Why is the CCIA still giving away calving books in 2025?

Beef’s competitors are investing billions into genetic engineering, machine learning, cellular protein reactors, and sophisticated social media strategies to try to displace our product.

So how is it helpful that the Canadian Cattle Identification Agency (our agency responsible for the technology that sustains confidence in the safety of our product) still offering free card board booklets on social media, presenting them as state of the art, and a tool that will “support your production management decisions.”

Exactly the same calving books provided to Canadian ranchers since at least 1925, and probably 1825.

We claim it is some failing of youth that they are not entering the livestock industry. And then we publicly present cardboard booklets as a key management tool in our industry. Any young person seeing this would reasonably assume our industry lacks the management tools, innovation capacity, and profitability to survive to the end of this year, let alone the next decade.

Our customers are accustomed to products whose provenance can be traced back to a specific lamb or plot of land. How can we sustain their confidence in beef when we publicly present as industry standard something that, more likely than not, will end up lost in a pasture?

And we claim we want to expand export markets. Our competitors can point to this and compellingly argue that ranchers relying on pencil and paper lack the digital tools necessary to irrefutably and immutably assure the quality and safety of Canada’s beef exports.

At Flokk Systems we are ready to do our part. We need to work together to move our industry forward, not continue to subsidize what are unarguably obsolete data management tools.