Where is the Beef? Survey Seeks Input on Beef Cattle Code of Practice

Jul 24, 2012

Canadian Cattlemen’s Association Encourages Beef Producers to Participate

The Canadian Cattlemen’s Association (CCA) is currently seeking input from beef farmers on the Code of Practice relating to on-farm management cattle identification, dehorning and castration practices. Beef cattle producers who wish to provide feedback are encouraged to participate in the online survey.

“Now over half-way through its mandate, the beef code committee is seeking input on several key animal management practices in order to create guidelines that are both relevant and practical,” the CCA's Ryder Lee said in a release. “This is an important part of the process, have your say — complete the survey.”

The CCA wants to utilize the information provided from the survey to assist with updating the beef cattle Code of Practice for the National Farm Animal Care Council’s (NFACC) project that provides guideless for animal welfare practices for farm animals. The initiative is being funded by Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada through the Agricultural Flexibility Fund.

The 1991 was the last time that the code for beef cattle had been revised and since then, best practices for the beef industry have evolved and technological advancements have been made. An up-to-date code will help the beef cattle industry engage in a fact-based way about how beef cattle are to be raised and cared for by Canadian beef producers. The CCA’s leadership on this initiative is essential to the ongoing dialogue with the consumer.

The CCA represents Canada’s 83,000 beef farmers and act as an important advocacy group for the beef industry. The organization wants to ensure that Canadian cattle farmer’s voices are heard and that current industry practices are noted in the redevelopment for the Code of Practice. The NFACC hopes that the revised Code will be implemented by March 2013.

Video: Seeing the Whole Season: How Continuous Crop Modeling Is Changing Breeding

Plant breeding has long been shaped by snapshots. A walk through a plot. A single set of notes. A yield check at the end of the season. But crops do not grow in moments. They change every day.

In this conversation, Gary Nijak of AerialPLOT explains how continuous crop modeling is changing the way breeders see, measure, and select plants by capturing growth, stress, and recovery across the entire season, not just at isolated points in time.

Nijak breaks down why point-in-time observations can miss critical performance signals, how repeated, season-long data collection removes the human bottleneck in breeding, and what becomes possible when every plot is treated as a living data set. He also explores how continuous modeling allows breeding programs to move beyond vague descriptors and toward measurable, repeatable insights that connect directly to on-farm outcomes.

This conversation explores:

• What continuous crop modeling is and how it works

• Why traditional field observations fall short over a full growing season

• How scale and repeated measurement change breeding decisions

• What “digital twins” of plots mean for selection and performance

• Why data, not hardware, is driving the next shift in breeding innovation As data-driven breeding moves from research into real-world programs, this discussion offers a clear look at how seeing the whole season is reshaping value for breeders, seed companies, and farmers, and why this may be only the beginning.