The Future of Canada's Cattle/Beef Industry

[rkaiser]

Stir on ValueChainFX stir on. Don't give up on the present Alberta Government like ABP has. These folks are listening and deserve credit rather than the ABP disgust when they are pointing out truth, responsibility, and a need for a new long term strategy like the current Ag ministers office is doing.

[Bez]

GF

Solutions were not asked for in the initial question.

The question asked where do we see the industry going.

I have mentioned several in past posts - however the whining of the rancher / farmer has basicially driven me to run my own program.

I have no faith that there is an organization that is prepared to go out on a limb and seek radical change. Most have become very self serving.

We sell everything out the front gate now.

To hell with the buyers, sale barns, packers and their ilk.

A pox on the various orgs that would rather travel to exotic places and spend MY membership dues.

And the politicians? Well they are truly tired of hearing from us. I know several sitting members of parliament personally and they have all told me the ag groups as a whole are not well thought of.

Always asking for money and never managing to come up with true long term solutions.

You can argue that point any way you like - and in fact I would likely agree with those arguments - but we are not well liked for many reasons - in my opinion - mostly because we have created those attitudes.

The fact remains the pollies look for the vote - and we do not have that power when we sit at roughly 2% of the population.

Off to sell another couple to a small restaurant - have a good one.

Bez

[kato]

I know I'm showing my age here, but we started in cattle in the pre-loss of the crow era, when the beef industry in Canada was a lot smaller than it is now. Grain was paying the bills at that time, and most of the ones in cattle were those who did it because they had land suited to it, or just because they liked cattle and wanted to make a cow herd their life's work. Farms were a lot more diversified, and the average cow herd was a lot smaller than today. The loss of the Crow, and the disappearance of profit from the grain industry brought a whole lot of people to the beef business who would probably never be there otherwise. We saw an absolutely massive expansion in cattle numbers and producers.

I think a worst case scenario is that the Canadian beef industry drops back to that level.

Is that a bad thing? I'm not sure. I guess it's bad for the big packers and those in the export business, but on the other hand, this is one way to become less dependent on exports, as we are told we should do. Would a big multinational leaving the country open up opportunities for Canadians to take more control?

I think that as long as there is grain being grown, there will be byproducts that can only be used by cattle, so a smaller national herd could make good use of it, and at a more reasonable price than today. More byproducts from the expanded grain business, and less competition from the reduced number of cattle feeders could help our cost of gains a lot. Straw, DDG, screenings, light barley and oats all need a home, and can only really be used very efficiently by cattle.

The main question is who will go and who will stay? If this scenario actually played out, would life eventually get better for those who stay, assuming they survived long enough to see it?

So would this be a reduction in our industry, or a return to it's previous historical size?