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?!
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?!
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”.
Since Peter McGauran has been in charge, our livestock have never been at at more risk of Foot and mouth disease and BSE (and Equine flu) ! This Minister has a record of going in to bat for business lobbyists interests over the need for quarantine purity.
Planting a tree gains a car buyer carbon offsets in the USA.
Does it follow that car companies might buy-up plantations as investments to counter-act their polluting ways? (Not that it actually decreases pollution, of course!)
If John Howard can envisage this scenario, why can’t he envisage Australia’s farmers getting in on the Carbon-trading act? Farmers are responsible for vegetation management on a scale that can only be dreamt of in cities and towns. Farm vegetation has the added and no less important effects of protecting and improving soil quality, salinity control, pasture improvement and livestock production. This would suggest that perhaps farm vegetation should be worth more to the environment than island-like plantations resulting in desert wastelands at the end of their time. Three questions must be asked:
1. Would the large plantation groups be less valuable to this argument if farmers were included in Carbon credit schemes. i.e. Is there silent lobbying of the PM from this area?
2. Are the vegetation management efforts of Australian farmers important to Australians?
3. Are Australian farmers becoming less relevant to Conservative governments because of their diminished voting capacities?
What do you think?(Have your say below – if you think it, it’s worth writing it!)
MLA should never print the words “high cattle prices” in reference to Australian cattle prices.
Whilst cattle prices are higher than previously, they are also lower than previously and certainly not at an historical high.
On a world stage however, Australian cattle prices are low.
The EYCI sits at 339, around $1.86 per kg live
US feeder prices are around 86.5 US/lb which is A$2.53 live, US prices are 36% higher.
In Japan, B2 carcasses are at just under $11 per kg and the A5 Wagyu carcass is at just over A$23 per kg equating to $4000 per head for dairy steers and $10,000 per head for high end Wagyu.
Australian cattle prices are certainly not high on a world stage.
The 2 decades of deflation in Japan have resulted in an expectation that prices will continue to come down.
Using high to describe Australian cattle prices in print merely reinforces this expectation with beef.
(This was sent to MLA by a producer in response to a statement in the MLA weekly publication, “Friday Weekly”).
Well, the horse has bolted and NLIS is here to stay….or is it?
Many producers were originally confused as to why they should comply, but most now at least have experienced that it is a huge impost in terms of labour, time and item and equipment purchase costs. And they can’t be oblivious to the fact that despite what the processors (and their MLA colleagues) are saying, no export country is demanding NLIS (or the new mandated QA system, LPA for that matter).
Those producers vocally in support of these systems state the line propelled by the authorities and in the main seem to think their brands are having value added to them by any type of QA program (as distinct from actual premiums being gained by these programs), (and I think you will discover that many of these vocal groups in fact receive industry funding e.g. for programs via MLA to them either directly as stud groups or through stud associations.
If the reality is that; 1. processors want NLIS (and LPA) to track their meat through the supply chain to enhance their processes and not really for the stated reasons of providing food safety surety to the rest of the World and 2. producers in general would be happy to not have NLIS (and LPA),
Then what can be done about it?
Death taxes were abolished and they were worth more to the govt. than NLIS and LPA. Do producers have any rights in a democracy to roll-back such things or is it like GST and a done deal?
What do you think? (Please leave a response below)
