Brown said results-based budgeting means government departments review what they’re doing and what value they provide for Albertans.

That will affect the program since that in January, the federal government announced Japan would start accepting beef under 30 months instead of under 21 months, which had been the previous practice.

“The landscape has changed since January so that’s also a factor that we’ll consider when we review this,” Brown said.

Mandatory age verification was required starting in 2009.

“The intent of the regulation at the time was to ensure there was this critical mass of age-verified cattle that could be identified and accepted by export markets that would be under 21 months,” Brown said.

He said now that under-30-month beef is being accepted by markets such as Japan, processors can use  other tools such as dentition to confirm the age of the cattle.

There’s been a steady decrease in compliance since the policy was introduced, but Brown said compliance averages about 78 per cent.  Mandatory age verification hasn’t only been under an in-depth review since the change in Japanese import policy, Brown said. Internal reviews were conducted in the last couple years before the change, he said.  
Fred Hays, a policy analyst for Alberta Beef Producers (ABP), said international markets now accepting under-30-month beef means most products coming out of Alberta are covered.  

“It’s just about a non-issue right now,” Hays said about mandatory age verification. “Anything older than 30 months can easily be recognized.” Hays said ABP doesn’t have a policy on whether mandatory age verification regulations should continue.

“As far as we’re concerned… it’s being taken care of,” Hays said, now that most markets are accepting under-30-month instead of under-21-month cattle. Countries that open to older beef means have the potential to double their imports, Hays said.  

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“Educating people about what we do is not an automatic that they’re going to believe what we do is right,” Dr. Joseph Stookey, a professor at the Western College of Veterinary Medicine told attendees at the recent University of Calgary Veterinary Medicine Beef Cattle Conference.

In countries such as Denmark, Sweden and Finland, urbanites have closer relationships with farms than their North America counterparts — but those countries still have some of the strictest animal welfare guidelines around.

He praised the new draft Beef Cattle Code of Practice for requiring painful procedures to be performed at younger ages and encouraging use of pain-mitigating drugs.

“Is it that much more (work) to give them an injection? And does it cost that much more?” Stookey asked.

He said he’s often asked if animals feel pain, and that’s a sign that producers aren’t paying close enough attention.

“Animals do show us pain, it’s just you’ve got to be good enough to see it,” he said, adding producers should look for signs such as twitching ears and tails, a common way that animals signal they are feeling pain.

Vocalizations and a lack of appetite are also signs, while checking cortisol levels or employing strain gauges on pen bars can also be used to measure stress and pain levels, he said.

Progress has been made, said Dr. Reynold Bergen, science director of the Beef Cattle Research Council.

Beef quality audits have shown more cattle are being dehorned younger, and fed cattle with brands have dropped from 65 per cent in the 1995 audit to 10 per cent in the most recent one.

“Branding and dehorning are painful, but they’re not done to every animal,” Bergen said.

He urged producers not to “do anything you wouldn’t be willing to explain in front of a television camera,” and also welcome research into current practices.

“Sometimes industry gets kind of nervous about studying things,” he said.

But while activists may use research for their own ends, it’s better to know the facts and, if need be, adopt more humane practices, he said.

“If we can use research to demonstrate what we do and honestly tell all the good stories that we have and also tell people that we’re really trying to find ways to do things better, I think we can tell a really good story for our industry,” he said.

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“It is early. I would say at this point we don’t have any reports of catastrophic damage to crops and livestock,” said provincial Agriculture Minister Verlyn Olson. “I’m sure there will be cases where there is some damage but for the most part, crops would, or could have been, covered by insurance.”

The assessments follow a stunning period of heavy rainfall beginning around June 19. A low-pressure system parked over the province’s southwest and, by June 22, had dumped 80 to 280 millimetres of rain in a region between Waterton Park and Banff, with up to 340 mm measured at some points in the Bow, Elbow and upper Sheep River basins.

The province is now assessing infrastructure damage suffered by irrigation districts and feedlots, and “is fully engaged in helping with rebuilding,” Olson added.

Farmers who have suffered damage should first check with their insurers, he said, adding it’s too early to know whether special provincial or federal programs may be available.

Livestock and crop producer groups said they haven’t received reports of widespread damage.

“There wasn’t a lot of general flooding,” said Kent Erickson, chair of the Alberta Wheat Commission. “I would say a very small percentage of grain land was lost.”

