Question: If someone can be crippled from eating bad hamburger meat (where most of Australia’s exports to the US end-up), should she be able to locate the livestock from whence it originated? And if so, is this possible? New York Times article
The long and the short of this article is that after being crippled by the E.coli from eating minced meat from the food giant, Cargill, this poor girl attempted to back-track the meat’s pathway. The meat was manufactured from a plethora of ground-up rubbish including some cattle meat and marketed as “American Chef’s Selection Angus Beef Patties”. However, because it originated from a variety of animals and by-products, processed by a variety of personnel there was no hope of tracking-down the originating beasts or their ‘home’ properties. (The side issue here is that the ingredients were listed only as “beef”).
The reality is that a cattle ID system such as NLIS or LPA would not and could not have assisted this victim or others following in her eating ‘footsteps’? Perhaps this is one of the reasons America and Japan don’t have a livestock ID system. If they don’t, then how can MLA justify Australian producers paying their levy taxes to fund one here?!
Agforce is right to advise consumers that they are headed for even higher costs if the fuel rebate is scrapped. Agforce on fuel costs
However, they are stuck between a rock and a hard place, aren’t they as we should be more focussed on the current rip-off by processors and retailers. Australia’s meat is purchased at the lowest cost in the developed World and sold at the highest! Click for the facts
While it’s all very well for MLA to advertise to increase consumption, I would prefer they work on removing the rip-off. It must be difficult for them though when they are representing both producers and the processors ripping them off!
What do you think?
Please leave your comment below.
Chairman of the Australian Beef Association and wool producer, Mr Bellinger has congratulated The Australian Wool Innovation Board (AWI) for giving wool producers some long awaited commonsense, with their decision to continue marketing wool from mulesed sheep past the 2010 deadline.
The message Mr. Bellinger and the ABA have supported is, “If you want wool from unmulesed sheep – then pay for it.’ Read more from ABA here
I bet AACo wished it had one of those little gadgets that you whistle to find your keys!
Then they might be able to find the 183,000 cattle Donald Fuller claims are missing ‘ghosts’.
Gee, imagine if we invented a similar tool for the whole Australian cattle industry where we could immediately find where any cattle are. It’d be simple, especially if we made it law to put RFID chips in the ears of all cattle and to register them all on a central database.
There would be all sorts of benefits and little tussles like the one between AACo and Mr Fuller could be solved overnight. (Then, if the cattle existed, AACo and the judge could find against Mr Fuller for defamation and tell him he’s not right about AACo doing ‘interesting’ sales deals ‘off-market’, so to speak, to circumvent full document disclosure about stock numbers – which he says don’t stack up).
(Click to read AACo court case re claim 183,000 cattle ‘missing’ - “The Age”)
Hey! I know, what if NLIS could do this? We could use it instead of our new database gadget. It would also be able to trace cattle for other disease-related reasons.
Unfortunately, as both of these cases require 100% accountability and accuracy, we will unfortunately need to disregard NLIS. i.e. we know from the PWC Audit of NLIS that more stock have gone ‘missing’ from the NLIS dbase since that audit, and if we wanted to rely on it, we would all just be whistling Dixie!
What do you think? Please leave your comment below.
$223 million has supposedly been paid by Australia’s producers and spent by MLA on LPA, Flockcare, Cattlecare, MSA + …… to gain a net industry benefit, over 30 years, of $1.1 billion. (See The Australian article here.)
$1.1 billion is about $0.91c per beast (cattle + sheep currently less than 40million head)! i.e. $1.1 billion ($1.1 thousand million) over 30 years is about $36 million each year. (I wonder how much a head that is when inflation etc is taken into account?)
However, what does this mean if the QA programs affecting meat quality aren’t being used?! (See Some figures on MSA non-usage here).
What benefits have Australia’s producers received from this cost? Let’s hope someone like CEO of MLA, David Palmer or Brad Bellinger, Chair at Australian Beef Association (ABA), can enlighten us.
David Palmer said the program has three quality systems for beef and sheep meat.
It began with beef in 1996, and aimed “to dramatically boost meat-eating quality”. Mr Palmer said it had evolved into a “world-leading quality assurance system from farm to consumer”.
Mr. Palmer states that QA systems have resulted in the consumer benefiting from better eating quality meat.
