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Consumers
can support country’s struggling farmers by buying Canadian beef
July
9, 2003 - Guelph – When buying beef at local grocery stores and
restaurants, consumers can do their part to help the country’s crippled
beef industry by insisting the beef they buy is Canadian.
Despite
the fact that the US border has remained closed to Canadian beef for seven
weeks, there continues to be a significant amount of imported beef making
its way into Canadian grocery stores and restaurants.
In fact, statistics show that imports of beef to Canada are
actually up by 20% per cent in the last month compared to a year ago.
This
increase in imports is partly due to the fact that there is a shortage of
the cuts of beef, like sirloin and T-bone steaks, that are most popular
during summer’s barbecuing season.
Grilling steaks,
however, only make up 28% of a beef carcass. Processors must also be able
to sell the remaining cuts of meat, cuts that are traditionally exported,
in order to be able to buy more cattle.
Canadians
who want to help beef producers can start eating more of the less
expensive cuts including marinating and simmering steaks, pot roasts,
rotisserie roasts and stewing beef – and demanding that their grocery
suppliers and area restaurants sell only Canadian products.
Recipes
for these cuts and others are available from the Beef Information
Centre’s (BIC) website at www.beefinfo.org
or through BIC’s toll free phone number at 1-888-248-2333.
Ron
Wooddisse, President of the Ontario Cattlemen’s Association, noted that
while Canada is bound by international trade agreements to allow a certain
amount of imported beef into the country, Canada has more than enough beef
right now to supply the domestic market if people buy from the variety of
cuts that are available. He added that it is unfortunate that beef is
being brought into the country at a time when there are hundreds of
thousands of Canadian cattle waiting to go to market.
Said
Wooddisse, “By increasing purchases of beef, we can help give producers
the domestic market they so desperately need for their animals.”
Wooddisse
also said that consumers can soon expect to see discounted prices on cuts
that are in oversupply at their local retailers. Producers are now getting
less than half of the price for their animals that they received prior to
the May 20 announcement of a single incident of BSE in the Canadian cattle
herd. Said Wooddisse, “Processors and retailers need to be doing their
part to help a struggling industry by passing these savings onto
consumers.”
In
Ontario, beef is the second largest commodity in terms of annual farm gate
receipts with a value of approximately $1.2 billion. Beef exports from
Ontario to the U.S.A., in 2002, were valued at $354 million in live cattle
and an additional $292 million in beef product. The current crisis is
estimated to be costing Ontario’s 21,000 beef producers in excess of $3
million per week.
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For
further information contact
Kelly
Daynard, Communications Manager, Ontario Cattlemen’s Association,
519-824-0334
OCA
Website: www.cattle.guelph.on.ca
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