While many fields were negatively affected by downpours, others needed the rain, said Matt Sawyer, chair of the Alberta Barley Commission.

“It all balances out,” he said.

The situation is more uncertain on the livestock side as it will be a while before cattle can be counted, said Doug Sawyer, chair of Alberta Beef Producers.

“I’m very hopeful the cattle loss won’t be devastating as an industry,” he said. “But for (affected) individual producers, it is devastating.”

Feedlot owners say all they need is some sunshine.

“We weren’t ravaged by any flooding but a lot of moisture makes the pens pretty mucky,” said Bryan Walton, CEO of the Alberta Cattle Feeders’ Association.

It’s a far different story when it comes to rural roads, bridges and other infrastructure.

“‘Extensive’ is the word I’ve been hearing from almost everybody,” said Bob Barss, president of the Alberta Association of District Municipalities and Counties.

“Nobody was ever expecting anything like this. I think probably the majority of people were overwhelmed.”

More than 300 bridges need to be inspected and a host of roads need repairing, Alberta Transportation spokesperson Nancy Beasley Hosker said.

“We are working as fast as we can and as safely as we can to get the roads open as quickly as possible. But safety is key,” she said.

Motorists should watch for lane closures and reduced speed limits, she said.

— Victoria Paterson is a reporter for Alberta Farmer in Calgary. Follow her @vspaterson on Twitter.

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“The industry people who I’ve been travelling with have told me just about every day they’ve been here they’ve had very productive meetings,” Alberta Agriculture Minister Verlyn Olson, said Thursday on a press conference call from Kazakhstan.

Olson accompanied federal Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz on a trade mission that took the federal minister to Russia as well. According to a press release from Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, Kazakhstan is the biggest importer of Canadian purebred cattle.

Given Alberta’s position as the largest beef producer in Canada, there are many potential opportunities in both the cattle sector and other agricultural products, including equipment, Olson said. “There’s huge potential.”

There are many similarities, he added, in the landscape of areas of Kazakhstan and parts of Alberta.

“When you drive out in the country here, it feels very much like maybe the Brooks country or maybe Hanna country, except there are no fences, it just goes for miles… so there is a great opportunity for us to sell cattle and farm equipment here,” he said.

Both Olson and Ritz mentioned that the Canadian Hereford Association and a large ranch in Kazakhstan are collaborating on education.

‘They’re working together on the creation of an agriculture school,” Olson said, noting the association donated $5,000 toward the project and that there’s some Lakeland College involvement.

“Happy to show them”

Ritz said he addressed trade concerns in both Kazakhstan and Russia as well. In Russia, he raised that country’s ractopamine ban, which last month saw “temporary restrictions” imposed that halted meat imports from all but 19 federally inspected plants across Canada.

Marketed in Canada by Elanco as Paylean and Optaflexx, both growth stimulants to make beef and pork leaner, ractopamine is now banned in certain countries citing concerns that residues could remain in the meat and cause health problems, despite scientific evidence indicating it’s safe.

Russia is sending a team of veterinarians to Canada and some other countries soon, Ritz said, to take a look at the systems around ractopamine use.

“We’re happy to show them the extent of what we can and cannot do when it comes to ractopamine,” he said.

They also spoke about the Customs Union partnership that’s eliminating internal customs borders between some countries, including Russia and Kazakhstan.

While Canada is in favour of free trade, Ritz wanted to make sure any new rules don’t create blocks for Canadian imports. He tackled the issue of new animal health protocols in Kazakhstan as well.

On this trade mission, according to a federal release, the livestock industry has signed commercial contracts valued up to $11 million.

Those contracts include an $8 million contract for Genesus of Oakville, Man. to export 6,500 breeding swine to Russia and a nearly $3 million contract for Xports International of Clearwater, Man. to export Canadian purebred cattle to Kazakhstan.

— Victoria Paterson is a reporter for Alberta Farmer Express in Calgary. Follow her @vspaterson on Twitter.

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The first provincial crop report was issued May 6, and at that time, less than three per cent of the province had been seeded, with the southern region being the most advanced at nine per cent.

“As a general rule for the grains and oilseed sector, it’s not bad yet,” said Humphrey Banack, second vice-president of Wild Rose Agricultural Producers and a grain and oilseed farmer near Camrose. His operation got seeding underway only a few days late, and while it depends on whom he talks to, the warm weather has been helpful.

