSE emerged in the region’s cattle herds in 2003, it further
galvanized the link between beef and regional identity by contributing to a
discourse of Alberta as an agrarian community “under siege” by more
powerful external sources, this time not eastern Canada but the United
States. It also provided an opportunity whereby discourses of regionalism
and nationalism could be articulated, without subsuming one into the other.
Discourses of identification (rooted in a shared sentiment of alienation and
exploitation) may have been a contributing factor to the broader national
mobilization of support for beef production by consuming more beef.
[TX]BSE might have provided an opportunity for a public discussion
about the contemporary dynamics of beef production, in particular, the
increased international integration, industrialization and consolidation of the
beef industry. Instead, it was linked with a discourse rooted in a folk
tradition of wholesome cowboys, wide open spaces and “natural” modes of
beef production. Critical public dialogue about beef might shatter this
image, but it also might be precisely what agricultural producers and well as
rural communities need in order to solve some of the serious problems they
are facing.15 In today’s globalized world, the lines of power are difficult to
detect and untangle as they can come from intra, inter and transnational
sources. As such, they demand our fullest and most attentive critical
capacities, which, unfortunately, are often obscured by appeals to collective
identity and imagined communities.
Notes
::
1 According to Statistics Canada (2004), beef consumption in Canada increased five percent
from 2002 to 2003. The rate of consumption increased substantially in the months
following the border closure. Although this increase may be explained, in part, by a
concurrent emergence of dietary regimes that emphasize increased meat consumption as a
way to manage weight loss (such as the Atkins and Zone diets), this may also have been
informed by concerted efforts from the beef industry, the government and citizen groups to
assure Canadians that that risk posed by BSE was economic rather than health-related.
2 The global ban on Canadian beef also had economic consequences for the livestock trade
in general as well as the rendering and meat-processing industries. The effects were most
severely felt in rural communities.
3 In July 2003, Anita Stewart, with the organization Flavors of Canada started a nationwide
Canadian beef barbeque. Marketed as “Canada Day 2! The World’s Longest Barbecue,” it
was intended to raise awareness and support for the plight of farm families and their
communities. It also raised money for the Alberta Beef Help Bank, which purchases Alberta
beef and distributes it to rural food banks throughout Alberta. The barbeque has run from
2003 to 2006.
4 Several businesses gave away or sold at reduced cost free sides of beef. Alberta’s
microbrewery Big Rock Brewery held a “Lend A Hand” Campaign, where one dollar from
every twelve-pack sold was donated to the Alberta Beef Producers Market Development
Fund. The Alberta energy company, Direct Energy hosted a “Back the Beef” campaign,
where they purchased surplus beef to donate to local food banks.
5 In addition to the Alberta Beef Producers, The United Farmers of Alberta, a farmer’s
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cooperative in Alberta, produced and distributed “Back Your Beef” bumper stickers.
6 I take discourse to mean both symbolic and material forces. Following the work of
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Lawrence Grossberg (1992) and Stuart Hall (1985), I maintain that, in order to understand
the formation of cultural identity, it is not sufficient to focus solely on symbolic mechanisms
(narratives, representations, etc), but it is also necessary to take material processes
(economic, technological, etc) into consideration.
7 Quebec and Alberta separatist movements are extreme examples of a turn away from
nationalist discourses.
8 As Priscilla Ferguson (2004) has discussed, the ostensibly apolitical nature of French
cuisine provided an advantage in promoting national interests over divisive partisan ones. In
the nineteenth century, the dominant political forces tied cuisine to country. As such, haute
cuisine was urbanized and then nationalized, translating historically class-oriented culinary
practices into a national culinary code. French cuisine gave citizens and foreigners alike a
means of imagining France as a unified community of producers and consumers who are,
in fact, geographically dispersed, socially stratified, and politically divided.
9 During the fur trade era, the Canadian West was controlled by two rival trading empires of
England and France. After the Canadian government purchased the northwest territories in
1870, the west was controlled by Montreal, Ottawa and Toronto. In the post Second World
War era, power shifted to the United States as markets became more internationally
integrated.
10 By “consent,” I do not mean necessarily a conscious or rational process. Rather, following
the work of Antonio Gramsci, this term refers to the ways in which power relations are
reproduced and sustained via hegemonic processes, some of which are unconscious.
11 In Canada, beef industry lobby groups are found at national and provincial levels. The
Alberta Beef Producers (ABP) is the biggest marketing organization for beef producers in
the province. It was established in 1969 by five groups (the Alberta Cattle Breeders
Association, Alberta Dairymen’s Association, Alberta Federation of Agriculture, Farmers
Union of Alberta and the Western Stock Growers’ Association). Its mandate is to strengthen
the sustainability and competitiveness of the Alberta beef industry by increasing consumer
demand for beef both domestically and internationally, ensuring access to land and water
resources for the benefit of cattle producers, enhancing communications with local and
national politicians, improving the beef cattle industry’s image, and establishing relations
with other beef producer groups. ABP is directly supported by national producer
organizations, such as the Canadian Cattlemen’s Association and the Canada Beef Export
Federation.
12 The relationship between gender and beef production warrants deeper examination;
unfortunately, it lies outside of the parameters of this paper. My intent here is to focus
primarily on the appeals made to tradition in the ABP’s marketing literature. It is noteworthy
that the use of women in this advertising campaign both illuminates and obscures
contemporary dynamics of gender in relation to agricultural production and beef
consumption.
13 The National Tourism & Cuisine Forum was held in Halifax, Nova Scotia in June 2001. It
represented a significant point in a nationwide initiative undertaken by the Canadian
Tourism Commission (CTC) which is focusing on the increasing importance of culinary
tourism in the marketplace. The CTC has been working closely with the tourism sector and
as well as the food and beverage industries to identify and discuss joint culinary tourism
strategies.
14 In 2004, the federal government, in conjunction with the Canadian Cattlemen’s
Association, launched its “Repositioning the Livestock Industry Strategy” in order to
increase domestic slaughter capacity by providing financial support to the beef sector. This
program included an additional CAN$54 million to support loans for building and
expanding small and medium-sized slaughter and processing facilities. In March 2005,
Agriculture and Agri-Food minister Andy Mitchell announced that the federal government
would contribute an additional CAN$50 million to the Canadian Cattlemen Association’s
Legacy fund to launch a marketing campaign to reclaim and expand markets for Canadian
beef.
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15 For a discussion of the problems facing rural agricultural communities, see Norberg-Hodge
et al. (2002).
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