However, as only a bare proportion of producers use the meat quality QA programs (none use MSA in Victoria, apparently!), Australia’s farmers must be improving their meat without MLA’s programs – something Mr. Palmer didn’t clarify. Which means the programs can’t be accounting for the improved eating quality, which means producers are paying for QA programs that cost them via their MLA taxes (levy) but don’t achieve anything.
And let’s not forget that it has been proven time and again that producers aren’t receiving any additional income from this $223 million cost either. So, if this is the case, what is happening to the supposed magnificence of the $0.91c per beast?!
Wool buyers aren’t able to sell mulesed wool to fabric suppliers of large garment makers because consumers just won’t buy such product. This could be considered as a type of QA requirement on wool producers. In fact, it is probably the most potent direct QA requirement we have seen.
For more see this article or the previous Rural Australia mulesing article.
At first glance, this type of wool QA might seem to be relevant to the MSA and LPA QA contraints MLA has attempted to foist on meat producers for so many years. However, anti-mulesing is being actively promoted by consumers whereas meat QA is not being activately sought by consumers.
After many years of MLA promotion only about 4.8% of meat killed in 2007 was MSA.(If around 600,000 head are MSA and the total market kill is currently around 13million – The Weekly Times Nov 3, 2008) This leaves around 95% non-MSA. So, the vast majority of meat being consumed is non-MSA.
In fact, MLA recently stated (The Weekly Times Nov 3, 2008) that Australian meat exports are expected to hold-up because of the strong $US dollar. Where does MSA fit here? Probably in the same dark place as NLIS i.e. No country except Australia even talking about it now – despite MLA’s best efforts to promote it internationally (using producer funds, of course!)
Cattle Care and Flock Care failed and Victorians have led the pack in just jacking-up and saying “No” to MSA totally, apparently!
These figures show that in reality, QA is actually wasting valuable producer funds. If consumers want it, don’t worry, like mulesing, they’ll let us know.
CAAB is happily extending its MSA-backed (and presumably MLA sponsored) program and good luck to it. However, it is a niche branded product that doesn’t supply even a lion cub’s share of the market, let alone a lion’s share! If groups like CAAB require MSA then those producers wishing to participate are free to do so. We need to support enterprises like CAAB, however, it’s just not fair that those producers not wishing to do supply to CAAB should have to pay MLA to manage MSA systems for niche brands like CAAB.
LPA is the last QA vestige left for MLA (and its cohort processors) and it only surives because it (illegally?)forces producers to pay MLA to use an NVD form they had already been using from a different source for several years anyway.
So, is mulesing QA analagous to that for meat? I don’t think so!
What do you think?
Please leave your comment below?
Do you have an opinion on MLA telling the World that MSA and its QA ‘mates’ (Cattle care, Flock care, NLIS, LPA etc) are World best practice and the rest of the World needs to get on board?
Wouldn’t you think they should be focussed on Australia’s producers getting better prices and saving on costs rather than increasing processing and retail margins? (Surely they wouldn’t be more interested in selling licences to these programs World-wide than looking after their levy-paying producers?)
Here is a list of the weekly World beef price table from the Irish Farmers Journal (which some regard as ‘ one of the best in the World’) Sourced from John Carter’s article Nov 08 (see below).
In Euros the dressed weight prices were as follows UK 3.56
Italy 3.46
Netherlands 3.35
Germany 3.30
France 3.19
Uruguay 2.51
US 2.46
Brazil 1.83 Australia 1.57
Argentina on 1.32 (which is politically price-capped)
“Why, when we are paying the highest levies and using the most expensive QA and trace-back systems in the World are we getting the lowest true prices in the developed world?”- John Carter.
John also asks, “Is our ‘Best beef in the World’, really the worst in the developed world? Must we face the fact that we produce a third world product? Is it possible that we have been led by idiots who can’t see beyond their ivory tower?”
We are certainly being rorted by our supermarket duopoly — since 2000 when we moved from three to two supermarket chains, while the sale yard price of cattle has remained static, the combined retail/wholesale margin has exploded by 56%. Both producers and consumers are being ripped off. Producers now receive 28% of the consumer dollar and falling whilst the USA, UK and NZ receive between 45% and 49%. Click here for more on this story
This has been happening on MLA’s watch, so what is their response ? How are they directly saving producers $money and increasing our prices?
Given that MLA is supposedly working in your best interests as a producer, have the programs they have introduced (MSA, NLIS, Breed plan, Cattle Care, Flock Care, LPA etc) assisted you?
