Day 069 - 19 Dec 94 - Page 50
1 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Can you keep your voice up, if you are
2 answering Ms. Steel? It has happened with other witnesses,
3 because you are both on the same side of the court. So
4 keep your voice up.
5
6 THE WITNESS: My answer is, in the beef industry it depends on
7 the quality of the feed that you give to the animal,
8 whether or not they gain more weight or less weight. You
9 can have good pastures, good grass and the animals will
10 gain weight at very fast grow rates.
11
12 You have also have to consider the environment. You also
13 have to consider the diseases. There are a lot of factors
14 that come into place that will determine how fast the
15 animal will grow.
16
17 Q. Presumably, they are not all the same breed, are they?
18 A. Yes; that is another point; there is different breeds,
19 and there is a lot of breeds.
20
21 MS. STEEL: You have specifications about the amount of fat
22 that is permissible in beef?
23 A. That is correct.
24
25 Q. Is it right to say that there is a difference between, say,
26 the average grain fed cattle and the average grass fed
27 cattle, in terms of the fat percentage of the beef?
28 A. It could be. There is a lot of factors to be taken
29 into consideration. It could be; it could be not. For
30 example, I have seen cattle in Argentina, as well as
31 Australia, that are as good as any cattle that I have seen.
32
33 Q. I am not talking about health; I am talking about in terms
34 of fat percentage?
35 A. I am talking about the amount of fat, yes. That is
36 what I was talking about.
37
38 Q. The fat to protein ratio?
39 A. That is what I meant.
40
41 Q. So when you say you have seen cattle, you are talking about
42 in the slaughterhouse, are you?
43 A. All over, as in cattle. I have seen analysis -- you
44 name it.
45
46 Q. You are not specifically talking about cattle that you have
47 seen out in the pastures or feed lots?
48 A. What I am saying is that I have seen cattle that comes
49 from pastures, that have -- for instance, Alfafa, very high
50 level nutrients who are supplemented with some kind of
51 feed; they come, they grow for a period of about two, three
52 years. They have as much fat as cattle that comes from
53 feed lots. It would depend on the quality of the
54 nutritional level, the age of the animal, the environment
55 in which he grew, the type of the breed that the animal
56 grew, the type of zone and the area in which the animal
57 grows. There are areas where animals are subjected to a
58 lot more stress, or not the same quality of animals. So it
59 is not -- you cannot make a general assumption. That is
60 difficult.
