NCBA Executives Participate in Beef Summit

Borders disputes are building as the calendar approaches the next millennium.

The National Cattlemen's Beef Association Executive Committee last fall agreed to follow the advice of its International Markets Committee not to support a countervailing duty case against Canada and did not deal with a similar case against Mexico. Within a month, they had changed their position and were supporting R-CALF, Ranchers-Cattlemen Action Legal Foundation, a Montana-based group, in their fight over the importation of cattle from Canada.

R-CALF maintains that Mexico and Canada are selling cattle below the cost of production. They also claim Canada subsidizes live cattle exported to the U.S.

NCBA's reversal comes following a meeting hosted by the association and including some 20 representatives of the U.S. and Canadian livestock industries in October. They gathered in Denver to disagree, agree and agree to disagree on trade issues between the two countries. The meeting was the result of increasing tensions between northern U.S. state livestock associations and Canadian cattlemen.

"We believe in free trade, very strongly," said Clark Willingham, president of the NCBA. "However, we also believe in fair trade, and we believe we got the short end of that stick."

Willingham said the NCBA and Canadian Cattleman's Association (CCA) have not been successful in getting their governments to give them the leeway to trade as they would like.

"We are committed to free trade," said Ben Thorlakson, president of the CCA.

Almost half of the four hour meeting dealt with Sanitary Phytosanitary (SPS) and certification issues. The discussion revolved mostly around Brucellosis, Tuberculosis, Bluetongue and Anaplasmosis and the two countries approach to these health issues.

"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."

The group called for an immediate Ag Canada response to an APHIS inquiry concerning health issues and a time table for reaching some solutions to the problems.

The representatives also called for an accelerated time table in the harmonization of standards for drug use. They also wanted the results of such work publicized as 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.

While the debate of subsidies continued, the Canadian cattlemen said they would like to see all subsidies dropped including deficiency payments to U.S. farmers.

Schroeder said the consensus of opinion is to continue to collaborate on lowering grain subsidies for both nations as well as lowering restrictions of 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.

While the Canadian cattlemen have in the past declined to increase their data gathering systems, 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.

NCBA's initial decision was based on the association's policy of bilateral negotiations instead of expensive lawsuits as a way of controlling live cattle imports from Mexico and Canada.

Following NCBA's change in position, the Mexican Cattlemen's Association announced it would not support the live cattle portion of a Mexican dumping case against U.S. cattlemen and beef suppliers.

The Mexican government is investigating allegations U.S. producers have dumped live cattle, fresh chilled beef, frozen beef and variety meats on the Mexican market.

Industry analysts said they believe the Mexican action is a direct result of R-CALF's filing dumping charges against Mexico and Canada.

Canada is the number one export market for U.S. beef. Mexico is number two.