Lukas Matejovsky, a crop statistician with Alberta Agriculture, said the recent five-year average for the first week of May is 8.2 per cent of seeding completed. The earlier crop report said excessive moisture is a problem in a number of regions, especially the northeast, northwest and Peace regions.

Shawna Mathieson, executive director of the Alberta Oat Growers Commission, said there are some wet spots in the province where her producers indicated that if they got a couple more inches of rain, they might not manage to seed some acres.

“Right now, if the warm weather holds, we should be good. In some areas if they get very much rain there may be some acres that aren’t seeded but farmers are being pretty positive right now,” Mathieson said. In general, oat growers were about a week behind but the warm weather meant the ground was drying out quickly, she said.

Matt Sawyer, who farms northeast of Calgary and serves as chairman of the Alberta Barley Commission, said he’s seeding into moisture. The southern part of the province has made great progress, in the central area many were close to done and near Barrhead he’d heard from another director that they were just getting started with seeding.

“Everybody’s rolling as hard as they can,” Sawyer said. A lot of progress had been made since the first crop report was issued, he added.

Rick Istead, general manager of the Alberta Wheat Commission, agreed. “A lot has happened since that crop report,” he said, noting some of his board’s directors in the south are already done seeding their wheat. Other areas were catching up, though some just got started in mid-May.

While getting the crop in earlier is always better, no one is panicking yet, Istead said. “This recent stretch of warm weather, warm days, warm nights and lack of precipitation has allowed them… with the equipment we have today (to) seed a lot of ground in a fairly short time,” he said.

Earlier is always better for canola too, but it’s not late yet, said Ward Toma, general manager of the Alberta Canola Producers Commission. While the south is more advanced, central Alberta was underway and those in the north were just getting started in the middle of the month.

“If we are not seeding we are very, very close to seeding across the province now,” he said, adding those in the Peace region might run up against deadlines.

The May 6 crop report said some areas in that region still had several inches of snow on the ground but producers were hoping to get started within five to 15 days.

— Victoria Paterson reports for Alberta Farmer from Calgary.

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Co-op members passed a non-binding resolution last month that would see the company stop selling pork from farms using the stalls within five years.

The move needs the approval of the co-op’s board, but company officials have met with Alberta Pork and won’t make any hasty decisions, said Cindy Drummond, the co-op’s communications manager.

“We support the industry and the safe treatment of animals, and I think the pork producers are saying the same thing,” she said.

If the no-stall resolution is implemented, the co-op will look at a reasonable time frame before it stops selling pork from those farms in its 24 stores, she said.

The executive director of Alberta Pork commended the company for taking a level-headed approach, and said he hopes the public will pay attention when a draft of a new national code of practice for pork producers comes out in June.

“It’s based on science, not on emotion,” said Darcy Fitzgerald.

Although the public may be skeptical, producers are truly committed to using the most humane production practices available, he said.

“I know we always say economics and welfare don’t go together — but they really do,” said Fitzgerald. “I mean, it’s in the best interest to have the best animals and the healthiest animals.”

He noted group housing was once the norm, and gestation stalls were adopted in order to reduce aggression in herds and ensure every pig had adequate water and food.

“There’s problems in both systems. It all comes down to management,” Fitzgerald said.

Much of the opposition to stalls is coming from people opposed to animal agriculture. It’s also coming at a time when it’s tough for producers to afford changes to their production systems.

“It’s much easier in a climate where you’re actually making money,” Fitzgerald said. “Our guys are probably losing $35 a pig and they’re being asked to make more changes.”

— Victoria Paterson is a reporter for Alberta Farmer in Calgary. This article appears in the April 29 issue.

Related stories:
Tim Hortons expects stall-free pork by 2022, April 4, 2013
Olymel joins move back from gestation crates, March 22, 2013

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“We’ll raise the chicken for you and you get eggs every two weeks,” said Agnes Kulinski, business director of the university’s Poultry Research Centre.

The centre, which has about 1,500 heritage-breed chickens, has an “adopt-a-heritage-hen” program in which people who contributed $75 receive the eggs of their hen. The current program, which runs until November, is sold out, but Kulinski said a bigger one may be launched in November.

