Ranchers Choice Dead?

[ddniak]

Just read in the Winnipeg Sun that the Manitoba Govt. is pulling out of Ranchers Choice effectively killing the project.

[cowman]

It doesn't look good. Sadly the whole thing was sort of a gong show right from the start...when they started talking about moving a plant from the states...including the building! Anybody who had a brain knew that was silly?
I think reality started to actually set in somewhere along the line?
Hey I hate to burst anyones bubble, but meat packing is a dirty tough business...and if you want to succeed you have to face reality? These half baked "dreams" just won't cut it? It has to be "big time" not some half baked scheme that will fail? How many of those have we been exposed to?
I ask you...because I really don't know...how are the Spruce Grove plant, the Pincher Creek plant, the Salmon Arm plant doing?
Think back...what was I saying?
The dream of being in the meat packing industry...is it real? You're going to head to head with people who know what they are doing....GOOD LUCK!

[grassfarmer]

No, you are going against people who have a grossly unfair advantage over you rather than "knowing what they are doing" If you think going "big time" against the heavily subsidised US owned packers is the way to create competition fair enough - insist that BIG-C or some other group representing producers gets the multi-million dollar aid the original big guys got to set up a plant. Because it has been made clear that Government will not support such an effort many smaller plant proposals were put forward to try and sneak under the radar and still be small enough that producer groups could actually finance them. Only Ranchers Beef seems to have made a go of it - moving from a small packer to a moderate sized packer. It is a sad day when we realise these other plants will not be built because we are all in deeper trouble.
I note that packing plants / kill capacity are no longer considered an issue by ABP/CCA based on the fact that the big two are killing under their maximum capacity. They claim this problem has been solved yet the evidence does not support that. Under capacity or not it is clear that the fat cattle market is being distorted by these players switching between slaughtering captive cull cows and young fats. This is undoubtedly affecting the calf prices received by producers this fall so it affects us all.
I fail to see how mocking the people who have tried desperately hard to improve the situation through building independent slaughter capacity is of any benefit to us producers - whether it be Cowman or ABP.

[cowman]

Well I don't think I was "mocking" them? Just pointing out, like you say, that these things just aren't going to happen? That's just the way it is in Canada?
How much money went down the drain in Manitoba? Producers money and taxpayers money? How much producer money in Alberta?
I thought the BIGC proposal was about the best but the government wouldn't go for it, the CCA wouldn't go for it, the ABP wouldn't go for it? What does that tell you?...it isn't going to happen?
Now maybe in an ideal world it would? Maybe you need to vote in a government that will support these things? Now just get out there and convince 15 million Canadians that is how to go!

[kato]

The Manitoba government never did have any intention of backing this plant. I think if they'd have been honest at the start, either producers would have stepped up to the plate and supported it, or it would have died earlier in the process before so much investment had been made. Now they have this windfall money from the new checkoff fund, designed to expand packing capacity in the province, and I'd like to know what they are planning to do with it.

I'm thinking that the checkoff is their backdoor out of having to commit to anything rural. With nothing to spend the money on, the refund requests will come in fast and furious. If we all request refunds, they will say that Manitoba cattle producers aren't interested in supporting the new capacity, and they will be able to walk away blaming us.

The whole thing just stinks. The government told the people at Rancher's Choice that they were behind them 100%, and would do whatever they could to help, but haven't even come close to what they originally said they'd do. Roseanne Wowchuk hasn't changed a word of the speech she wrote the day after the border closed, and as far as I'm concerned has never meant a word of it either.

In the meantime, the costs have gone through the roof, and time is against them. The general manager was laid off today.

The NDP have made a very big deal patting themselves on the back about the BSE emergency loans that they handed out. These were for a maximum of $50,000. Lots of people took the maximum. What they didn't say at the time was that they needed to be repaid over 5 years. This comes out to over 11,000 a year. The only good thing about these loans is the fairly decent interest rate, even though it's been raised twice now. Considering the border is still not open to cows, and life is not 'back to normal' in our business, I think the least they could have done was term the repayment over a longer period. There was an option to defer the first year's payment, but that meant the five payments would be spread among the last four years. Bigger payments yet. The only way to term it out longer is to give them a mortgage on your land. Just what everyone needs, another mortgage. It's interesting to note that these loans are due at the end of October, and the auction marts were flooded with calves right before that, to the point that prices were affected. The BSE crisis is not over yet, only in the minds of our illustrious leaders in Winnipeg.

This is a very anti-agricultural government we have here, and there is an election coming up. They are devoting their energy to getting the city votes now.