Ed Green Nuffield trip to USA and Canada, June/July 2012
Friday 22 June 2012
Arrived in Philadelphia and met up with my host, Graeme Goodsir , an ex-pat Aussie who has lived and worked in the meat sector in the US for the last forty years. Drove through the city on a historical tour. Pennsylvania's colonial founding father was William Penn. Now fourth largest city in the US and one of the biggest ports in the US.
Drove on out through Amish communities near Harrisburg. They use no electricity (or buttons?!) and use horse and buggies for transport. This area has many 100acre dairy farms. Cold winters here, so cows are housed in winter. Lots of maize crops and soya beans. Maize is a nice dark green colour, and three feet high (unlike the three inch yellow stuff in the UK at the moment).
Met up with Graeme's wife, Esme, in the evening for a meal in Mechanicsburg in a "neighbourhood restaurant" (family oriented). Beef steaks presented more dynamically with more interesting spices, flavours and things like Bourbon.
Then back to a motel where I'll be staying for the next two nights. It's noticeable how all staff, whether in the airport, cafes, restaurants or motel, all go out of their way to provide the best service they can and constantly ask if there's anything else they can do. Much more than in Europe. I had been in my motel room for about 15 minutes when the phone rang and the lady in reception wanted to know if I was happy with the room.
Few points to mention whilst driving with Graeme. Beef futures markets work in the US but they have significant volume to play with. Without this volume, hedging movements would have too big an impact on a small pool in the UK situation. It works if you're hedging against risk, but not if you start to act as a speculator.
Very powerful beef industry lobby in US. They are a little blind to the importance of giving the consumer assurances on food safety and animal welfare and environmental protection. "Pink slime" controversy was handled badly, and antibiotics and hormones used will increasingly become an issue. Farmers markets popular here and often with permanent premises and open three or four times a week.
Saturday 23 June 2012
Hot and humid again today at 28 degrees.
Took a tour around the Harrisburg Capitol Building which is amazingly ornate for a legislative building and now uninsurable due to its lavish decor. Built around 1905, it hosts the Senate and House of
Representatives for Penn State. Currently there is a lot of scandal around political corruption here, with an Occupy Harrisburg camp outside. Big spending cuts are being made now in the public sector, with lots of teachers losing their jobs.
The other big story here at the moment is the court conviction of a previously hero worshipped football coach for child molestation.
Three Mile Island, where a disastrous nuclear accident occurred in the 1960s, is just downstream the main river here.
Visited a newly opened Asian supermarket. This is likely to struggle in the current economic climate.
The beef on offer included ox tail, tripe, pizzle, brisket. Other offerings included live fish in a tank, fish

heads, chicken feet and pigs trotters.
Visited the National Civil War Museum in Harrisburg. In the latter 18th century, there was increasing opposition to slavery in America, predominantly from northern states like Pennsylvania. This caused friction with southern states where slavery was seen as more acceptable and necessary to provide labour on the plantations. Southern states didn't like being told what to do, whilst the northern states argued for a common union of rights across all the states.
This culminated in the mid 19th century with civil war between the southern confederates, led by
General Lee, and the northern federal unionists, led by President Abraham Lincoln. More lives were lost in these battles than in any other wars since, with many ordinary people and immigrants dragged unwillingly into battle. Ultimately, the unionists won leading to the modern day USA. Shortly after victory, Lincoln was assassinated.
Drove with Graeme and Esme Goodsir down to Gettysburg. Here we had lunch with Tom Vossler , a retired army colonel, and his wife Barbara. Upon retirement in 1999, the Vossler's started from scratch their own pedigree Simmental suckler herd. Mountain View Simmentals is now a widely respected herd, and often win prizes in the show ring across the US. Tom has also become widely respected in the beef producer association world.
Their Simmentals are black and red in colour and look similar to Stabilisers. Furthermore, the black cattle (and any black cattle in general) can be sold as Certified Angus. Females are sold in the spring and fall as in calf heifers for between $1800-$3200. Bulls are sold at weaning to other herds for around $1800. Pasture rights on their national champion prize bull, Maximus, are sold to work on a herd during the summer for around $100 per week. Semen is also sold.
The Vosslers have built their own sale ring to facilitate the spring and fall sales, and invite other selected vendors so around 75 cattle are on offer each time. The Vosslers have also participated in
"shoot side training" on their 60 acre farm. This is part of the Beef Quality Assurance scheme run by the National Cattlemens Beef Association (NCBA), and involves injecting an animal in undesirable areas of the carcase, eg the rump, or injecting way over the required dose, and then carrying out a post mortem to show the effects this has on carcase quality. This is maybe something EBLEX could try.
Tom is also now an official tour guide on the Gettysburg battlefields so took us on a brief tour. The
Battle of Gettysburg in July 1863 lasted three days and was the defining battle in ending the civil war.
General Lee's southern confederates tried three times to break through Union lines but ultimately failed. The battlefield is huge and is covered with statues, plaques, monuments and canon. Around
50,000 lives were lost. Tom's knowledge on the subject is immense and he has appeared on UK tv in
Battlefield Detectives.
Ended the day in Lancaster by going to the Dutch Apple Diner Theater and watching a touring company perform Legally Blonde. This is a flat level theatre auditorium filled with dining tables with a buffet style service and drinks brought by waiters whilst you watch the show. A bit like a UK cabaret club, but bigger, and maybe something that could work in the UK.
Sunday 24 June 2012
Looked at a couple supermarkets in Harrisburg. "Wegmans" is a high end Waitrose type supermarket. When you first walk in the store you walk into a blaze of colour from low level fruit and vegetable displays laid out on rustic looking wooden crates. Distinct lack of bright lighting and high shelving. Staff are well treated, had knowledge of what they were selling having had long term hands on training.

Yellow footprints on the floor lead to $6 meal bargains and many food products had price freeze promises right up until August 10th. Ground beef sold as 80, 90 and 95% lean. Steaks and roast joints sold with no attached fat, but do have marbling. "Irradiated" beef is also sold as a safer option to combat ecoli risks, and some packs suggest meat should be cooked at certain temperatures for a certain length of time, also to combat e coli. Meat is not sold in a bright red colour and is not in trays but in shrink wrapped packs.
"Kards" supermarket is less aesthetically pleasing but does have a good reputation for its meat, which is completely cut and prepared in store.
Drove to Washington DC and took in a whistle stop car tour of the sights; Capitol Hill, the White
House, the Washington Monument. On the way stopped at a sports bar in Fredericksburg and watched England lose again on penalties.
Had a late supper in the Silver Diner in Washington DC. Promoted itself as "fresh, local and healthier" and worked with 15 local farmer suppliers. Menu included "nitrate free bacon", "antibiotic and hormone free beef", "certified Angus beef", "reduced sodium teriyaki". Flat iron steak we eat had a layer of silver skin running through it, so wasn't a good eating experience. Ribeye steak Philly sandwich was not ribeye but more like poor quality kebab meat strips. Diner was great though; jukeboxes, bar stools at the counter and cubicles with neon lighting and chrome walls. The Chunky
Monkey milkshake was good too!
Staying in the Highlander Motel in Washington DC tonight.
Monday 25 June 2012
Met with Bill Roenigk, Vice President of the National Chicken Council in Washington DC .
Chicken price reporting is voluntary as contracts predominate with a minimum set price and bonuses for low level condemnations. GIPSA (Grain Inspection and Packers and Stockyards Agency) arbitrate disputes.
Bill rated the USDA (United States Department of Agriculture) Research Service for its short term commodity outlook and long term pricing projections over 10 years. The annual Outlook conference was also worthwhile.
A new Farm Bill is legislated every five years. 80% of its budget goes to 40 million people below the
$20k poverty line in the form of food stamps using an electronic card "Snap" program. This is paid on the first of each month. Recipients spend 97% of it in the first three days. Retailers know this and target their promotions accordingly.
Brazil is well placed to supply the extra pork and chicken demand in China. However, Brazil's currency is strengthening, it's labour costs are rising and it's domestic consumption demand is rising.
The US exports 20% of its chicken, equating to 62million lbs. There is a huge demand for chicken feet in China. However, China wants to export chicken to the US and is pushing hard on this issue.
The chicken lobby is working closer now with the red meat lobby over shared issues such as the use of grain for ethanol and animal welfare. This cooperation could increase if meat packers become more multi species orientated.
US consumers eat 87lbs of chicken and 60lbs of beef per capita. This is the lowest beef consumption since the 1930s.
Next came a meeting with the AMI (American Meat Institute), a meat packers lobby organisation

with Jim Hodges (Executive Vice President), Dale Nellor (Senior Vice President Legislative
Affairs), Bill Westman (Vice President International Trade) and Mark Dopp (Senior Vice
President Regulatory Affairs and General Counsel).
90% of beef is not irradiated. Consumer resistance to the idea and the terminology. Pasteurisation would be a better term. AMI consider it a costly and unnecessary process.
Contracts between fatteners and meat packers are widespread. Most small fatteners and cow/calf producers are opposed to contracts and favour live auctions and spot trading. Ownership of fattening cattle is split between cow/calf producers, backgrounders, feedlot owners, meat packers (5%) and outside investors. Higher value branded products more likely to gain meat packer ownership with a
"captive supply". Delivery time is almost more important than carcase confirmation.
Certified Angus brand is 30 years old and accepts any black cattle as there is no compulsory individual tagging of cattle or traceable passport system.
High grain prices are driving efficiency.
AMI don't consider tenderness and eating quality as important enough to require a change to the current system of grading on confirmation and fat level. VIA is widely used and accepted. Consider schemes like Certified Angus as adequate to deliver tenderness and eating quality.
Recent trade agreement with the EU allows 48,000 tons of US and 32,000 tons of Canadian hormone free "high quality beef" into the EU in exchange for putting the EU on the same BSE footing as North
America. The EU is a high value export market but has traceability and certification demands. The US uses cold storage facilities in Germany. The EU agreed to hot "carcass washing" with lactic acid prior to entering the chiller to act as an anti microbial. The EU is also now able to export veal into the US.
30% of pork and 13% of beef is exported from the US. When exporting, it is better to deal with government attaches than trade bodies.
Urbanised consumers and politicians are increasingly disconnected from food production, so increasingly unsympathetic with production difficulties and what it takes to produce food at a price.
"Pink slime" turned into a huge issue. Animal welfare and food safety will keep moving up the agenda.
Issues include antibiotic use, anti microbial resistance and animal welfare. Pathogenic ecoli and salmonella testing and ESTEC 6 testing is costly for meat packers and they favour using the ecoli test as a surrogate indicator for problems with other ecoli strains. AMI also argue nitrates are not a problem, but actually can be used as a therapeutic tool!
AMI see an increase in trade barriers coming as China becomes a battleground for exports.
Ractopamine will become an issue.
Next met with Laurie Bryant and Phil Kimball, Executive Directors from NAMA (North American
Meat Association) . Possible imports from the UK into North America include veal, pork spare ribs and racks of lamb. Currently there are only 3000 calves killed a day for veal in the US with a population 300 million.
Public Health Information System implemented in May 2012.
Inspections on imports for ecoli is now much more intensive and time consuming. The availability of imported product is now much lower too, with the exception of Australia. Trade quotas are restrictive for some, with a 26.4% duty of deliveries above quota allocation. Countries like Uruguay also can't

