Tainted Beef: One plant supplies Canada coast to coast

Jeff Green | Oct 04, 2012

Editorial by Jeff Green

I don’t usually comment on national news stories, but something caught my attention this week. The story about e-coli in beef produced at a single plant in Alberta did not seem to be of local interest at first. Then it came out that the XL plant in Brooks, Alberta, supplies 1/3 of all the beef sold in Canada, and any of our readers who shop at Loblaws or Your Independent Grocers stores might have purchased some of that beef, which sells all across the country.

XL is owned by Nilsonn Brothers Inc., which has its hand in various aspect of the livestock business in Alberta, from feed lot operations, to cattle auctions, to processing. It is a conglomeration of a number of smaller operations that has grown to become a key player in the food supply of the entire country.

Canada has the second largest land mass of any country in the world and a population of 34 million people, and quite apart from being concerned about this particular outbreak of e-coli, the fact that 1/3 of the beef that is sold in the country is from a single plant is pretty staggering.

The knock against local food has been that it is never going to get to the point that it can serve masses of people. It’s fine for the few who have access to farmers and farm gate stores but maybe it is unrealistic as a solution for large populations.

While it is true that local food has its limitations, certainly there is a problem on the other end of the food spectrum, when economies of scale tip towards madness.

To put it another way, how many farms must a truck carrying beef from Brooks, Alberta, pass on its way to PEI?

Certainly there are enough beef producers in Eastern Ontario to feed Eastern Ontario residents, and the scale of the XL recall can easily be seen as an object lesson in how food sovereignty, the guaranteed access to a safe food supply for a given population, is threatened by mega agribusiness.

Opposition politicians are attacking the government for cutting back on food inspections, which is all well and good, but perhaps some thought should be put to governments promoting the development of mid and small-scale agribusiness (that’s a modern way of saying family farms) to serve regional needs.