Among the centre’s breeds are light Sussex, white leghorn, dark-brown leghorn, barred Plymouth Rock, and New Hampshire. Kulinski said the chickens cost about $75,000 a year and as the centre faces cuts, the future of the flocks is being considered.

“We haven’t seen any return on them. That’s why the committee is questioning the value of keeping them,” she said.

But genetic conservation is important because the breeds have important traits that may have been lost in commercial chicken breeds, where the focus is on efficiency and productivity, said Martin Zuidhof, an associate professor of poultry systems at the university.

“Preserving their genetics is an important part of preserving the heritage of chicken lines,” Zuidhof said.

For example, researchers at the university are comparing the immunity systems of the heritage breeds to commercial lines, he said.

“So the significance of our lines is we have not selected against immune response in these lines, so if an emerging disease occurs and commercial birds become susceptible… the birds we’re preserving may have a better immune response and may be a resource that is required to regenerate commercial stocks,” he said.

The birds in the university’s flocks come from a variety of sources. The egg layers for the program were acquired from the University of Saskatchewan about 20 years ago, and represent breeds that would have been common on farms 50 to 100 years ago, Zuidhof said. Two lines of chickens come from Don Shaver, of Shaver Poultry Breeding Farms. There’s also three lines from Agriculture Canada that were received in about 1989.

“Those are really interesting lines,” Zuidhof said, noting there’s a 1957 breed and two broiler lines from 1977.

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After stinging critique of their sector by the Canadian Agri-Food Policy Institute last fall, Kim McConnell, Dave Andrews and John Kolk were asked in November to consult with industry players and create a framework for a comprehensive strategy.

“One of the big things we have learned is that increasingly, the world of beef is changing, it’s changing fast and it’s changing big time,” McConnell said at the meeting, which drew representatives appearing from producers, processors, retailers and other industry players.

That was also the conclusion of the Canadian Agri-Food Policy Institute, which accused the Canadian beef sector of being complacent and lacking a strategy to succeed. In its report last September, the institute highlighted a number of troubling issues, including that in 2001, Canada received $3.74 for each kilogram of beef it sold in the U.S., while Americans sold us their beef, often from Canadian-raised cattle, at an average of $6.55 a kilogram. Even then, American beef was displacing Canadian beef in this country. It also noted American global beef exports had, on a value basis, increased 280 per cent since 2005, while Canada’s only grew by 45 per cent during that time.

“Canada’s beef industry is falling behind and opportunities are being eroded by a failure to work together,” said David McInnes, the institute’s president and CEO, following the report’s release.

But the Calgary summit suggested that’s changing, with attendees giving a strong endorsement to a five-point plan put forward by McConnell, Andrews and Kolk.

“I’m stunned at the consensus,” said Andrews in a post-summit interview.

Kolk added the goodwill was surprising, but it suggests there has been an attitude shift and the realization that industry has to win together.

Throughout the day-long meeting, McConnell outlined the framework the trio put together, with industry stakeholders offering input via table discussions and electronic voting. He said the perceived value in our beef is the “Canadian beef advantage,” namely high-quality, safe, grain-finished beef raised in the Canadian environment by committed producers and processors as part of an agile system that provides transparency, traceability and respects the desires of customers and consumers.

To capitalize on that, the trio said five things are needed:

•   An information sharing system, accessible to all and with the full backing of major industry players;
• A clear set of goals, with a simple way to measure progress in achieving them;
• Twice-yearly meetings to bring the entire industry together;
•  Industry-wide financial support of the promotional efforts of Canada Beef Inc., which currently relies on producer checkoffs and government funding;
• And a commitment to have the industry speak with a single voice.

The trio said a task force needs to be struck to flesh out the framework, but emphasized the entire sector needs to get involved and move the effort forward.

“Now it’s about process and deadlines,” Kolk said.

McConnell was hopeful that would happen.

“There was a lot of harmony here today and this is an industry that is not used to a lot of harmony,” he said.

The trio will continue their work, which includes further development on the strategy, forming various teams, and arranging the first meeting to bring the industry together.

They said many people volunteered to work on the various task force teams which will be set up.

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“Animal welfare is a school zone — you don’t speed through school zones,” Lily Edwards-Callaway, who oversees the company’s animal welfare systems for pork and beef, told attendees at the recent Livestock Care Conference in Calgary.

“It’s a top priority for JBS.”