negotiate outside their Mercosur trade block. NAMA arguing for some reallocation of quota volumes.
Country of Origin Labelling (COOL) - retailers and meat packers against this as they argue it adds cost and bureaucracy. However, producers in the northern US states are for it to help prevent
Canadian imports coming down over the border. But US and Canadian markets are merging; Canada
Beef are one of NAMAs biggest members.
NAMA argue ecoli could be contained through vaccination at farm level; The Whole Melon Theory - easier to treat a whole melon than when it's in slices!
Next had meeting at the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) with Craig Morris,
Deputy Administrator . Part of Craig's remit is the public procurement of food for schools. This totals
$1.8 billion and feeds 31 million children per day. The State buys meat in bulk commodity form, which is then passed on to the local authorities to turn into meal options.
USDA facilitates the publishing of beef prices, covering around 70% of all transactions, with the smaller abattoirs making up the other 30%. These published prices are the actual prices paid to producers, not the "official" base price announced by the abattoir, so includes any bonuses larger producers can negotiate above the base price.
Following the recent trade deal between the US and EU, veal from Holland and France will be in demand but will have to be marketed well.
Currently, carcases and portion sizes are too big in the US. It seems to me strange then that growth hormones are used. Craig argued that growth hormones provide a good return on capital, do work and are efficient. Meat packers would not be concerned if growth hormones stopped being used.
Producers are apparently the ones who want them due to their effectiveness. The payment grid is geared towards size and quantity rather than eating quality. The percentage of the carcass going to ground beef is also increasing, despite the innovations in extracting more whole cuts from the forequarter, like the flat iron steak. Craig thinks there will be less beef options in the future, and more ground beef with a few steak cuts. Processed foods will also turn away from beef to cheaper animal proteins eg chicken sausages.
There is no individual animal ID system in the US, and no desire or move towards one. The UK system was prompted by a big disaster (BSE), and it will probably take the same in the US. There seems to me to be a gathering storm of food safety issues in the US (ecoli, growth hormones, traceability) but all involved seemed to be ignoring the warning signs. The pork and chicken sectors are ahead in this respect as they are export and consumer focused and mainly very business minded.
The beef sector is more animal and farmer focused and less aware that ultimately they are producing for a consumer. There are 800,000 cow/calf producers with an average herd size of 42; this is where most of the traditional thinking lies.
In general, the USDA appears to carry a light touch on farm inspections and tries to encourage areas of niche eg organic, farmers markets.
Flew out at night to Denver via Chicago.
Tuesday 26 June 2012
Denver, Colorado
Wildfires raging in Colorado Springs and less so now at Fort Collins. Record temperatures of 105 degrees F and dry lightning.

Met with Cattlemens Beef Board (CBB) , who oversee the Beef Checkoff Scheme and are the official link to the USDA. This scheme promotes and markets beef generically and is funded by a $1 levy per animal transaction (not point of slaughter) which usually gathers around $2.50 per animal lifetime.
Importers of beef also contribute levies and have places on the board alongside producers and meat packers.
96% of beef in display cabinets is of US origin. Canada and Mexico are against COOL, although it appears US consumers don't see COOL as a big issue.
Check out new beef option ideas on www.bovine.uni.edu
Convenience orientated new ideas include beef bites and healthy options.
Veal demand is very regional.
As there is no compulsory ID on cattle, age is judged by dentition. Retinal scanning have also been looked at as a possible ID solution, but unlikely to be implemented due to cost. Exporters do individually ID stock for the export market.
Offal - "the tongue to the bung"!
Met over lunch with National Cattlemens Beef Association's (NCBA) Ryan Ruppert (Senior
Director BQA) and John Patterson (Executive Director Producer Education).
Quote of the day from Ryan: "the French are just bad hunters...that's why they eat snails".
Beef feed yards and cow/calf herds will just keep getting bigger. Beef futures wouldn't work in the UK as beef volume is too small to have enough liquidity.
COOL doesn't make any difference to the actual product and consumers don't care about it.
Gourmet hamburgers a growing trend eg in Red Robin outlets at $9 per lb and 90% lean. Lean beef competing against 99% lean turkey.
National Beef Quality Audit checks on beef quality. Use of electronic tagging and age sourcing up from 3% to 20% of the kill (around 4.5million cattle).
Salmonella more important than ecoli. Gene marking of super shedders of disease could be possible.
Market will dictate use of growth hormones.
Next met with Cattlefax analysts Warren Prosser and Brett Stuart . This is a non profit trade organisation focussing on analysing any data connected to beef. They also carry out market and custom forecasting and offer one hour webinars to chief producers to help their businesses. There are
5000 members, most of which are cow/calf units, but most work focuses on the feed yards.
Global futures market in 90% lean beef in Australia, Brazil and US could possibly work. This is main hamburger and ground beef product.
Beef consumption down from 65 lb per capita in 1990-2010 to 54 lb in 2010-2012. US beef herd also shrinking but currency exchange has stopped imports filling the gap.
Next met with NCBA Director of Market Intelligence and Veal Marketing, Trevor Amen . He is a
Beef Checkoff contractor tasked with promoting and marketing beef in the retail and food service sector. One point of interest was a partnership with the American Heart Association to promote sales

of lean beef. Also promotion of sub primals for consumers to take home and carve up themselves
(Slice n Save). On pack recipe labels that peel back are a good idea also.
Next met the NCBA meat science department. Bridget Wasser (Senior Director Meat Science
Technology) focuses on product enhancement to improve quality through research. This has included mapping the carcase for tenderness and muscle profiling. Certain "guaranteed tender" beef lines now in stores, even at " select" level eg "Rancher Select" in Safeway via Cargill. Samples are taken from a batch and tender stretch tested. Grocery stores up scaling on quality with more branded product lines. Fast convenient steaks are increasing in popularity.
Irradiated beef is only 0.2% of sales and has to be labelled as such. Found in Wegmans and Swanns.
The technology works but is expensive.
Feed and water additive has been developed to improve meat safety by cleaning the GI tract and specifically targeting bacteria like ecoli and salmonella, but needs regulatory approval. Orange peel has shown to be anti-microbial. There are also vaccines that target pathogens (more info on website).
Checkoff program validates concepts, and then leaves it to private companies to move concepts through licensing, which can take ten years.
Next spoke to Mandy Carr, Executive Director REI Research , about food safety. The Safety
Summit is a conduit where the safety issues of the day are debated.
5% lactic acid solutions are approved for use at various stages along the slaughter line (more on this in JBS notes). Versatile and simple to apply but water hardness, water temperature and changes in the water temperature, placement of nozzles for coverage and ambient temperature are all important factors. Some also work better depending on the season. Faeces on hide also important.
Next spoke to Jessica Igo, Director Meat Science Technology , about the nutritional aspects of beef. Beef increasingly promoted as a healthy option, and offered in stores in increasingly lean forms eg 90% lean. Good source of iron and zinc and good for bone health, with research to back it up.
Food guidelines undervalue need for protein in diets. Using both reactive and proactive messages. www.beefresearch.org
for colon cancer research on processed meats.
Next spoke to Michelle Murray, Executive Director Food and Nutrition Communication , about consumer marketing. Using online and other media. Advertising budget is $9.5m for magazines, digital and radio to promote 29 different cuts of lean beef. Use colour and mainly 3oz portions together with healthy fruit, veg and whole grains on the same plate. Emphasis on names of cuts so consumers know what to ask for when in store. Provide information on nutritional value of beef and as a food that's good for you. The Food Network tv channel uses celebrity chefs. Food Trends is an info and promotional magazine.
A focus on "millenials" - those born between 1980 and 2000 aged between 12 and 32. These have overtaken the Baby Boomers in importance as this generation has grown up with chicken as a favoured option over beef. Created a cookbook, "Confident Cooking with Beef" in association with a chef.
BOLD - Beef in Optimum Lean Diet, is a research project looking at how people with high cholesterol can use lean beef by trimming off the fat, but leaving marbling as desirable.
Lack of resources for school age targeting. I (heart) Beef campaign on Valentines Day.

I wonder if the next stage is research on the nutritional value of a chicken meal (which is always covered in lots of other gunk which is not healthy), against a beef meal (which is more tasty than chicken so can be eaten on its own with a salad).
Next talked to Barb Wilkinson , who is in charge of governance, people and leadership. A leadership development program has been initiated in 2011.
Wednesday 27 June 2012
USMEF, Denver
Meetings at the world HQ in Denver of the United States Meat Export Federation (USMEF). Met John
Hinners, Assistant Vice President of Industry Relations , who gave run down of its structure.
USMEF is a vertically integrated trade association. Mission is to increase value and profitability and enhance demand with a presence in 100 countries (John Brookbank in Brussels). Non profit making since its inception in 1976. Half of funding comes from the government, the other half from around
200 members, who include packers, producers, grain producers, soy bean producers.
Market development in 80 countries which focuses on marketing, trade servicing and market access.
Carcase utilisation - maximise cuts, offal sales and chef competitions.
Trade Support - trade shows.
Education and Buyer Loyalty - prime, choice, select.
Retail Promotions - worldwide.
Product Image and Market Access - send out positive messages.
For every $1bn of beef sold, 12,700 jobs are created.
Five year plan to double beef exports. Factors driving growth - rising income, growing middle class, changes in diet, declining self sufficiency In leading import markets, increasing market access,
USMEF initiatives.
Mexico - round, chucks, clods, offal.
Egypt - livers.
Russia - liver, heart, kidney.
China - short plate and rib, tripe, intestine.
Japan, S Korea - thin sliced beef, skirt, fingers, short plate, chuck, round, offal.
Promoting iPhone recipe apps.
Hilton Hotels in UK - specialty Creekstone burgers.
Zandbergen - largest importer of US meat in Holland.
"Grain fed" is an important selling point.
Next met Greg Hanes, Assistant Vice President, International Marketing and Programs, and
Dan Halestrom, Senior Vice President Marketing and Communications . US cattle numbers down.
Biggest export growth in China. Trade deal allows 20,000 tons (and up to 48,000) of hormone free US beef into EU at 0% duty. Trade back the other way includes possible veal exports from the EU to the
UK, but not yet confirmed and demand very regional in the east coast.
Costco, US owned wholesaler, has presence in UK. In UK, Cheaper cuts of US exported pork in current economic climate sell over and above more expensive
Welfare UK pork.
Choice is $20 per hundredweight more than select in bulk purchases. Walmart up scaling gradually.
Ecoli - ground beef is the big risk due to volume and mixing of batches, with huge recall cost implications.

