CCA: WTO Rules In Favour Of Canada On US COOL.

[burnt]

Add at least 10 cents/lb. freight plus extra shrink and you see why they don't come east very easily.

[kato]

Let's do a bit of math here.

A pot load of fat 1200 pound heifers loaded in Brandon. Say it's a 60,000 pound load, for easy calculation. That would make 50 heifers.

So a 1200 pound heifer, calculated after auction mart shrink, for easy figuring, is worth $180.00 less here in Manitoba.

Times that by 50 heifers, and that load cost $9000.00 less than Alberta price.

Does it cost $9000.00 to take a load of cattle from Brandon to Brooks, which is 997 km? That works out to $9.00 per loaded km. The long haul guys like to keep their charges a secret, so I really don't know what they charge. I do know that our local trucker charges us $3.50 per loaded km. to haul cows from the pasture in tri-axle trailers.

Maybe someone here has an inside track to the actual costs of moving those cattle. I'd really like to know how much of this discount is real extra expenses, and how much of it is there just because they can do it. I suspect that with $6.00 a loaded km, to work with, that there is some fudging going on.

[ASRG]

kato: I agree they are probably shafting you on the price. However........A few locals have moved to Manitoba and the costs are less....not necessarlily the feed or other things.....but the price of land? I have a friend who sold 1/2 section here and bought 9 1/4s at Virdon for the same money.......so maybe things work out?

[kato]

The price of land has less to do with day to day operating costs than the price of other inputs. Land is a long term spread out sort of expense. It's the day to day stuff that hurts. Tractors, trucks, fuel, fertilizer, and all that cost the same here as anywhere else.

But you will notice that it's someone from Alberta who bought the land you speak of in Virden. By Manitoba standards, it must have been too high priced for locals to buy. This province has a lot of farms that have been bought by people from Great Britain, Europe, and Alberta, and as a rule, after about 5 years, they're reduced to the same level as the rest of us schmucks. ;-)

So, to get back the the MCOOL subject, the sooner it's gone, the sooner we will have a chance to get back on track.

[grassfarmer]

I don't know the current trucking rates either Kato but that looks kind of suspicious. If Brooks is 1000kms from Brandon it would be about the same distance as Dakota Dunes - not sure what US plants Manitoba shipped to historically? I can certainly see how COOL is affecting Manitoba badly. From Brandon the Guelph,ON plant would be over 2000 kms. In your example with $9000 to haul a load of 50 fat heifers to Brooks equating to $9 a loaded km, they could equally be going to Guelph at $4.50 a loaded km - why isn't the Ontario plant bidding harder on MB cattle? are they running close to capacity with ON and QC cattle?