U.S. And Canadian Cattlemen
Meet To Discuss Trade Issues

DENVER — Some 20 representatives of the U.S. and Canadian livestock industries gathered here this week to disagree, agree and agree to disagree on trade issues between the two countries.

The National Cattlemen's Beef Association, along with the Canadian Cattlemen's Association, hosted a Beef Issues Summit Monday in the Mile High City following a series of actions across the northern U.S. by state and local cattlemen's groups against the Canadian livestock industry. Those actions included stopping cattle and grain trucks and the filing of three petitions accusing the Canadians of unfair trade practices.

In his opening remarks, NCBA president Clark Willingham said his organization wanted fair trade as well as free trade.

"We got the short end of that stick," he said. "Free trade has not been successful for anybody in agriculture."

Almost half of the four-hour meeting dealt with Sanitary Phytosanitary (animal health) and certification issues. The discussion revolved mostly around brucellosis, tuberculosis, bluetongue and anaplasmosis, and the two countries’ approaches to these health issues.

"We're keen on regionalization," said CCA president Ben Thorlakson.

"We agreed to revitalize the cross-border animal health committee to solve regionalization issues," said NCBA CEO Chuck Schroeder, "working in collaboration with the USDA and Ag Canada groups in addressing those issues now."

State cattle organizations objected to what they complained was a willingness to continue to study the problems instead of dealing with them in an expeditious manner. Citing both the slowness of the U.S. government to recognize these problems that have evolved from health issues to trade issues, several representatives of the state organizations complained that the problem was being exacerbated by an equally slow Canadian government response.

The group called for an immediate Ag Canada response to an APHIS inquiry concerning those issues, and a timetable for reaching some solutions to the problems.

The representatives also called for an accelerated timetable in the harmonization of standards for drug use, again working with USDA and Ag Canada. They also wanted the results of such work publicized and well as documentation of equivalent inspection standards.

While the U.S. cattlemen said they will continue to work for country of origin labeling, the Canadian cattlemen said they will continue to oppose it.

By the end of the meeting they had agreed to disagree and to continue the debate over country of origin labeling and use of USDA grades.

The two sides did agree to collaborate on technology issues. Willingham said he is particularly interested in the mechanical grading system the Canadians are now using.

While the debate of subsidies and what constitutes a subsidy continued, the Canadian cattlemen claimed they would like to see all subsidies, dropped including deficiency payments to U.S. farmers.

Schroeder said the consensus between the groups is to continue to collaborate on lowering grain subsidies for both nations as well as lowering restrictions on feedgrains and forages.

Although there were accusations from both sides that the U.S. Meat Export Federation and the Canadian Beef Export Federation had at one time or another engaged in predatory marketing practices, the Canadian and U.S. cattlemen agreed to apply pressure for USMEF and CBEF to work together within the bounds of funding restrictions in international market development, with particular emphasis on the European Union markets.

The Canadian cattlemen in the past have declined to increase their data gathering systems, but they appeared to move ahead with such information systems as a cattle on feed report. The first one, according to CCA officials, should be out Jan. 1.

Schroeder said the group will support accelerated incorporation of Canadian market information into data available for U.S. and Canadian producers.

Representatives of the group, R-CALF, that filed petitions against the Canadians alleging unfair trade practices were not present at the meeting, but several state cattlemen's organizations that are backing the Montana-based group spoke up for them.

Thorlakson said CCA expects to spend about $1.7 million defending themselves and expects the opposing side in the issue to spend a like amount.

Thorlakson said he would rather use that money to solve some of the problems discussed during the summit than throw it away on litigation, but he was quickly taken to task by a South Dakota representative who said his association didn't feel their financial support of such actions was a waste of funds.