Exports at risk?
By Darol Dickinson
(Author's Note - the following was a reply to an article which assured readers that beef exports are of an extremely vital importance to USA ranchers.)
I just read your article "Exports at risk." I would like to note some issues that you support about NAIS and USDA that deteriorate when evaluated by normal business economics. Please consider these points from one of the 600 largest cattle operations in the USA, Dickinson Cattle Co. Inc. of Barnesville, Ohio.
Our lack of a national government animal ID system will not leave the industry in peril! If the USDA and state veterinarians do their job as they have for the last 100 years, the last remaining animal diseases will continue to deminish. Their staff and budget is the largest in history and the number of diseased animals is the least.
Never compare New Zealand and Australia with the USA. They are "island nations" and have complete border control. It is difficult to import to those countries. The USA is not an island. Our USDA has allowed entry of diseased BSE cattle from Canada, and TB cattle from Mexico.
New Zealand and Australia are gaining world market share because they have to. Australia must export 68 percent of their beef. They can't eat it all.
The USA is totally different. The USA imports more meat than they export. If all USA exports stopped, the nation would import exactly that much less product. It is an exact trade off, and has been for many years.
Please, please realize that no matter if the USA exports $500,000,000,000 worth of beef, the USA would import more than that amount for USA consumption. It doesn't make any difference! The people who are profiting are the transportation companies who haul meat from country to country. The rancher will not profit from increasing exports.
The largest 2006 importer of U.S. beef (over 59 percent) is Mexico, and they don't give a flip about source, age, or ID. The USDA is concerned about the Korean export business. Korea purchased less beef in 2006 than would go across one freezer case at one Wal-Mart. Korea in 2006 means less than a dollar profit to each U.S. cattle producer.
The USDA is promoting export sales of livers to Egypt. American dog food companies give more for liver than the Egyptians, and it doesn't have to be shipped around the globe. Is there something backwards about this picture? Why worry about the Egyptian liver market?
The population in the USA is increasing, and the cattle growing areas are being developed into highways, federal parks, open space, state parks, and housing. There will be more demand for beef, and less area to grow product in the future. Exports will be less important next year, and the next.
Don't confuse mandatory NAIS with private ID systems. NAIS is not going to help producers evaluate their cattle, it is designed by USDA to enforce inventory movements, and their theory is for eventual 48 hour trace-back for assumed known or unknown future diseases. Private herd ID has nothing to do with NAIS. Don't commingle these issues and be confused into thinking NAIS is something it can't ever be.
USDA sends press releases indicating there is a vital race for the world export market; that the USA is racing against Brazil, Canada, etc. That is not necessary or true! The USA is buying from Canada by the trainloads! If we were truly competing with Canada why are we their largest beef buyer?
When a boat load of canned beef comes to the USA from Brazil, do the stores of the USA require the South American cattle to be ID'd? Everyone knows the answer. NAIS is full of unanswerable questions and puzzle pieces that do not fit.
The historic mafia offered vendors voluntary business insurance. If venders gave them a goodly part of the business profit they would be protected from theft, violence, and destruction. At this very stage in modern times, USDA is offering the livestock producers in the U.S. a special NAIS protection, and economic assurance ... at a price. Now is the time to say no to the 900 pound gorilla regarding who protects who, for how much.
Every professional livestock producer has a method of animal ID. However, no producer should want the government to do ID with mandatory NAIS. In fact, with over $120,000,000 spent by USDA to convince producers to surrender to premises registration - more than 75 percent of the livestock owners have refused. Please join the overwhelming majority and oppose state and or federal NAIS! For more info check www.naissucks.com.
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