Bob Lowe was elected president of the Canadian Cattlemen’s Association (CCA) on March 13, 2020. Coincidentally, that was a Friday, and if you’re at all superstitious, you might see that as foreshadowing. By the next week, the country was in lockdown in an effort to slow COVID.
Over the next two years, the beef industry faced one crisis after another, from COVID outbreaks at the packers to drought to railway issues. Lowe discusses how the CCA dealt with those issues in this interview with Canadian Cattlemen editor Lisa Guenther, right before the CCA’s AGM last month.
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But some positives have emerged from COVID, Lowe says, including greater public awareness about food. Another big step forward was increased collaboration between the CCA and the National Cattle Feeders Association, as well as with other sectors in agriculture and with the federal government, he adds. That collaboration led to tangible change, such as improvements to AgriStability, he adds. Lowe often quotes past CCA president Stan Eby, who said, “Working together works.”
Other highlights include achieving negligible risk status for BSE with the World Organization for Animal Health and how Canada’s beef industry was able to flip the environmental script at the UN Food Security Summit last fall. Lowe also discusses the need to balance all three pillars of sustainability (including the environment, economics and social sustainability).
Highlights from this interview were included in the April 21 edition of Between the Rows, Glacier Farm Media’s weekly podcast. Fawn Jackson, CCA’s director of policy and international affairs, also shared her thoughts on the federal budget; and Reg Schellenberg, the new CCA president, outlined a few of his priorities. Catch the full episode here.