What do you think? Please send this blog to a friend and leave your comment below.
Sounds ironic, don’t you think? MLA has apparently claimed it is giving itself (its Board and senior executives), salary increases because NLIS is so successful.
Cop that!
A salary increase justified by a severe impost on producers (and agents) that is paid for by producers and benefits processors and retailers!
The MLA already receives a triple tax from producers: 1. The increased per head ‘levy’ tax 2. LPA tax to use the industry’s standard NVD form. 3. Federal Govt. co-funding from ‘Normal’ government farm taxes to boot!
(So, despite the fact that it is an independent corporation, MLA is actually funded primarily from taxes and would have very little revenue without taxes. Not much free market economics going-on there! ) However, it does seem a tad strange, don’t you think, that it can have the gaul to increase its salary based upon the spending of producer’s taxes. i.e. “We have spent your taxes so well, we deserve an increase in salary”.
One wonder whether they will then have the gaul to increase the taxes (levies) again in order to pay for the salary increases. Now that would be a truly vicious cycle.
If we are to take other large corporations as an example, we would expect to see peer group benchmarks and performance hurdles before salary increases would even be mentioned. As it stands, it seems there are no benchmarks on NLIS and all we have are: 1. PWC audit that showed ‘black’ holes in NLIS 2. Producer and agent displeasure with the NLIS 3. No international requirement for NLIS 4. No international implementation of NLIS
If this is the case, where is the case for MLA salary increases based upon the success of NLIS? In 2008 it should no longer be possible to say something is so without proof.
This view pretty well sums-up the perception of NLIS from many producers who believe they are funding a scheme flawed in theory and practice.
The National Livestock Identification Scheme more resembles a gauze jug than the failed Quarantine and Inspection Service and should immediately be abandoned in favour of the tail tag system.
Early 2004 I examined the Impact Statement and explained to Michael Beer, N.S.W. D.P.I. how and why it was completely undeliverable. For four years I have been providing details of this fiasco to State and Federal Polititions and their bureauracies. They too, seem to be unable and unwilling to comprehend the Scheme is simply nonsense based on fantasy, and will work wonderfully well so long as there is nothing like Equine Influenza.
Michael Beer recently reported in “The Land” that the subsidy to purchase scanners would discontinue, 794 producers had taken advantage of the offer. There are well over 70,000 Property Identification Codes in N.S.W. Before the Federal election, former Minister McGauran promised $15 million to fix N.L.I.S. which according to some “trumped up” exercise was almost perfect. When Labor won the election this money evaporated and nil allocation in latest budget. Hardly Government support, while producers are being slugged hundreds of million of dollars in compliance costs and wasted levy money.
I appreciate Tony Burke has more pressing problems than a Scheme with no purpose and no tangible results but hope he soon gets around to a serious inquiry into this fraud.
The database is a shambles and the credibility of M.L.A. is in tatters.
I am not so kind as my great little mate the Ooomanakker bird, who recently broke down and wept, then prayed; “Father forgive them for they know not what they do”.
Should The Bush just vote back the people it has supported forever i.e. The Vailles, Andersons, McGaurans and Heffernans? In the cities, because there are a significant number of voters who swing between the traditional political battle of Labor and Liberal, most electioneering is spent trying to woo them.Wouldn’t it make sense then if The Bush caught on to this and made the parties treat them more seriously as well? And this would then give The Bush more respect from the cities as Bush voters could then participate more in some broader issues rather than the ones that just affect their own hip pockets. e.g. While the media loves painting The Bush as rednecks, most of us have some sensible opinions on the War in Iraq, Free tertiary education, Social payments for those in need, Health costs, Humanitarian assistance for refugees, Inflationary pressures and interest rates, etc. By always just throwing our lot in with what seem to be issues that just affect our own lives and seemingly not voting for broader, selfless issues, we are an easy media target and an even easier target for professional organisers who move from farmers group to semi-government bodies to state or federal politics – and we all know a swag of them! And by mindlessly supporting the same party each time despite what we may think abot their handling of major isssues, we have personally ended-up with the costly NLIS, LPA, FMD risk, HECs fees for education that used to be free, service-based health that disadvantages rural areas, etc. Perhaps if we showed a little more flexibility and more Worldy appreciation for how politics is actually run, not only might our opinions be listened to at election time but perhaps we might also achieve a bit more from whichever mob ends-up in power.
