How Lucky We Are

Hello again!
I just yesterday returned from a seven day tour of Costa Rica in Central America. It was absolutely amazing, beautiful, warm and sunny. On the tour, I had many opportunities to look at the Bos Indicus cattle grazing in their pastures. Some of the cattle were pretty homely, I must say. It made me realize that we, as Canadians and Albertans, are incredibly lucky to have access to the best beef cattle genetics in the world. Beef in Costa Rica is incredibly expensive, due to severe shortage of suitable pastureland and the resulting small size of the national herd. The average herd was probably 15-20 head of mostly Brahman and Zebu cows. The farmers were poor and I was lead to believe that inbreeding was a frequent occurrence when the farmer couldn't afford a new herdsire, so simply picked the best of his bull calves and ran him for another two or three seasons. Despite being known for incredible heat and parasite resistance, most of the cattle were thin and showed poor muscling and poor structure. They appeared to be inefficient as well because most of them were surrounded by bright green fields of belly deep grass. Perhaps a lack of new genetics and poor funding for beef research in the country has allowed the national herd to slip into a state of disrepair.
On a lighter note, locals do keep large herds of both Holstein and Jersey milking cows higher up in the cooler mountain ranges. These cattle looked a lot like the milk cattle we have here in Canada, the Holsteins were large and efficient in their appearance, and several mountainous communities rely on their dairies (Lecherias en espanol) to produce income through cheese and ice cream production. I'll post some pictures when they get downloaded. Anyway, overall I think we can be proud as Albertans to look out over our herds and see efficiency and quality in our cattle. We are lucky to be so strong in the world market.