Most US beef exporters are small, niche operators, except for one big meat packer who is the exception.
Australia - due to price of grain, feedlots are in decline with biggest only at 30% capacity.
Japan big growth area for US exporters, with age limit now lifted form 20 to 30 months (BSE), and hope to displace Australia in this market. Australia has however taken up the slack left by the pink slime debacle (Lean Finely Textured Beef LFTB), providing lean product to mix with fat. Hamburgers are mostly 80% lean.
Beef in the US is still some of the cheapest beef in the world due to the high price countries like Japan are prepared to pay. The US also has the huge advantage over other exporters in having its own massive domestic market to fall back on, so can sell specific cuts in boxes rather than whole sides.
Next toured round retail outlets with Michael Igoe , an expat Irishman who edits USMEF Internet material (see photos). Said to watch the AMIs Janet Riley on the Steven Colbert Rapport tv show on
YouTube.
Wholefoods stores are extremely well presented with aesthetically pleasing tasteful lighting and fruit and vegetables presented on wooden crates in a blaze of colour as consumers enter the store. Meat is sold with a colour coded “5-step animal welfare rating program”:
GREEN 5+: Animal centred, entire life on same farm
GREEN 5: Animal centred, no physical alterations
GREEN 4: Pasture centred
YELLOW 3: Enhanced outdoor access
AMBER 2: Enriched environment
AMBER 1: No cages, no crates, no crowding
RED Not step rated: does not meet requirements
Tony's Deli - upmarket local store
Wholefoods - upmarket supermarket (Waitrose)
Safeway - midway supermarket (Sainsbury)
Kings Sooper - lower end supermarket (Tesco)
Walmart - big shed with cheap food (no equivalent)
The Walmart store in the photo above, only had the mobile meat counter in this store every third
Saturday. The same went for all the Walmart stores. This was the only fresh meat on offer in the entire store!
Thursday 28 June 2012
JBS meat plant, Greeley, Colorado
Built in 1962, this huge meat plant employs 3300 employees, slaughtering 5400 per day (1.8 million kg) over two shifts at 6am and 3.15pm. The lairage can hold 1,800 cattle. Cattle are drawn from all over the US. The line speed is 375 head per hour. Average liveweight of cattle is 580kg. Four FSIS vets on site, and 23 FSIS inspectors. 36,000 boxes of beef produced every day.
VIA cameras record fat and confirmation levels. A marbling camera measures the rib-eye size and marbling where the carcass is cut half way down. The carcass is weighed as it exits the chiller after a
36-48 hour period, and goes onto the cutting floor.
Cattle are bought either on farm as a truck weight, or as hot deadweight in the meat plant. This is audited by a producer organisation called Packers and Stockyards (P&S), who also check the trim if a problem arises. Truck load batches of cattle stay together, with carcass sort into Choice or Select

occurring as they enter the chiller. Daily price changes are based on the USDA graded weighted average as shown on the USDA website.
As cattle unload into the lairage, microphage sprays containing bacteria seeking bugs are sprayed on the coats of the cattle in the unloading shuts. These bugs stick to the cell wall of bacteria and kill them, but are only used seasonally when hides are dirty in winter.
When hides are dirty, the hair is clipped post stunning along the incision line along the belly. “Pattern areas” where the knife cuts, are all sparyed with beef exide, which is a 65% lactic acid, 35% citric acid mix. Steam vacuum cleaners also suck down through the pattern lines. Once the hooves are cut off, hock suckers give the stumps a hot vacuum wash at plus 180 degrees F. Waste water is treated and discharged into rivers. A pre-efficeration (pre-gutting) cabinet also gives the carcass, and the head and tongue, another 180 degrees F hot wash. The gut contents are then processed, followed by the carcass split. Offal is sent straight off the slaughter floor for processing down chutes treated with exide spray. A final inspection is given to the carcass before the carcass travels through a full pasteurisation cabinet at 180 degrees F for ten seconds to kill ecoli bacteria. Electrical stimulation is then discharged to the carcass to aid tenderness, before another beef exide wash as the carcass leaves the slaughter floor. The line travel time to the chiller from this point is 15-18 minutes so two more spray cabinet washes are given as every 20 minutes one log growth of bacteria can develop.
After 36-48 hours in the chiller, the carcass is graded, then sent to the cutting floor for boning. Primals and subprimals are treated with “inspexx” organic acid spray before being boxed and distributed.
Preground beef trimmings are core tested for ecoli 0157:H7 and also for the other “Big 6” ecoli strains. At JBS, there have been only two recalls in 30 years. Pallets carry one large box of mixed batch beef trimmings. The distribution area was highly mechanised with an impressive conveyor and stacking system before pallets left for truck loading.
A highly impressive plant, but characterised by heat and moisture, in comparison to the dry, cold meat plants in the UK.
Formed in Brazil by Jose Batista Sobrinho, JBS is now the world’s largest multi-protein company with
124,361 employees worldwide, operating in 23 countries.Overall production is:
89,790 head of beef per day
48,500 head of pork per day
7.2 million poultry birds per day
148,500 metre squared of leather per day
1,266 tons of dairy per day
JBS Kuner Feedlot, Greeley, Colorado
This 98,000 head capacity feedlot on a 550 acre site underwent a million dollar overhaul in 2010 that has seen the implementation of a waste water processing lake, resurfacing and sloping of dirt yards to improve drainage and a upgrading of the steam flaking feed mill. JBS own the feedlot, whilst the
Batista family own the cattle.
The feedmill processes 2.8 million lbs of food per day, including 30,000 bushels of grain maize per day. Cattle on arrival start on hay, with the full ration introduced gradually. The full ration consists of steam flaked grain maize, dried ethanol distiller grain (from Nebraska), forage maize (from 4200 acres in a 20 mile radius), tallow, corn oil, finisher meal and rumensin. Tylan antibiotic is administered for the liver and kidneys. MGA is administered to stop heifers cycling. Zilmax beta agonist is administered as a growth promoter. The feedlot has 460 acres of its own farmland to grow feed. Five 28,000 lb feed

trucks distribute the feed into concrete feed troughs. Two 60,000 ton pits store the maize, with another 110,000 tons purchased in. JBS have two Ph.D nutritionists on a staff of 750 across their eleven feedyards.
The Continued Animal Feeding Operation (CAFO) utilises the cleaned water for drinking, dust control and for use in steam flaking the grain maize. Computer controlled water sprinklers help manage dust control. Surface water rights mean for every one gallon used, the feedlot has to account for the waste water. A catchment lake has a 300% storm water runoff capacity. In 2011, 40 million litres of runoff water were reused. In Colorado, water rights are becoming harder to come by, although it does have a good ground water system. Temperatures reach 110 degrees F in summer, and sink to minus 20 degrees F in winter. USDA take lab samples from the fodder crops to measure nitrate levels after irrigating run-off water onto crop land. 400 water tanks are used in an overflow system that prevents freezing in winter. Two sand filters and a UV light chamber kill pathogens.
Nine pen riders (six Mexicans, three US) use 30 horses to check the pens of 350 cattle per dirt yard and pull out any ill cattle to move to the hospital area. The mortality rate is 0.27%, which equates to six deaths per day. Pens are scraped clean between batches.
30% of the cattle at the Kuner feedlot are dedicated to a “natural” program under the brand “Aspen
Ridge”. These cattle have to be 50% red or black Angus, with no dairy or Braham influence. Trace audits are implemented back through to backgrounders and cow/calf producers. Kuner is the only
JBS feedlot producing for Aspen Ridge, out of a total of eleven feedlots across six US states which range from 52,000 to 120,000 head in size.
Temple Grandin designed the layout of the processing barn. On arrival, cattle are weight sorted. A
“Temple Tagger” gives each animal its own lot number with the date of arrival, the buyer, the city/state source code and contract type (spot/contract). 1800 cattle can be processed per day. On leaving the processing barn, cattle are drafted into one of seven chutes and put on hay and water. 8000 arrive each week at 300-350kg, and 8000 are slaughtered each week at 650kg after 150 days of feeding.
Custom fed cattle are charged 30 cents per head per day.
There are many 10,000, 20,000 and 40,000 head cattle feedlots across the central US states.
Some JBS facts and figures:
One farmer in the US feeds 129 people; in 1960 it was 25 people
The carbon footprint of a pound of beef was 18% less in 2007 than 1997
A ton of manure contains more energy than a barrel of oil
A feedyard produces about one ton of manure per head of capacity
A feedyard steer drinks about 10 gallons of water and eats 30 pounds of feed per day
Friday 29 June 2012
Colorado State University, Fort Collins (see www.beefresearch.org
)
Met with Dr Dale Woerner and discussed meat safety and quality issues. Meat flavour is the top issues in research currently and meat safety has been a USDA priority since the Jack In The Box disaster in 1993 when a child died from ecoli.
Meat flavour has centred on grain feeding. Carcasses have been getting bigger due to better genetics and nutrition and the use of growth hormones. No signs of any human ill effects from the use of

hormones, although the biggest criticism has been that females enter into puberty quicker. Hormones work best when animals have reached 80% of their mature weight. Hormones increase weight and give a good return on capital on that criteria, but reduce tenderness by 0.5kg of shear force and reduce marbling by 30-50 marbling units (which Dr Woerner didn't think was a problem!). (see marbling scale). Certain hormone brands more aggressive than others, and feedlots still governed by weight.
Growth hormones (oestrogen) have a range of multiple effects on the "switches" that effect animal growth that “cloud the system”, whereas beta agonists “directly target precise switches”, are fed in feed and give a androgenic response (male characteristics). Beta agonists are a chemical compound that increase feed efficiency and give a weight gain in lean meat. Ractopamine is a type 1, hydrochloride, zilpaterol is a type 2 and is more aggressive. Beta agonists used in around 60% of cattle and have been approved for around 11 years. Growth hormones used in around 90% of cattle and been approved for around 30 years. Approval by Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
Consumers don't associate hormone use with loss of tenderness, but do align it with health and well being issues.
70% say they want natural beef, but only 3% buy it. Natural can give “fishy, gamey or grassy taste”.
Meat categorised into Prime, Choice and Select. Supermarkets sell Select and low end Choice. Food service sell Choice and Prime. Marbling categories - Select and low Choice (slight/small), Choice
(modest/moderate), Prime (slightly & moderately abundant). Rancher Reserve is a Safeway brand processed through JBS and Cargill plants for the last ten years and guarantee tenderness. CSU doing tenderness work for Safeway and Safeway also do their own testing in meat plants at a cost of $10 per steak. Certain cuts tenderise more effectively with age. The tender stretch machine was developed by E and V Technologies in Germany. 160 days is ideal length of time in a feedlot for tenderness and efficiency.
Irradiated beef is only 0.2% of sales. It is effective in reducing pathogens, but once the meat is sterile and outside of a pack it can be vulnerable to bacteria. Irradiation is most suited to ready meals.
Cooking instructions on packs are mandatory.
There is more consumer resistance than scientific resistance to the use of lactic acids, with the build up of bacterial resistance cited as the biggest criticism. The ESTEC testing of the Big 6 ecoli strains is now mandatory. Salmonella is more potent than ecoli, but less of a problem in beef.
There is an increasing leanness of carcasses, with the use of more continental breeds and the cutting off of more fat. Nutritional work is being done by CSU on individual steaks.
Individual cattle ID will probably become mandatory after a big disaster. RCalf are an extreme group
(see website) who are against this.
Land Grant Universities established in 1862 by Abraham Lincoln in every state for agricultural development to use "science to feed a growing population". Sound familiar? CSU has 30,000 students with 1500 in agriculture.
Met with Dr Terry Engel who specialises in nutrition of the rumen. Sulphates in the drinking water in feedlots can cause polio and brain damage in the cattle. Distillers grains can have large variations in the amount of sulphates they contain. Omega 3 feed inputs can also provide a fishy taste to the meat.
Grass fed cattle are high in poly unsaturated fats.
Met with Dr John Sofas who specialises in food micro biology. Following the 1992 0157 ecoli outbreak in Jack In The Box, the HACCP system brought in regulatory changes, including a recall

