Roaming with the bison
Yesterday I drove out to Red Deer for a Bison Producers meeting. I admit to being completely fascinated with the bison industry. It's such a niche market,and such an interesting heritage animal. One of the women involved with the administrative centre said, "If you're a rancher, you want to be different. If you're a bison rancher, you want to be REALLY different."
I believe this is 100% true. I sat through a number of presentations including one about food safety and security, which involved discussions about knowing and tracing all animals in case of a disease outbreak. I also learned that needle breakage is a major concern in the meat industry. Basically, if you break off a needle in an animal (which happens every once in a while), you have to fill out a bunch of reports to ensure that that needle does not get into the food system. If it gets into an order that is going to another country (like Japan), this could be catastrophic and could shut down trade.
Following this presentation, I sat through another on bison as conservation animals. This should have been a fascinating presentation as it was led by a guy who was a biologist on musk ox and bison in the North West Territories. Sadly, it wasn't. I did learn that there are two cattle for every person in Alberta. Huh. There's also a movement to bring bison back to the plains, but I don't think that this will really happen as there are just too many other groups who want to use land, and I can't picture herds of wild bison just running across prairies filled with oil workers etc.
I sat through presentation on building websites to market your bison products, and marketing lessons from the Bison industry, both of which made me really excited.
The more I learn, the more I don't believe that the whole eat local campaign is completely sustainable. I definitely believe in supporting local industry, and in trying to buy local. But the infrastructure of food systems is already too dependent on imports and exports and it's way too integrated into the global system. Sure, eat local, try to support industry and keep the money in your community, but don't ever expect that international trade is going to disappear any time soon. For example, the cattle and bison industry in Alberta was hit hard when the international borders closed in 2003, due to the BSE outbreak. Many bison producers got out of the industry because they just couldn't exist without the US market. This all happened even though there was not a single case of BSE found in bison, and people aren't even sure if bison can contact the disease. Alberta, as a province, is a net producer, which means the province produces more than it can consume. People sell local, but they also depend on exports to make their living. So yeah, local food is super important, but I don't think it will solve all the problems.
I believe this is 100% true. I sat through a number of presentations including one about food safety and security, which involved discussions about knowing and tracing all animals in case of a disease outbreak. I also learned that needle breakage is a major concern in the meat industry. Basically, if you break off a needle in an animal (which happens every once in a while), you have to fill out a bunch of reports to ensure that that needle does not get into the food system. If it gets into an order that is going to another country (like Japan), this could be catastrophic and could shut down trade.
Following this presentation, I sat through another on bison as conservation animals. This should have been a fascinating presentation as it was led by a guy who was a biologist on musk ox and bison in the North West Territories. Sadly, it wasn't. I did learn that there are two cattle for every person in Alberta. Huh. There's also a movement to bring bison back to the plains, but I don't think that this will really happen as there are just too many other groups who want to use land, and I can't picture herds of wild bison just running across prairies filled with oil workers etc.
I sat through presentation on building websites to market your bison products, and marketing lessons from the Bison industry, both of which made me really excited.
The more I learn, the more I don't believe that the whole eat local campaign is completely sustainable. I definitely believe in supporting local industry, and in trying to buy local. But the infrastructure of food systems is already too dependent on imports and exports and it's way too integrated into the global system. Sure, eat local, try to support industry and keep the money in your community, but don't ever expect that international trade is going to disappear any time soon. For example, the cattle and bison industry in Alberta was hit hard when the international borders closed in 2003, due to the BSE outbreak. Many bison producers got out of the industry because they just couldn't exist without the US market. This all happened even though there was not a single case of BSE found in bison, and people aren't even sure if bison can contact the disease. Alberta, as a province, is a net producer, which means the province produces more than it can consume. People sell local, but they also depend on exports to make their living. So yeah, local food is super important, but I don't think it will solve all the problems.