Jeff Warrack, a director of the Alberta Cattle Feeders’ Association, agreed with Perillat’s assessment of the situation. He believes the cattle sector will not experience the growth that was anticipated after several years of contraction. “Certainly we thought that maybe the bottom was in, now we’re not quite so sure,” said Warrack.
“Beef is going to be high and it’s going to stay high,” Kevin Grier, a Guelph, Ont.-based independent consultant who analyses the price of livestock, meat and groceries, said in a phone interview. Beef consumers will likely feel the price shock for quite a while, Grier adds. He says it will take farmers years to rebuild North American herd levels, which are at historic lows.”
An enormous step has been taken by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency in their proposed modernized regulations for the incorporation — by reference — of the Beef, Bison and Veal Carcass Grading Requirements. The CBGA website, with its draft of the new Grading Requirements, is now linked to the CFIA website.
Federal Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz says investigators are narrowing down how an Alberta cow was infected with bovine spongiform encephalopathy.
Canada ‘driving the bus’ in meat labelling dispute
Meanwhile, Ritz says it’s time for the United States to come to terms with country-of-origin labelling rules.
May 18, 2015 – Ottawa, Ontario – Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development Canada
The Honourable Ed Fast, Minister of International Trade, and the Honourable Gerry Ritz, Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food, jointly with Ildefonso Guajardo Villarreal, Mexico’s Secretary of Economy, and Enrique Martínez y Martínez, Mexico’s Secretary of Agriculture, Livestock, Rural Development, Fisheries and Food, today issued the following statement on the World Trade Organization’s (WTO) latest and final ruling on the United States’ Country of Origin Labelling (COOL) measure:
“Once again, the WTO has confirmed Canada and Mexico’s long-standing position that the United States’ mandatory COOL requirements for beef and pork are blatantly protectionist and are a violation of the United States’ international trade obligations.