system, as the testing system then didn't work. Some grinders dropped out at this point. McDonalds, for instance, will dictate some of the HACCP requirements. There has been agreement between companies not to make food safety a competitive issue.
Discussed the JBS Greeley plant, and he thought this was old, badly designed, had high numbers and too fast a slaughter line speed. Needs modernising by separating the clean and dirty areas and slowing down the slaughter line speed. In Australia, there are slower slaughter line speeds, overnight lairaging where detergent mists can work overnight to clean he cattle. Overall, speed is the most important.
Swab testing one in 300 carcases is mandatory. Both JBS and USDA are swabbing, with USDA also looking for salmonella. HACCP demands zero tolerance on visible faeces.
Dr Sofas considers lactic acid effective and safe. UK FSA would encourage use of lactic acid.
If more than 5% of McDonalds consumers don't want something, they won't do it eg irradiated beef. If fat content in irradiated beef is more than 10%, an unpleasant odour is given off. Could be a case for it for the young and cancer sufferers. But, if meat is cooked properly it's fine anyway.
Most people with issues over animal welfare and the environment are vegetarians anyway. Boils
down to what consumers attitude to risk is.
Saturday 30 June 2012
Temple Grandin
Instead of using growth hormones, why not use the genetics of "God's hormones" by leaving bulls entire and gaining double muscle. Tenderness will decrease however, but it also decreases with growth promoters.
Climate important for food safety issues. The hot climate in the US on top of the 180 degree F hot washes make the slaughterhouse hot. In the UK, the cooler outside temperature helps keep the internal slaughterhouse cooler too.
CANADA
Sunday 1 July 2012
Neil and Barbara Dennis, Sunnybrae, Saskatchewan
"Our land is so flat, when my dog runs away, I can still see him for three days”.
800 custom fed beef cattle mob grazed in 4 acre blocks and moved 4 times a day. Custom feeding is on a live weight gain basis. The farm carries 65,900kg of beef per acre. This grazing method takes off
20% of the sward the first time around. The paddock is then rested for 50 days. The second graze in the paddock takes off 60% of the sward, and again the paddock is rested for 50 days. This recovery time is crucial. Alfalfa makes up around 30-50% of the sward.
The initial height of the sward is around two feet. Neil argues this captures more sunlight and "solar power" in the summer, and makes more sugar available in the plant for the cattle. A Brics test is used regularly to measure sugar content. In the winter, the extra height of the sward is important for capturing moisture from snowfall. This is a low moisture and rainfall area. Round bale hay consisting of mature grasses with seed heads, are rolled out in the winter for feeding. The seeds deposited will add to the seedbank in the soil. Indeed, Neil refuses to spend money on reseeding, instead relying on the natural seedbank that exists in the soil. He says plants now appear that haven't been seen in

fields for a generation, and all without buying expensive seed. That said, he does at times direct drill some alfalfa into the existing swards.
A certain amount of the sward is trampled flat to the ground and this is desirable to help add matter to the soil. Weeds are a symptom of a problem, not a problem in its own right, and weeds can be hammered with high density stock grazing. Compaction is the time spent in an area, not the stocking density. Grazing too tight stops root growth. However, a "deep massage" from a tight graze in the spring can help stimulate the plants.
The paddocks are electric fenced with metal wire linked to the power lines. The farm vehicles have been adapted so the person moving the fences can drive straight over the fences and also carry all the equipment with them. Solar gates can be programmed up to two weeks ahead, to become released to allow cattle through to the next paddock. A donkey is also used somewhat comically to toll cattle through to the next paddock. Once the donkey starts heading somewhere, all the cattle follow!
A network of underground water pipes have been dug in so that a movable water trough can be connected to the system in any paddock. A flat bed truck is permanently attached to a large water trough and has been adapted to hydraulically lift up the trough to move it between paddocks.
Temperatures can reach minus 40 degrees C in winter, so pipes are trenched eight feet deep and a well has been dug that contains a warm vacuum that prevents the whole pipe network from freezing.
The height of the sward, Neil argues, also allows the grasses and legumes to out compete weeds.
The trampling of the weeds by the cattle also stresses them to the point of extinction. It is also possible to train cattle to eat weeds, like thistles, by introducing thistles as a feed option in a controlled feeding situation, and then turning cattle onto thistle pastures where they will proceed to graze them out of the sward.
Through Brics testing, Neil has found, subject to seasonal change, the plants with the highest sugar content are, in descending order; yellow clover, grass, alfalfa, sangfroin. Furthermore, sugars are lower in shorter, younger grasses.
Neil also runs around 150 suckler cows which will winter outside. The custom fed stores are only around for the summer. Oil wellheads are common in this area.
Tuesday 3 July 2012
Lon and Kathy Slade, Northfork Ranch, Lestock, Saskatchewan
This grazing ranch had recently sold 22 sections of land to "Ducks Unlimited", an environmental and wildlife conservation organisation. The ranch still kept 35 sections, and leased back the sold land for grazing under certain prescriptive conservation measures.
A section is 672 acres. These are divided into quarter sections of 168 acres each. Canada has been grid mapped, with north/south "range roads" two miles long and east/west "highway roads" a mile long.
The Slades run a suckler herd of around 300 cows. Horses are heavily used for cattle work. In the winter, the Slades go to Arizona with the horses. Lon flies back every two weeks to check the cows.
The cattle are high density grazed in one mob, moving every ten days, with paddocks rested for around three weeks. Alfalfa makes up around 30% of the grass sward.
180 yearling Angus heifers are also custom grazed over the summer at $18 per head per month on quarter section paddocks. Eight Angus bulls, who are 18 months old, run with the heifers.
The Slades were instrumental in helping to set up the "Prairie Heritage" brand which exports born, bred and raised Canadian beef to the EU under the guiding hand of Christophe Weader, from
Switzerland. This is a "Natural" beef brand with no animal by-products, no growth hormones, no rumensin and no steroids (sulphur is ok). It is not organic however, as ivomec wormer is used.
Difficulties with the scheme included the logistics of some producers being geographically a long

distance from the abattoir. A large area is needed to obtain enough cattle for the scheme under the prescriptions required. Also the pay day for suckler producers was a long time coming. Ultimately, the
Slades pulled out of the scheme due to their distance from the meat plant and the extra cost this put on production. The big abattoirs, like Cargill, find the Natural market too small and costly to become involved with.
Kathy told me an interesting anecdote about Spitz Sunflower Seeds. This food supplier had many multiple approaches to retailers to gain shelf space for their product, and had been rebuffed repeatedly. So Spitz organised a group of children to target 7Eleven stores. The children went into every single store in a state region who went up to the till and said, "Have you not got any Spitz
Sunflower Seeds? I can't believe you don't stock any! It's OK. We'll get them somewhere else." After about a week of going into every 7Eleven store, Spitz were approached by a buyer from 7Eleven who was desperate to get their product, and Spitz were able to get the product into store on their own terms in a prominent shelf position.
Two cowboys from Oaklohoma were also staying at the ranch and we talked about real time online cattle auctions. In the US, around 80% of cattle are sold this way. Superior Livestock Auctions in
Texas sell 130,000 cattle in once a month sales each month. Video footage of the cattle is filmed prior to the sale. Each bid sets off a 15 second timer. If no one else bids during the fifteen seconds, the cattle get sold, subject to the reserve being met. The buyer collects and the date of collection is advertised at the time of bidding. This date can be up to three months in the future. Cattle are weighed the day before the sale and “pre-sorted” into batches. A 3.5% shrinkage is taken off these weights for gut fill etc. Sales are by region, and mostly in Fort Worth, Dallas, Texas. Rural Farm
Development (RFD) TV also run sales.
Wednesday 4 July, 2012
Laura Laing, Diamond 7 Ranch, Cochrane, Alberta
10,000 acre grassland ranch with 350 Angus cows running with 9 Angus bulls at the foot of the Rocky
Mountains. Much of the land is covered in trees, and wildlife includes bears, wolves and coyote.
Angus heifers from Graeme Finn running with Texas Longhorn bulls. The grass is rotationally grazed with the cows and heifers moving around once a week. The ranch employs around five cowboys who operate on horseback. The owner of the ranch doesn't get involved in the day to day running of the ranch, and has other business interests.
The ranch sells around 12 finished cattle a year to the Hyatt Hotel restaurant in Calgary, which is a high end hotel with links to the ranch owner’s other businesses. The chefs get involved in the marketing together with the ranch. See www.raisedright.ca
for cattle protocol. Hormone free. Diamond
7 has an impressive website, but is the actual ranch is far from being run commercially due to an owner who makes his money elsewhere.
Thursday 5 July 2012
Ian and Carman Murray, Shoestring Ranch, Acme, Alberta
This ranch started retailing its own beef in 2001 direct from farm and at farmers markets. In 2006 a refrigerated trailer was purchased from which frozen cuts for the week could be sold to consumers. A meat plant in Balzac is used. Around 30 cattle per year are sold, or between one and two a fortnight.
Nothing older than nine months is sold from the store. Now, the farmers markets have been ceased and the Murrays only sell in halves or quarters, all wrapped in brown paper with deposits from the consumer paid in advance.
The Murrays also supply Prairie Heritage along with twenty other ranchers. Three feedlots custom finish the cattle (Linden and a Hutterite Colony are two of them) at 950 lbs and are on feed for 120 days. The Luccombe Premium Meats meat plant kill the cattle. All the Angus are sold as "Heritage

Angus Beef"' and are 51% verified Angus, cow or sire based, and include red Angus. An annual pool price is operated on a July 1st to June 30th time frame. There is a one off membership fee and all profits are distributed. There are no assets, no offices, and no tax is paid as it is a zero net company.
The Swiss founder member, Christophe Weader, manages all the sales and marketing for a check off payment of $40 per animal killed, consisting of $20 for his time and $20 for admin. www.heritageangus.ca
. Currently, the commercial hot weight is around $1.80 per lb. Prairie
Heritage is the only Canadian exporter to the EU currently, and use the distributor Towers Thompson.
Shipping containers supply the UK, Italy, Germany, Holland and Denmark. All exports are in primals.
Domestically in primals too to places like "Quality Foods" in Vancouver Island. Sales increase 140% when a rancher is present in store.
The Prairie Heritage website won best ag website award and designed by the same company that created the Diamond 7 website, AdFarm.
Check out Spring Creek Ranch as this is a large scale ranch and feedlot that supplies retail stores.
The Shoestring Ranch benchmark themselves against other producers in Alberta Agriculture and get their costings done by Agri Profits. On the 1600 of owned land, milk vetch and brome grass mixtures are grown. Milk vetch does not bloat like other legumes. Grazing is rotated around the paddocks with
120 cows on 20 acre paddocks for 5 days at a time with a recovery time of 60 days. Fifty heifers are kept and put to bull, with around ninety steers and ten heifers killed each year. Cattle are vaccinated for BVD, blackleg and other reproductive and respiratory diseases.
275 acres of wholecrop oat silage is conserved and some is kept for swath grazing in the winter. This is the practise of cutting in swaths in August and strip grazing the rows through the winter between
November and April. Winters are cold and dry with temperatures dropping to 40 degrees C at times.
250 acres of GM roundup ready canola are grown. These crops are sprayed twice and use feedlot manure.
Ian is currently President of the Foothills Forage and Grazing Association. This is an innovative group of farmers trying new grazing techniques and ideas to improve productivity and profitability.
Photo below, milk vetch.
Ed Miller, Highway 21 Feeders
This is a multi faceted family business consisting of a 35,000 head feedlot, 6000 suckler cows, 1000 breeding heifers, 400 bulls, other feeder cattle in five US states, a brokerage service to help manage risk on the Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT), 17,000 acres of crops (7000 acres of GM canola, wheat, barley, peas for human consumption), a fertiliser, fuel and chemical company and a house building company.
Half the cattle are custom fed and half are owned, with brokerage offered on the custom fed cattle.
Brokerage assesses inputs, currency and cattle factors on CBOT, which is open 22 hours a day, to mitigate risk and buy forward.
CBOT cattle contracts deal in lots of 40,000 lbs of liveweight cattle (around 30 cattle) which will yield at 63% (before trim) hotweight. So, a 1349 lb live animal at 63% comes back at 850 lb deadweight.
The BASIS is the amount of cost to subtract from the transaction, such as transport and meat plant charges. Transport and currency exchange, for instance, are important if selling south of the border in the US.
Hedging forward the beef price on CBOT gives a spread between a futures price and the price actually paid, and helps to mitigate risk against a fall in the beef price as well provide an opportunity to make a second amount of money on a single animal. Various rolling sell options can be used. In 12

