Age Verification Will Enhance Canada's Access to World Beef Markets

Source: Saskatchewan Agriculture and Food

Age verification is the way of the future for Canada’s beef industry, as both the country and Saskatchewan rebuild their export markets, according Saskatchewan Agriculture and Food (SAF) Livestock Development Specialist Bob Klemmer.

“Saskatchewan, like elsewhere in Canada, is very dependant on export markets," he says. "When BSE came along, we lost all of those export markets, and we are just starting to gain them back. Prior to BSE, Canada exported over 60 per cent of its annual beef production.”

Several of Canada’s main export markets, including the USA and Japan, have requirements around verifying the age of animals or the age of beef from animals for import.

“Dentition, of course, is available to identify cattle/beef under 30 months of age destined for the U.S.," he explains. "Japan, however, requires that imported beef be verified as being under 21 months of age, which requires other methods of verification, such as the Canadian Cattle Identification Agency’s (CCIA) voluntary and free-of-charge birth-date registration system and database.”

While Japan and the USA accept the CCIA’s birth-date registration system for age verification for export, Cam Daniels, the vice president of the Canadian Beef Export Federation (CBEF), says that, currently, there are not enough age-verified cattle to fill Japanese orders for beef under 21 months of age.

“We need more birth-date-based, age-verified beef to be available for export," Daniels says. "So I invite all beef producers to get their beef cattle and calf birth dates registered with the CCIA database. Indications are that age-verified calves are receiving a premium in some markets”.

One of the reasons why producers should register the age of their calves is that more young beef will then become available for export.

Producers will benefit from this, especially if they retain ownership through to slaughter, comments SAF’s Klemmer.

“The registration makes sense, especially to people who hang on to their calves because they will get direct benefit from it. But for producers in general, it also makes sense because you just don’t know what will happen next year in terms of your calf crop. You may decide to hang on to some of them, or you may decide to take an ownership position in a feedlot. In that case, you need to have those numbers in the database.”

Producers should know that feedlots with ties to beef packers trying to fill the Japanese export market will be looking for age-verified calves, and may have to bid more aggressively for these calves, he says.

“However two things have to happen to make this work: first, you need to get your calves' birth dates verified through the CCIA Age Verification Database, and second, you have to be prepared to market your calves as Age-Verified.”

The CCIA database has been enhanced to include birth date and other management data at the request of the beef industry. The process of age verification is simply a matter of linking up the birth date information to the animal’s tag number, according to Megan Gauley, Communications Co-ordinator with the CCIA.

“Beef producers can enter the birth dates of calves for up to 10 years back," she explains. "Individual birth dates, while nice to have, are not required as long as you have records to verify the dates of your calving period.”

This means that, with the ability to cross-reference with cattle ID numbers, there is no reason why today’s slaughter cattle couldn’t be age-verified by birth date, but beef producers must first get the information entered onto the database.

Gauley invites all beef producers or their proxies to enter their birth date information on-line to the database.

“The starting place," she says, "is the CCIA website at www.canadaid.com."

According to Bob Klemmer, some cattle markets have expressed interest in developing special sales for age-verified cattle, which would be of benefit to both cattle producer and buyer. However, there are still not enough cattle with verified birth dates to do so.

With the ability to verify the age of calves and finished cattle using the birth date information that cattlemen can enter themselves onto the CCIA database, beef export sales have an opportunity to grow once again. The data can be entered by the producer or by or by someone else who has access to the internet.

For more information, contact:

R.G. (Bob) Klemmer, MAg, PAg
Livestock Development Specialist
Saskatchewan Agriculture and Food
(306) 848-2380