In addition to having staff on the plant floor monitoring workers and watching for signs of animals in distress — something the company calls biased audits, video cameras are used for two other types of audits. Unbiased audits are conducted by staff observing through the cameras while remote video audits are conducted by a third-party company, Arrowsight. The audits are key to ensure company standards are being met when it comes to things such as unloading cattle or using prods, said Edwards-Callaway. Those doing the audits also watch for slips and falls, and other signs of problems in animals.

Audits are conducted daily and Edwards-Callaway checks on the numbers, figuring out differences between the three different kinds of audits and checking in with the plants on a weekly basis. She showed examples of plants’ auditing numbers and how they shifted over time, thanks to influences such as new staff members, training or other factors. The numbers do show people forget occasionally that the cameras are there, she said, but putting focus on the audits helps to address any issues.

The effort is not only a way to combat criticism of slaughter plants, but makes workers feel good about their jobs, said Edwards-Callaway, adding JBS’s animal-handling standards are set above those of the American Meat Institute.

Pork plants typically have about 27 cameras and there are about a dozen in beef plants. Edwards-Callaway can get live camera access via the Internet, and a viewing screen in the corporate office shows scenes from cameras in the various plants.

The monitoring is also key to improving standards because employees, and sometimes individuals, are given feedback on things flagged by the daily audits.

It’s become part of their everyday operation, Edwards-Callaway said.

“If something’s not working, stop and tell someone,” is the message given to employees, she said.

In a followup interview, Edwards-Callaway said cameras will be installed in the Brooks plants.

“We don’t have a timeline for it yet, but we’re working with the vendors to figure out next steps,” she said.

“We’re on the same program in terms of what we’re auditing, how many head we’re auditing. They just don’t have the cameras yet.”

She said she expects the move will be well received by the Brooks employees.

“It’s a real pleasure working with them. They’re willing to change, adapt,” she said.

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“Our message is not that honeybees are bad — it’s that we could do better if, in addition, we were encouraging more activity by wild insects,” said Lawrence Harder, a professor of biological sciences at the University of Calgary.

Harder is one of 50 authors of a paper published this month in the journal Science, which looked at 41 different crops in 19 different countries, including low-bush blueberries in P.E.I.

Crops that are animal pollinated — such as cucumbers, tomatoes, blueberries, and coffee — get better yields when more than just honeybees are pollinating the flowers, Harder said.

“The point here is not that honeybees aren’t doing a good job, it’s more that basically in most of these fields they’re already maxed out in terms of the service honeybees are providing,” he said.

The pollination technique of wild bees also appears to make a difference. Honeybees usually move from flower to flower on the same bush, whereas wild bees move between bushes, which means more plants are pollinated with pollen from their neighbours. The study also looked at the impact of other wild insects, such as butterflies and some types of flies and beetles, but found wild bees have the biggest impact on yields.

If you want to encourage wild bees, Harder recommends growing natural or semi-natural vegetation with wild flowers along roadsides so they have something to eat when crops aren’t in flower.

“Canola’s a cornucopia when it’s in flower for bees, but when it’s not in flower it’s a wasteland,” he noted.

Other measures include not disturbing nests with tillage and using fewer pesticides that kill wild bees.

Honeybees are crucial for pollinating hybrid canola being produced for seed, and last year Alberta beekeepers transported 70,000 hives of honeybees to the southern part of the province to pollinate that crop, said provincial apiculturist Medhat Nasr.

“If we don’t have these kind of pollinators, the yield of hybrid canola seed production would go down by 90 per cent,” he said.

But mixing in wild bees is best, he said, because there’s a “synergy” between their work. If a variety of different bee species visits the same flower, it increases the odds of pollination occurring, he said.

But the wild population has been going down, Nasr said.

“It’s declining because there’s not enough wild flower forage sources for them around,” he said.

Alberta Agriculture has been encouraging the public and municipalities to develop more natural habitats for these insects, he added.

“Instead of growing just grass, why not grow some flowers which will bloom at different times of year that will make food sources available to honeybees as well as wild bees?” he said.

There’s better news on the honeybee front, despite the ravages of colony collapse disorder. The provincial honeybee population dipped to 220,000 hives in 2007, but rebounded to 282,000 hives last year, he said.

“We are working towards solving the problem,” he said. “We have a successful example in honeybees and I’m sure it’s going to be successful also for wild pollinators.”

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