months there are usually three main majors price shifts up and down. There are six main meat packers in the US and two in Canada, with weekly bidding occurring between 4pm Monday and 9am
Monday.
The yard at Highway 21 can hold 20,000 cattle that can be turned over one and a half times on 160 day feed regimes. 25,000 cattle are bought in per year. Bought in stores range between 200 and 1250 lbs in weight. Yearlings are fattened in 120 days. Suckler calves are fattened in 190 days. Most of the barley fed is bought in and most of the home grown crops are sold. The diet consists of tempered barley grain, wholecrop barley, a whiskey distillery protein by-product, and a canola/bean meal.
Beta agonists implants used make the meat leaner and give a 1.5-1.75% yield increase. Growth hormones are also widely used. Implants are not used in the last 21 days.
Only around 2400 cattle are in the feedlot in the summer. The main store buying period is August to
November with the yards full through to May. 80% of cattle are bought direct from ranches, much of which are done on forward agreements.
Feedlots in five US states offer ownership stakes to Highway 21 on their cattle of anything between
10% and 100%, depending on what futures hedging indicate the best way to go is. An annual deal is negotiated for around 75% of the equity required with the Farm Credit Corporation.
Highway 21 copied the NW Consolidated Beef Producers model by setting up a group of 160 primary producers in a membership club. They use an agent who calls the head seller in Strathmore to negotiate with meat packers on their behalf to get the best deals. This agent is an information professional who know how to deal with meat plants and knows the meat packer and retailer margins.
Between 2500 and 10,000 cattle are offered each week (out of a national weekly kill of 60,000).
Consolidation of cattle numbers is key, as well as knowing the margins of the retailer and meat packer as well as your own return on capital.
Friday 6 July 2012
Doug Wray, Irricana
This is a mainly Angus 300 cow/calf operation on 2000 acres (stocking density of 6 acres per cow).
The cows average between 6 and 13 years in age. Five bulls are used, plus some DIY AI. 50 heifers are kept for breeding with the steers and surplus heifers custom fed in a feedlot. Grazing is all year round on ten pastures of alfalfa and meadow brome (see photo above). Cattle are in two mobs of 220 and 75 cows and moved every three days. Calves are vaccinated for blackleg and respiratory diseases, plus fly control preventions.
Four twenty acre paddocks of an oat/barley mix is grown for winter grazing, and an oat/barley/peas mix is grown for swath grazing. A quarter section of winter triticale is grown to provide early grazing between April and July until grass starts growing (this is late due to long thaw in spring). 75 cows are grazed on 20 acre crested wheat/brome/50% alfalfa paddocks and moved every 10 days. On alfalfa planted 12 years ago, 225 cows are moved every 3 days, with a 45 day recovery period.
There are normally around seven weather stress days in winter. Last year there were 30 however, and this showed in loss of carcass yield.
An 80 year old 40 feet deep water well supplies the land with drinking water.
Fat cattle are killed between 16 and 17 months, entering the feedlot in August between 850-875 lbs and gaining between 2-2.25 lbs per day. Around a third of the cattle are owned in the feedlot. Those sold are valued on the three week Canfax average price. Finished cattle are sold on the grid to
Cargill, with premiums paid on better quality carcasses. “Certified Angus” ear tags can be purchased to verify authenticity. In December 2011, the price was $187.93 per 100 lbs hotweight (£3.30 per kg would equate to $225 per 100 lbs).

The farm uses Cow Calf Health Management Services (CCHMS), which is owned and run by vet Dr
Troy Drake. This is a proactive management program with a mainframe login containing data relating to carcass information, pregnancy testing, bull fertility testing, feed analysis, nutritional analysis, health planning, calving information etc. Costs are $20 per head per year.
The farm is also home to cold bed methane gas wells that frack down to 800 metres. There are eight of these per section, with the gas exported through 36 inch pipelines. There are also sour gas wells.
Surface rights for all these are around $70,000 per year. On one part of the farm, a 2500m deep natural gas well drilled in 1955 has poisoned the ground water, so hydrogen peroxide is currently being pumped down the well to mitigate the effects.
Check out the book “Grass Productivity” by Andre Voisin (1988/1959).
Saturday 7 July 2012
Graeme Finn, Crossfield
Graeme is another ex-pat Aussie and holds various industry positions including a director of the
Foothills Forage & Grazing Association, and barn manager at the Calgary Stampede. Graeme is the
North American manager for Agriplow cultivation and drill equipment, and runs 1000 yearling steers on grazing rentals and calves 300 cows on his own property. Rental agreements are done on a headage rather than acreage basis.
Innovative and progressive grazing and reseeding practices are used that utilise the Australian made
Agriplow drill design with spearhead drill tips which create their own mini seedbed just below the soil surface. This can be used to overseed existing pastures with legumes such as alfalfa, which is a practise Graeme has successfully done at low cost.
We also discussed how progressive lending facilities were available in Alberta, especially for young producers with little or no assets. These include the Cattle Price Insurance Program (CPIP), the
Agriculture Financial Services Company (AFSC) and DTN Progressive Farmer which involves share options.
Sunday 8 July 2012
Calgary Stampede
An amazing jamboree heralded as the “greatest outdoor show on earth” that celebrates the cowboy way of life. Events include the famous chuck wagon racing, rodeo, bull riding, steer wrestling, blacksmith competitions and entertainment. Also on site were lots of trade stands where I had many productive conversations with various beef industry organisations, including:

The Albertan government is very agriculturally focussed with good support and resource structures in place to boost production and trade of produce, including Alberta Beef and the
“Raised Right” website

Impressive “Cattle Trail” that “Tells the Story of Beef” at the Stampede

Hirsche Fraser Meats – butcher’s shop based in Okotoks selling hormone free “natural” beef, with own Hereford herd.

Canadian Cattle Identification Agency (CCIA). RFID is mandatory, multi species (cattle, sheep, bison, horses, llamas) and is backed by government funding. It has a “bookend” system of recording at birth and death, but not movement in between (feedlots with more than
1000 head do report movements). Provides age verification, which is important for exporting under BSE controls. However, there are RFID readability issues similar to the EID experience in the EU.


Livestock Gentec – scientific consortium based at University of Alberta that connects universities, research networks, government agencies, industry associations, and companies in the agri-food sector. Aims to enable producers to efficiently provide safe, nutritious, and affordable food. Focussing on meat quality, Feed Conversion (FC) & Residual Feed Intake
(RFI), animal health, and educating tomorrow ’s agricultural leaders. The Canadian Cattle
Genome Project ( www.canadacow.ca
) is sequencing and genotyping more than 10,000 bulls that define Canadian herds.

Spoke to members of Feedlot Health Management Systems. Dr Kee Jim influential figure in the Canadian beef industry, see profile below:
(Posted Feb. 1st, 2011 by Lee Hart)
“KEE JIM HASN’T ALWAYS BEEN the most popular person in the Canadian livestock industry, but he is well known and respected. He’s a relatively young big-picture thinker, and over his
27 years of developing a successful feedlot consulting service, he has never shied from controversy.
In fact, as the hint of mischief in his smile suggests, he may even like to stir the pot on occasion.
But you can’t take away the fact he is a smart, bright, successful businessman with a strong entrepreneurial sense and a sincere commitment to seeing the Canadian livestock industry do well. He not only helps others feed cattle, he has himself become one of the largest cattle feeders in North America. He still manages the family ranch in B.C., owns thousands of feeder cattle, has extensive grasser cattle holdings in Saskatchewan, and has several thousand head of sheep on feed, too. And he has been active in a number of industry associations. Overall he says, if the industry is well, that also helps his various business interests do well, which boils down to a win/win situation for everyone.
Jim, who turned 50 last year and is looking ahead to the “second half” of his career, has never stood still or looked back, after being one of the youngest graduates from the Western
College of Veterinary Medicine in Saskatoon, Sask. in 1983.
He was born and raised on the family ranch at Little Fort in B.C.’s central interior. He still manages a cow-calf and purebred Hereford cattle operation from that location. But, soon after graduating as a large animal veterinarian, he launched a new business concept called
Feedlot Health Management Services.
“The timing was right,” Jim says. “The livestock feeding industry was just shifting to Alberta, and I saw an opportunity to provide management services to a ra pidly growing industry.”
Using the tools of research and data analysis, Jim developed a management model which has evolved and expanded over the years to involve much more than just veterinary care.
With a focus on helping cattle feeders be as efficient and profitable as possible, he now has a staff of 15 professionals and 30 support staff spanning disciplines from animal science to statistics, epidemiology, nutrition and animal welfare. They work with dozens of feedlots across North America with an annual throughput of 1.5 million to two million head of cattle.
While the company works with feeders ranging in size from 1,000 to 100,000 head of cattle, its services help well-managed feedlots to make incremental improvements in overall production and feeding efficiency. Rather than managing pens of cattle on an all-in/all-out basis, Jim’s approach is to recognize the genetic potential of each animal, shipping cattle when they are “finished,” optimizing their marketability and reducing feeding costs.
But managin g feedlots is just one component of Jim’s far-reaching business interests. While he has partial ownership in a number of feedlots, his principle interest has been in cattle ownership. He is one of North America’s largest cattle feeders with several thousand cattle on feed from Western Canada to Nebraska, Colorado and Texas. He won’t say how many he

