What is this?

[cowman]

My hog growing neighbor tells me the banks are tightening up the money in the hog business. Apparently they are moving to a one month operating loan for any hog farmer with a large debt load, even though they are current on their payments. So for example if you need $5000/month to operate they give you $5000 and you need to pay that back at the end of the month before they advance you next months $5000!
He also says any loans for expansion are practically impossible to get.
Why is this happening? Hogs have been pretty darned good in the last little while and they recently won the latest US "hog wars"? Do these bankers know something is coming down the pipes that will finish off the hog business?
I don't know how it is where you live but around here the hog men are getting out as fast as they can. The smaller guys pretty well got cleaned out in the crash of 99 and the ones left are those 250-600 sow types, who weathered the storm with a great loss of equity. Now they seem to be walking?
I can remember the days when hogs were a pretty good deal and a whole lot of farms were paid for with hogs, as well as a whole lot of families raised! Now it seems to be a losing situation where the only ones who will be raising hogs are the mega barns. Something isn't quite right in this country?

[farmers_son]

Premium Pork Canada has gone bankrupt. The company had 40,000 sows and producted 300,000 weanling pigs per year in 18 barns in Ontario and Manitoba.

[wd40]

The forcast is that the glut of cull beef will hit the market some day. And when it does it will flod the market with cheap beef and devastate the hog industry.

[farmers_son]

I see Ted Haney is back telling us how much beef he can export after his failed attempt to be a Liberal MP. Haney has been spinning grand tales of beef exports for years but they never happen. The United States is the largest importer of beef in the world and anyone who believes that market will ever be irrelevant is taking a very optimistic view of world beef trade. Last time I checked we had a case of BSE and we had no export markets other than the U.S. while the world markets were being filled by countries that haven’t announced a BSE positive, Australia, New Zealand, and the South American countries. Our industry is down on its knees bleeding to death, only kept alive by infusions of tax payer dollars and Haney is telling the Yanks they had better watch out...I can see the Americans rolling on the ground holding their sides from laughing too much. What a joke :--(

[jensend]

so what's your suggestion for a strategy for the future? go back to 2002? r-calf has a taste of blood and will challenge every animal entering the states from here because they know we are their real competition. we produce every bit as good a product as they do and we can do it cheaper largely because of land costs. we have to make the american market a premium we take whenever we have the option but not be totally reliant on it. i'm glad to see someone like haney saying what ranchers have been saying for the last ten months. dealing with the americans is like dealing with gypsies so don't give them the upper hand. we did and look what happened.

[jensend]

Haney is one individual. CBEF can, and will be a force. This crisis has forced all of us, and especially CBEF to open their eyes to offshore exports. The main reason we were growing slowly in the past, as far as offshore exports, was the relation to the American market. Cargil and Tyson are American companies. The ease of doing business with their own country was obvious.

I do believe that there is an opportunity here, albeit down the road a bit. If CBEF can start working on these offshore markets now, prior to new Canadian packing capacity, we will be in a pretty good position come late 2005.

If anybody has questions concerning countries accepting Canadian Beef, or coming on line soon, contact CBEF. There are some very good people working with that group, and most have lost that "open the border and nothing else" atttitude.

One thing that we will have to swallow like a big full spoon of cooked turnips, is the fact that the mutinationals will also gain from the work CBEF will do.
It will take me more than the rest of my life to forgive these pirates for taking advantage of this crisis, and I will avoid them at all costs. However, if we hope to get this industry back on it's feet, we need to slaughter animals. They stand at the front of the line whenever a trade delegation from Asia, or any other country comes to town, and will until we can find a way to slow this "biggest is best" attitude that society has taken.

[whiteface]

It worries me that the first of the four points is still "to get the border open." I apologize to everyone for sounding pessimistic but to me that translates into more begging, pleading, waiting, bleeding and no action to make us independant. I'm sick to death of all thier talking and not a whole lot of action. I sure would like to see the word "testing" in one of those points. We have no shot at exports or rattling the U.S. without it. Canadian politicians will just sit back and wait for the states to get traceback and Cool and then dump us before they wake up and decide to try and make us independant. Sorry guys for my doom and gloom and then running off, I'm running out of fight this morning. Thanks for letting me vent and good luck to you all.

[kato]

Traceback and cool are the topics of hot debate in the States right now. I would be surprised if they could get that sorted out any time soon.

We have the jump on them in that department, and we should use the advantage. When/if they slip up and find a positive cow, it'll take years for them to get it together enough to do a traceback like we can.

No need to go down with their ship when that happens. I think the emphasis on opening the border is also necessary, because an open American border will mean lots of others opening up too. It'll make things move faster when we have the plants running.

There's also the issue of cash flow until our plants get going.

[cakadu]

What I would like to see are some of the ideas that CBEF has for opening up new markets. What strategies are they going to take?

They will need to look at doing things differently than in the past as those did not materialize into more markets. First and foremost we will have to be willing to listen to what it is the customer wants and is willing to pay for and not tell them what we have for sale. Those days are long gone and if we hope to ever become a force in the global marketplace, we will have to do what the customer wants. In the past, that has been the biggest stumbling block - trying to sell what we have grown, not grow what we can sell.

[pandiana]

What Ted Haney has said is merely paraphrasing of the CCA/Dept of Agriculture program. What I love about it is that he says it with conviction! Like a leader. We need to have a focus if we are going to mobilize this industry in a positive way.

[jensend]

i just hope haney and his organization have the juice in ottawa to kick some cfia ass and get some testing protocols to open up the new markets as increased capacity comes online.

[blackjack]

... hope someone can answer this question ...after I feed that calf for one year what will I get paid maybe 200 $ /head less... just curious...

[BFW]

Blackjack, remember this is a voluntary program. You do not have to enrol or you can enrol, feed them or take the money and sell them. You are getting $200/hd for 40% ofyour calf crop and can do as you see fit. It's a better deal than keeping those calves and backgrounding them on your own dime.

[blackjack]

BFW...I don't sell my calves in the fall but from what I read a person had to put 40 % of your calf crop in the program to collect... glad to see your comments very informative...

[blackjack]

Don't want to run down the program as I feel this one will be pretty hard for the packers to take advantage of, however, has anyone ever considered that there may actually be 40% or more of the 2003 calf crop yet to be killed?
Seems to me that we already had this program in place last year without the 200 bucks.