owns at any given time, other than “there’s a lot.” He’s not interested in owning bunks and boards and getting involved in the infrastructure side of the business.
Working within a North American marketplace, he buys cattle at the best price he can, and then has them fed on a custom basis where it is most profitable.
“I am a cattle investor,” Jim says. “From the very beginning I made a conscious decision not to get involved in the farming end and owning infrastructure. I own cattle and feed them where they are the most profitable. I am not committed to any physical facility or geographic area. I may buy cattle in Manitoba and have them fed in Nebraska, or buy in Mississippi and feed them in Colorado. My business is based on owning cattle. I am a renter of infrastructure.”
At one time his main focus was on owning cattle in finishing feedlots, but as the profitability of finishing cattle declined, he has put more emphasis on feeder cattle — buying lighter cattle, grass cattle, backgrounding. He runs his successful cattle-feeding activities through G.K. Jim
Farms. “It is a very low-overhead operation,” Jim says. “With a staff of only eight people looking after that many cattle, it is very efficient.”
Aside from feedlots and feeding, Jim has served on the board of Alberta Livestock
Identification Services Ltd. and was a founding board member of the Alberta Livestock and
Meat Agency. He has served too with the Canadian Cattle Identification Agency, the Alberta
Beef Producers, Alberta Cattle Feeders and Canadian Cattleman’s Association.
In each case, he left his mark, often one that others have found hard to forget.
Another long time livestock industry player, also known for speaking plainly, Dr. David
Chalack, one of the principals of Alta Genetics and chair of the ALMA board, praises Jim’s contribution to agriculture.
“Canada and the ag sector and specifically the beef sector are very, very lucky to have someone like Dr. Kee Jim working on their behalf,” says Chalack. “He is bright, innovative, entrepreneurial and he just makes things happen.
“He has been somewhat transformational in his approach to the feedlot business. He is not afraid to take risks, comes from those ra nching roots in B.C. and he lives the life.”
Chalack agrees that Jim has his critics. “That’s easy to explain,” he says. “Look, you can’t be friends with everyone when you are making things happen. Some people stand around and look over their shoulder, and can’t figure out why someone went past them… they’re jealous.”
Jim says he doesn’t let controversy get in his way. In fact, he admits to sometimes seeking it out. “I like being told I can’t do something,” Jim says. “When I first came to Alberta they said I would never be a successful cattle investor, and I said I would. I like stepping into controversial issues.”
“ I am not committed to any physical facility or geographic area.”
— Kee Jim
Monday 9 July 2012
Iain Aitkin, Rimbey
Grazing a Luing suckler herd of 130 cows, and finishing on grass. Also growing oats undersown with white, red and sweet yellow clover (check out Gabe Brown from Dakota).
Forward selling 40 to 50 beef cattle. Start advertising in February and sold out by April to 200 customers for autumn delivery to a specified car park in Calgary. Only option is a quarter side of vac packed cuts at 45kg for $500. Dry aged for 16 days. www.eatwild.com

Tuesday 10 July 2012
Brenda Schoepp, Rimbey
Brenda is a fellow 2012 Nuffield Scholar from Canada. She has a multi faceted career including a mentorship program, columnist, public speaker and produces the Beeflink newsletter which involves analysing beef industry data. She also liaises with politicians on behalf of various stakeholders, such as feedlots and animal health and management service operators. I had many interesting and productive conversations on various industry and business issues with Brenda which gave a real insight into the North American beef industry and how the UK beef industry, and my own business within it, could use the best parts of this to progress. Most of these conversations are commercially sensitive so I won’t enlarge on this here.
Wednesday 11 July 2012
Canada Beef Inc, CanFax, Canadian Cattlemens Association (Calgary)
Met with Jorge Mendez-Manzanilla (Senior Director, Hispanic Market Development, Cattle Beef
Inc) and James Bradbury (North America Marketing Manager, Cattle Beef Inc) at their Calgary
HQ. Talked me through a presentation on “The Canadian Beef Advantage” that uses their traceability system to give quality assurance credentials for domestic and especially export markets. Actively trying to influence the consumer emotionally.
CCA represents 65,000 beef operations. CCA Board made up of 27 producers. CCA funded through check-off allocations from each member state. CCA covers trade, animal health, environment and animal care, fiscal and monetary policy, and grading/inspections.
Canada Beef Inc (CBI) is the marketing arm of the Canadian Cattlemens Association (CCA). 86,000 primary beef producers pay $3 per animal transaction to the national “checkoff” scheme. $1 of this goes to CBI, and the rest to CCA. An animal is transacted around two and a half times in a lifetime giving a total per animal of around $7.50. 75% of cattle are slaughtered in Alberta.
In the US there is a 10-14% beef production gap, and the US exports 10% of beef production. 71% of
Canadian beef exports go to the US, and this accounts for 4% of US consumption. Canada and
Australia both have a 30% share of US beef imports.
Hispanic markets in North America, eg California, predominately use imports. This market has an increasing critical mass which makes logistics efficient. There is also a growing disposable income in this sector. The Hispanic market makes good use of the hump part of the carcass in Braham type cattle. Characteristics of the Hispanic market also include the non-use of meat trays and wrapping, with meat laid out in high piles on the counter instead.
Two thirds of the Canadian herd has Angus/Hereford Bos Taurus bloodlines. This is seen as a real selling point due to yield and quality advantages. Mandatory EID tagging system at birth also gives both traceability and data for research. This is seen as a real advantage over the US, where tagging of any sort is not mandatory and food safety only really starts at the meat plant, rather than the farm.
Canadian meat plants use the same hot wash and lactic acid interventions as the US, and have formulated a marbling and meat quality grading system that can used as a perfect equivalent to the
US system, as shown below:
Canada – Prime, AAA, AA, A (Highest to lowest quality)
US – Prime, Choice, Select, Standard

There are some differences, however, that the Canadian’s are keen to highlight. For instance, the
Canadian A grade doesn’t allow any dark cutters, whereas B grades are allowed in the US. Yellow fat is also not allowed in the A grade, whereas the US does not see this as a quality defect.
Marbling and muscling are key factors incentivised by the camera picture in meat plants. Skeletal classification, rather than age, is tracked as a key indicator as cattle age differently, but still aim for below 30 months of age. Canadian taste buds like a “firm” texture.
Promotional Canadian Beef Advantage (CBA) software and marketing materials have been developed in a consultative approach with private companies in areas such as foodservice. CBA provide the content, resources, product development and recipes etc, and the private companies provide the other 50% of the equation by paying for the cost of physically producing the materials. A business plan is drawn up with targets for adding sales and value that will have to be met. Recent initiatives have included the “High River Angus” brand, a focus on pricing beef per piece rather than per kg, “Slice n Save” where consumers are encouraged to buy larger cuts of beef and cut them up at home.
Also met with Andrea Brocklebank, the Research Manager at the CCA and Dennis Laycroft, the
Executive Vice President of CCA.
Andrea works on the research side of the Checkoff system looking at animal health and safety etc. Money is leveraged with federal and provincial funding.
Canfax is the voluntary information gathering vehicle.
Characteristics of the Canadian beef industry are an increase in volatility, tight profit margins, more direct sales with meat plants as banks require contracts, whilst at the same time less price transparency is occurring as there are now only two main meat plants, Cargill and Tyson, who enjoy
95% of the Canadian kill. Unlike the US, price reporting is not mandatory. However, they did argue that the US system still makes price discovery difficult due to the historical nature of the prices being reported. Some form of hybrid is needed with a code of conduct where cattle can’t be stacked up. The
COOL regulations gave the US meat plants a competitive advantage and was some of the reason XL were able to take over the Tyson meat plants. Managing the BASIS costs are key when deciding the destination of the cattle to be slaughtered. US imports have been greater due to the weak US dollar.
50% of Canadian production is exported. Short ribs are important into Asia, Mexico, S Korea and
Japan. Japan requires much greater marbling. Trim is exported to the US. Middle meats are coming into Canada. Canadian foodservice accounts for 20-25% of sales, whilst in the US this is higher at
40%. Mexico like over 30 month animals.
Th e EU quota is available to any exporting country worldwide, it’s just that the US were able to get in there first. It is considered difficult to give up the use of growth hormones in beef production in North
America to supply the EU due to the inefficiency this adds to production. Kirsten Ketelko at Sterling
Beef is one of those exporting whole natural carcasses to the EU under the Spring Creek brand www.springcreek.ca
Beef Information Exchange System (BIXS) is a new system designed to facilitate information flow between breeder, feedlot and meat packer to improve animal health and production efficiency. The
RFID tag is the backbone to this. Suckler producers will only get out of the system if they put into the system. BIXS work with the half a dozen or so private companies that also operate in this area eg Kee
Jim at FHMS. Ted Haney thought, however, that the uptake is low at present, and maybe BIXS is trying to be all things to all people when perhaps private enterprise might be better placed to run this kind of thing. BIXS is only possible with RFID tags but the expense improve efficiencies.
The Beef Five Nations Alliance is a loose collaboration of countries consisting of Canada, the US,
Australia, Mexico and New Zealand who work together to further their export trade routes. They use positive messages of environmental sustainability, carbon sequestration and scientific benchmarking

as tools to influence international regulatory bodies . Their overall position statement is “To exceed global consumers’ expectations while eliminating non-scientific and political trade restrictions”. They view the key areas as trade reform, animal identification, animal health, competitiveness and profitability. The EU is very much on their radar and lobbying to open up this lucrative market is intense. Banning growth hormone beef is something they see as a political trade barrier.
When BSE hit the Canadian beef industry in 2003, it was disastrous and this helped spawn their traceability system. Although the Canadian dollar is now stronger, it has been weak in the past and this focussed the industry on production efficiency. Barley is now cheaper than grain maize and so the predominant feed used.
Key areas now are to increase domestic demand in Canada and the US, and gain market access to
China (through Vietnam and Hong Kong) and Russia. Also improving competitiveness through productivity and innovation, streamlining regulation, improving labour availability and decreasing the government shadow. If Canada is not efficient,cattle move south into the US (as happened during
BSE). Managing volatility (insuring against changes in beef prices), climatic disaster (crop insurance, hail damage) and disease (BSE) are therefore crucial.
Verified Beef Production (VBP) is an assurance scheme that provides animal health and environmental plans etc. 65% of production is signed up to this, but only a minority of producers. In general, the suckler producers are not innovators and may be holding back progress to a degree.
Other problems include that the immense influence of oil in Canada has led to certain areas of farmland being bought up as a tax write off.
BIXS and VBP are important tools for online auction systems in providing information on animal ID, vaccinations, disease control and breeding data.
68% of feedlots have less than 10,000 head capacity. 23% of feedlot cost is feed, 57% is animal purchase, so combined represents 80-89% of total costs.
92% of meat packer capacity is with two packers; XL Lakeside in Brooks, Alberta and Cargill in High
River, Alberta and Guelph, Ontario. 80% of beef is processed domestically, 20% exported as live cattle.
Beef production was down 14% in 2011. 45% of beef produced was exported (including slaughter beef). 26% of domestic consumption is imported beef, and increasing. Per capita beef consumption is declining.
In the global beef market, cost differentials (currency, labour, land) are narrowing. Brazilian exports are growing 2.5% annually since 2008. Australia, Argentina and Canada are all stabilizing at the bottom of the cycle. Other major players are the US and India. The US herd is contracting due to drought and high feed costs. A 6% increase in global beef consumption is predicted over the next ten years fuelled by a growing population and affluence.
Import growth of 955,000 tons in next ten years:
EU 652,000 tons more
Japan 103,000 tons more
MENA 99,000 tons more
Russia 92,000 tons more
S Korea 27,000 tons more

Others 229,000 tons more
USA 247,000 tons less
Canadian trade outlook:
POSITIVES – reduced global inventories, cattle and beef prices to remain strong, strong beef demand despite price increases, good land and water resources.
NEGATIVES – Canadian $ remaining strong, volatile and tightening supply of commodities, fragile global economy, packer and feedlot utilization levels increasingly challenged, competition for land use
(oil, housing).
Meat packer and feedlot capacity utilization is decreasing. Equity required for cattle in feedlots increased by 19% in 2011.
Trade of fed cattle in 2011: 50% paid in cash, 25% on grid/formula, 15% on forward contract, 10% packer owned.
CCA foreign trade priorities:
US COOL resolution,
Access to EU (CETA), Comprehensive & Economic Trade Agreement,
UTM access to Korea & FTA to regain parity with the US,
UTM access to Japan & FTA or TPP,
Real UTM access to China (facilities approval, ractopamine, bone-in),
Full UTM access to Taiwan and ractopamine resolution.
Ted Haney, International Room, Calgary Stampede
Had a meeting with Ted and discussed various industry issues. Questioned the actual uptake of the
BIXS system by feedlots and cow/calf operations and questioned what access and information was actually available. May need to be mandatory for BIXS to succeed and participants need to be able to extract information to improve profitability. In contrast, there are half a dozen extremely profitable and focussed private research, software and management systems (eg FHMS) that are quite happy to see
BIXS fail.
Traceability is an important tool in the box for Canadian exports. The EU quota is taken up by the US,
Australia, Canada, Argentina & Uruguay in volume order. CETA is aiming to gain Canada its own zero tariff quota. Exporters see the EU as a net importer again soon and see EU subsidy becoming increasingly de-linked to production due to economic demands. North America also thinks that the efficiencies that growth hormones provide can’t be ignored by the EU eventually.
“Canada Gold” sold below the cost of production to gain export markets and eventually imploded. Run by Rick Paskel (403 894 9449) and had a vertically integrated feedlot/farm/grain/meat plant chain.
Prairie Heritage sell whole carcasses to Italy. Managed by Christopher Weader.
Contacts:
Bryan Walton, Alberta Cattle Feeders, National Cattle Feeders (403) 250 2509
Brian Caney, General Manager, Canadian Cattle Identification Agency (CCIA)

Richard Brown, meat industry consultant and data analyst, GIRA, sheep farmer, Brighton.
Ron Ward, cattle dealer.
Evening International Reception, Calgary Stampede
Interesting evening of meeting and greeting with the great and the good of the Albertan beef industry and politicians. Talked with various members of the CCA and politicians, including Premier Alison
Redford.
Thursday 12 July 2012
William Torres, Research Manager, Cattleland Feedyards, Strathmore
Cattleland Feedyards is comprised of a 25,000 head custom feedlot, 5,000 head capacity Bull
Evaluation facility and additional backgrounding lots with a 2500 head capacity. 11,000 acres are under cultivation and irrigation, including grain and silage, a 1000 head suckler herd, and a trucking operation hauling livestock, grain, hay and sod (farmed under the Creekstone arm of the operation).
There is a staff of 37.
Cattle are mainly kept in dirt floor pens of 250. Pens are cleaned in February prior to the spring thaw and again in the summer. The pens have wooden weather shelter fences for wind and snow protection. Water troughs are heated. The yards looked quite muddy to me, but apparently the spring had been wetter than normal. William suggested concreting the yards with a rubber matting overlay could be a solution. Also said more numerous and less centralised processing units would be beneficial.
Diets consist of dry rolled barley, wholecrop barley, chopped hay and tallow. Surplus feed is brought in by rail freight. 100% of the wholecrop silage and 40% of the barley grain is home produced. Hay is purchased in. 250 tonnes of barley are rolled per day. Five diets are normal, but due to the research requirements, 35 diets are used. Cattle are fed twice a day on a 40/60 volume split.
Feed is fed at cost, with the profit coming from research and administration of pharmaceuticals. 80% of cattle are on research trials. Custom feeding is done on a ‘cost of gain’ contract. Cattle used for research are subject to a research fee, but if growth hormones are used, this adds a benefit so can be charged for. CTC is fed on a pulse system to combat mud and feet problems. It’s more profitable to custom feed cattle than to own them. Ownership options at different percentages are also available.
Beef prices are hedged on CBOT. To do this a minimum of 1000 head is required, or 10,000 lbs of beef. The following are all hedged forward: barley (from SE Winnepeg), fertiliser, diesel, canola, wheat, rye and tallow (from rendering).
Cattle are trucked in from anywhere within a 24 hour trucking distance. Cattle are trucked out and killed at the Cargill and Tyson meat plants which are under two and a half hours away.
The processing barn can process 850 per day and use an all woman team due to their greater husbandry skills. The team leader, Sue, “talks like a sailor, walks like a soldier, and can beat up both of them”! Each animal has three identifications; a national RFID tag, a four digit management tag, and an owner/trial colour tag. On arrival, cattle are weighed, DNA ear tag sampled and implanted with growth hormones. The crush is made by Silencer. The RFID reader by the crush head is on a retractable cord and made by Ingersoll Rand. The RFID control box is made by Aleis. A large scale walk-on weigh scale can weigh 16 fat cattle or 28 yearlings.
The pen riders are contracted in, with less needed in the summer, and paid on mortality percentages.
Deaths are post mortemed by law, and then rendered.

In the last three years, a breeders alliance has been set up consisting of 1000 cow/calf units. Bulls from Cattleland can be sold to them, and Cattleland get the first offer to buy the calf crop with a package of free bulls, vaccines and a management protocol on offer. If a deal ca n’t be done, however, a charge can be made and the bulls can be sold commercially.
The Integrated Beef Research Station (IBRS) runs exclusive and confidential trials to validate new pharmaceutical and feed ingredient products and protocols that enhance weight gain, have health benefits or reduce handling and stress. The current focus is on genomics and Residual Feed Intake
(RFI). Size is important for research facilities to generate a big enough revenue stream to make it worthwhile.
There is a 18,000 head research facility capacity with 50 small pens, 8 RFID pens with GrowSafe feed troughs (photos below), 40 medium pens, 20 medium/large pens and 40 large pens. Research partners include Feedlot Health Management Services, pharmaceutical companies, feed companies, universities, institutes and genetics companies.
The National Bull Evaluation Centre is the largest in the world with a 5000 head capacity where genetics can be progeny tested and exposed to commercial projects. The facility offers marketing opportunities and the option to custom feed progeny in the feedyard.
Currently, for example, kelated minerals to reduce foot disease are being researched, and a feed diet that reduces manure production. Another trial involves castrating 5000 bulls on arrival, who are then put on 8 different diets over an 18 month period to research feed that reduces manure production.
Other trials have steers on eight different diets and heifers on four different diets. This is obviously expensive and time consuming.
This is a turnkey operation where services can be either contracted in or out using sub-contractors where necessary. FHMS and Veterinary Agri Health Services from Airdrie are two of the main research partners. GrowSafe are also based in Airdrie, as used by JSR Farming in Yorkshire.
Research projects usually run over three years. Cattleland procure research funding then sell the research to major drug companies, including Pfsizer, Elanco, Scherling Plough and Novartis. The data belongs to the drug companies. FHMS put in the cattle and sub contract out the services. Two trials can run simultaneously with two companies and/or against a control. The research is confidential and transparent.
Risk Management Incorporated (RMI) offer hedging and risk management options and services on beef prices, all inputs and more recently, energy. A jet engine manure drier to create energy was recently built using $2 million of city money, but went bankrupt. It has now been bought out by New
York financiers. Commodities trading is at the core of RMI. Five full time accountants are employed.
Oil companies own custom fed cattle to create losses for tax purposes, but in a legal transaction way.
Friday 13 July 2012
Western Feedlots Ltd, High River, Alberta
Dave Plett, President/CEO, Tom Plett, International Development, Dr Calvin Booker, Managing
Partner, Feedlot Health Management Systems Ltd.
This hugely impressive company was started in 1958 as a feedlot based on the feedlot system in the
US. Up until the 1970s, railroads were used but then the US grain fed system was copied during a period of rampant growth in the 1980s and 1990s. Diets are now barley based, as are most in the
South Alberta region.
Western is Canada’s largest feeder, with 100,000 cattle based on three sites. Cattle are also owned in other feedlots and other complimentary operations include a feed grains trading division, commercial

feedlot software development (paraDIAM), cattle and feed finance facilities, commodities trading, extensive production research and consulting, crop farming, and development of their own Angus
Black Gold brand.
In 15 years, Western have increased AAA grades from 30% to 70%. An individual animal management program has been implemented. A grid based system of incentives and penalties has been introduced. Cost per head per day is $3. Western host the largest research project of cattle in the world.
Cattle arriving on site are weighed, measured in height, width and breadth, colour assessed, individually tagged, lot and pen tagged, and given a gut fill of feed. A research student at Western found that there were correlations between hair colour, especially white patches, and performance.
This led to the colour assessing process on arrival to decide management of the animal (see photo below). 70 days prior to slaughter, animals are assigned a kill tag specifying the kill date and meat plant destination. The paraDIAM system program predicts the combination of factors that will give the best performance, and at what stage to effect certain management changes eg in feed or hormone implants. With 100,000 cattle, a cost of one cent is significant so attention to detail is paramount.
Dr Kee Jim set up Feedlot Health Management Systems Ltd in 1983. Dr Calvin Booker is the
Managing Partner of this operation which now works closely with Western on research and development projects. Three main areas of work are:
1. Anti-microbial resistance
2. Industry development and adopting the best technology from other industries
3. Production strategies and techniques eg managing animals as individuals
FHMS charge on a per head basis but share the data with the client. Data results could also be sold, and there are multiple levels of data sharing available. The paraDIAM system is key here.
Schumpter’s quote that “what’s new becomes old” very much fits in with the Western philosophy. The
‘crane of destruction’ also dictates that larger firms are best placed to innovate and change.
Development of systems is key and an emphasis on actual ‘development’ to actually use the research. Universities are mostly research and not much development.
A wide range of issues were discussed as Dave Plett is an energetic personality. The Bill of Rights in the US prohibits traceability as individual animal identification intrudes too much on an individual ’s rights, in the same way it is a person’s right to bear arms! Canada is more closely based on the UK model of democracy.
Only 25% of cattle are subject to mandatory price reporting in the US. In North America, power is held in the narrowest part of the hourglass ie meat plants. In the UK, this occurs at retailer level.
Ruth ! Criss is a steakhouse in Calgary which sells prime US beef. Interestingly, 85% of the meat used are Holstein steers.
Don Mackay in Australia exports the natural Rangers Valley brand into Asia.
In China, the two main priorities are energy security and food. The one child policy is also leading to population decline which could be a problem for them in the future. The Chinese have a growing appetite for western brands and tastes. The EU will become a net importer again in beef as it is a politically driven system rather than efficiency based.
Differentiation of product is important for high quality beef. Beef taste is subjective, however.
Perception of quality differs.

Cargill have been successful, not due to quality, but because their ability to compete and logistics are better than everyone else (similar to when Ford started using mass production techniques).
In “The End of Agriculture in the American Portfolio” by Steven C. Blank, the author argues the growth of urbanisation has pushed food production to the hinterlands (eg Brazil), and intensified the character of food production when situated near urban areas (eg Holland).
Things to research: the Monte Carlo method of economics, Wayne Purcell at Virginia University, Ted
Schroeder at Kansas State University, the Box Beef Calculator (reverse engineer calculation).
Saturday 16 July 2012
Greg Appleyard, President, Cattleland Feedyards, Strathmore
Fascinating meeting with this self made entrepreneur. Starting with nothing, Greg started working at this 25,000 head Strathmore feedlot and quickly decided he wanted to end up owning it. Started by being paid in grain which he then sold forward to sell at a profit. 18 years ago he then progessed to asking for and getting a wage of $35,000, a cell phone and a pick-up truck as his income. Every year decided to buy an appreciating asset and quickly accumulated 6000 acres around Strathmore when land was cheap. Decided also to never take income out of the main farm enterprise, but earn enough income from the peripheral enterprises.
9 years later Pat Fisher, a 10% owner of the feedlot, was bought out by Ben Thorlickson (CCA
President). Four other owners are also partners at this stage. Greg was then the Operations Manager and worked 18 hours a day for 7 years. In 2002, Greg bought the business together with his wife, and
Joe and Karen Gregory, just before BSE hit in 2003.
Began setting up ten year rental arrangements taking on land and machinery. Grew from 8000 to
20,000 acres in 4 years. A 2500 head suckler herd was established. A research facility was also built up. Now focussing more time on the commodity marketing and hedging with RMI Agriculture and
Energy company. Focussing on research, genomics, integrated systems management, and risk management.
The grain farming is successful, but feedlot is loss making. The days of cost plus feeding are gone.
Commodity trading and hedging are now the focus, with the energy market a key area too. Money is not in agricultural production.
FHMS is involved in research at Cattleland Feedyards and is good at obtaining government grants.
The data it obtains is also extremely valuable and the small amount of feedlot clients involved use the data very effectively for their own benefit.
A few quotes:
“You can never gain true wealth working for someone else. Ask the question no-one else is asking.
Learn and watch what makes other people successful and absorb like a sponge from them. Be a good manager. Get into a sector when its down, and sell out of it on a high. Be poised to strike when opportunities arise eg buying cattle in a drought. Make sure you have a good right hand man. Be prepared in a meeting. Don’t get too leveraged.”
Check out Paul Ingland at Cactus Feedlots. Largest cattle feeder in the world, killing 1000 cattle per week.
Foothills Forage & Grazing Association event, Sean & Holly La Brie, Didsbury
Kindly invited along to this event by the organisers. Attended by an array of innovative graziers. The
LaBries are well organised high density graziers who run 200 cow/calf units on one section, using

electric fences to graze and move. After the first light graze, a short rest period of 42 days is used.
After the second heavier graze, a longer rest period of 90 days is used. As seen before, swards are grazed at around two feet high. Innovative solar powered mobile water trough with river pump used. A demonstration was also given by an electric fencing manufacturer on the latest products.
Also discussed the ability to train cattle to eat thistles to eradicate them from swards (see Cathy Voth,
Montana).
Sunday 15 July 2012
Left Graeme Finn's for the last time and drove to Irvine's Country Store to buy some Wranglers, as these are the only jeans to wear by all accounts. Again in true Canadian style, there were no signs to this place and I eventually found it down a gravel track in the middle of nowhere where an all-girl rodeo was also taking place. Gymkhanas in En gland suddenly look a bit tame once you’ve seen girls on horseback lassoing wild animals.
Next I headed towards Kananaskis Country and had an amazingly scenic drive through the Bow
Valley and stopped off near Canmore at Grassi Lake. Grassi was an Italian who dedicated his time to making hiking trails in the Rockies. Beautifully clear water in Grassi Lake. Hiking back to the car and came across a sign, 'Danger Bears in Area', and proceeded to warn to have 'bear spray' to hand! I presume this is like fly spray but with mace in it?
Then headed south through Kananaskis Country, "the valley of the warm winds", which was extremely beautiful with miles of evergreen trees and a backdrop of huge Rocky mountains that provide winter ski slopes. On this seventy mile drive, I passed around five cars on a road the size of a dual carriageway. England definitely feels overcrowded!
Stopped off in Longview and found a motel and called in to a cafe for a bite to eat. Turns out the lady there originated from Devon, and came over to Canada in the 1970s and married a bull rider. They now breed bucking bulls in Black Diamond. Was invited to a calf branding the next day. Apparently this is quite the social event with a BBQ, beer and carrying on etc. Even the prospect of being served the delicacy of "prairie oysters", or testicles as they're commonly known.
Monday 16 July
Larry and Callum Sears, Flying E Ranch
This ranch is a great looking grassy ranch that benefits warm chinook winds off the Rockies. Larry runs 500 commercial Angus cow/calf units on 7800 acres and 300 pure Angus cow/calf units on 5000 acres. Moving away from spring to autumn calving now. Experimented with swath grazing, but found calves wasted too much. Feeding wholecrop barley. Also grazing maize when 5 inches high. Carrying out research on effects of hot branding and castration on animal performance. All vaccinations administered in the neck, and not the rump. First growth implant given at weaning at 5 or 6 months.
Creep feeding has been proved to improve marbling. Steers and some heifers are custom finished in his brother’s feedlot and sold under the XL Lakeside and Cargill “Certified Angus” brand.
The TraceBack management system is used. This is operated by Cow/calf Health Management
Services (CCHMS) who charge a per cow per year fee. This is an online (not software based) management program developed by Troy Drake, a vet. Managed using an iPad on farm, with around four regional vet practices licensed to act as TraceBack hubs. The Sears vet is Ken Wright. www.cowcalfhealth.com

Larry Sears has held various positions in industry bodies. He was chairman of Alberta Cattle
Producers in 1993-94, and chair of the CCA foreign committee between 1998-2001. We discussed various issues. US imports were banned between the 1980s and 2005 due to bluetongue. Larry considers COOL to be costly and ineffective as it reduced the options available to US meat plants.
COOL was lobbied against by Canada and Mexico, but promoted by RCALF, an extremist US producer organisation that had a protectionist agenda. Canada is currently making in-roads into
Russia and Kazakhstan. Both Russia and China, however, are seen as problematic due to the large influence the state and army have on trade. China and South Korea offer better opportunities than
Japan, which has an aging population. In general, the global recession is dampening export efforts.
Eventually non-trade barriers will have to disappear for trade to flow where it is needed and food needs to be produced where the cost of production is at its lowest.
Wholecop barley in photo below.
Visited Larry's brother, Dereck Sears, who owns a 36,000 head feedlot, plus other smaller 5,000 head feedlots under the name Chinook Feeders. The processing barns have two handling chutes with automatic push up gates that follow the cattle round the usual semi circle and then slide back to their starting position on a geared chain. Two German made VIA cameras have just been fitted above one of the crushes, one placed behind (photo below) and one looking down on the length of the back.
Environmentally sustainable reed wetlands filter waste water until clean.
The handling system is manufactured by Dereck's own company, 2W. This started in 1988 when a group of farmers bought out a failing engineering firm in Nanton. They now have 26 employees and now “aggressively” search for new livestock equipment markets and product lines. We also visited the engineering works at 2W. This was a hugely impressive operation that utilised high tech production processes copied from car manufacturers. This included a state of the art robotic welding facility, automated metal cutting process and automated paint spraying area, all imported from Europe. 2W products are exported all around the world, with the US the biggest market.
Notes from conversations with Graeme Goodsir
In 1998, mandatory price reporting law was introduced in the US, with prices reported to the USDA and published every day. It is illegal for meat plants to discuss pricing with each other.
GIPSA (Grain Inspection, Packers and Stockyards Agency) supervises legal and commercial fairness.
An audit oversees the livestock system. Smaller producers are less happy about pricing and lobby
GIPSA. The larger NCA are more content. Most smaller producers sell through auctions, but larger feedlots sell forward on contract direct with meat packers.
HACCP (Hazard Analysis, Critical Control Points) was introduced in response to ecoli. The ‘hazard analysis’ relates to the production system, whilst ‘critical control points’ relates to checking and correcting. The government has protected meat packers during ecoli outbreaks, and the government is under pressure to ease rules by the beef lobby. The source of ecoli outbreaks have been protected by the government with the batch recall system controversial due to the high financial cost implications. A recalled batch is cooked to kill pathogens which then reduces the value of the meat.
‘Irradiated’ meat is much less popular now and there is consumer resistance to it as the name is, perhaps, unappealing. Consumer groups can put up petitions as part of their constitutional right to get rid of the practise of irradiating meat. The process originated to combat ecoli pathogens from dirty feedlot carcasses.
In the US, the constitution consists of:

President (administration)
Congress (legislation)
Supreme Court (judicial – review legislation, non advocate)
On the issue of US scale, if everyone has economies of scale, the advantage can be lost.
In the 1960s, the IBP meat plant broke the unions and drove down wages by de-skilling workers into single task jobs and increasing the line speed. This has, however, caused greater food safety problems and other errors.
Prairie Heritage – Christopher Weader, Email:
, Phone: (780) 978 2697
Charlie Gracey, data analyst, Email:
Phone: (905) 304 4262

North America views the EU market as a net importer of beef, with a very attractive affluent consumer base.

The EU market will be targeted by North American exports and intense lobbying is taking place through the auspices of the WTO to lift what they see as “political trade barriers” that prevent the trade of beef produced with the aid of growth hormones.

North America view the EU CAP framework as a shackle that, together with restrictions on growth hormone and GM technology, make EU food production inefficient, uncompetitive and expensive.

Beef production will transfer to the areas in the world with the lowest cost of production and with the greatest natural resources. Urbanised areas will see food production become more intensive in character due to the lack of land available.

Ecoli is the number one issue in the US beef industry. Lactic acid interventions on slaughter lines are accepted practice and could be something that is eventually seen in the EU.

The lack of mandatory traceability in the US cattle industry is a weak spot that there seems to be an air of complacency around due to issues of constitutional rights over private information. This could hamper their export ambitions and make them susceptible to further food scare events. Their mismanagement of the “pink slime” issue is also indicative of a disconnect in the US between consumers and the politically powerful beef lobby.

The Canadian beef industry, due to its own BSE problems in 2003, has implemented extensive traceability and mandatory multi species individual ear tagging using electronic tags. They are well placed to exploit export opportunities, and have the added advantage of extensive natural resources available to them for food production.

The US is in the unique position of having a huge domestic market to balance carcass utilisation in tandem with exploiting export opportunities.

China, Russia and Asian Pacific rim countries are being targeted as areas with huge export opportunities for North America.

Beef production in North America, however, is under pressure from competition for animal feed from ethanol production, extreme weather events, and competition for land and labour resources from oil and gas production.


The beef industry in both the US and Canada benefit from extensive backing from government, state, research, pharmaceutical and financial institutions due to the importance of the sector in the economy.
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Private North American companies involved in the North American beef industry are getting involved in primary production in other countries, like China and Russia, where demand for beef is rising and domestic production is under developed.
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An emphasis on lean beef is predominant in North America to promote beef as a healthy option.
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The UK beef industry would benefit by adopting certain aspects of North American beef production. These include; greater consolidation of cattle numbers to increase economies of scale, greater integration of research and development on farm, better management of risk and volatility through hedging of all inputs as well as the beef price, incentivising the eating quality of beef by picture grading the rib-eye for marbling and yield, more innovative arrangements of cattle ownership to increase the availability of equity in primary production, use of real time on-line livestock auctions, use of systems management frameworks to improve on farm efficiencies.