Feed grain

[ASRG]

The area I live in (east of Red Deer Alberta) pretty much limits what we can grow. Barley, some wheat(mostly CPS), canola and peas. We can't grow flax or lentils or corn or soybeans.
The best crops are barley and canola.
It used to be there were several hog barns in the area where you could sell all the barley you could produce....none of those barns are left.
The last several years all the barley in this area basically goes to feedlot alley at Lethbridge. If the XL plant closes there are going to be some of those feedlots closing their doors.
I wonder where we will sell our barley then? Will we have to truck it down to the feedlots in Iowa or Nebraska?

[ALLFARMER]

The ethanol plant at Red Deer?

[BreadWinner]

"WOW" Is all I can say. Living in eastern Sask. we grow the same crops as you and the all get bought up and used. Time to start looking around for a buyer and stop depending on feedlot alley to keep buying forever.

[ASRG]

Just wondering where do you sell your feed barley? Hog barns, feedlots, export?

[errolanderson]

Breadwinner . . . don't think you
realize how large and important feedlot
alley is to the Cdn barley market.

Picture Butte area is the key price
discovery for Cdn barley prices bar-
none. When the board was in total
control of exports, southern Alberta
consumed barley 10X greater than the
board export program. Board export
program was nothing more than shipping
our barley into Saudi Arabia for camel
feed where the Saudis re-distributed
through the middle east.

You hurt feedlot alley, you hurt the Cdn
barley market big-time. If XL goes down
affecting Alberta feedlots, you will
feel the hurt all the way into
Saskatchewan. And you will find it
difficult to find a home for your feed
as a result.

Just wait until the U.S. has a large
corn crop and the importance of the
Alberta feed market will stand out like
a sore thumb across the prairies.

[BreadWinner]

We haven't grown barley in 5 years, we got tired
of the malt game and subsidizing the livestock
industry with cheap feed barley. It's pretty easy to
get in a routine when farming and marketing. It
may not hurt to feel out other markets just in case
things start going south in feedlot alley. We have
learnt not to depend on the cheque always being
good living down the road from Bigsky.

[HappyFarmer]

Doubt you were subsidizing the beef industry 5
years ago bread. Remember a thing called
BSE?.....

[riders2010]

Sounds like xl is God in the alberta area, maybe that is why they felt they could do what ever they wanted without any consequences.

Should they open up and operate at any standard just so feed grains could get sold? just for jobs?

How about looking at alternatives, grow different crops, or look to other slaughter facilities, even different system of feeding where the animals aren.t up to their eyeballs in manure. Just a thought.

Find it interesting that in this whole mess no one is talking to consumers on what they think of this. Many people I talked to in town had no idea thousands of animals were all churned into one big hamburger at that place. Didn,t know either the way the inspection was done many not impressed. Arent they the ones that will dictate how this mess gets sorted out. if they don,t trust what is being done are they gonna buy beef?

Mr. Stewart from Sk. was the only one politically that seems to get the fact that the ball is being dropped in terms of the optics of this mess.

[ASRG]

riders: Was XL doing things wrong? Nilsson brothers operated the plant since 2009 without the CFIA raising a peep....were they operating a pig pen before September 3rd....when the first load was caught?
I don't know. I wasn't there....the CFIA inspectors were and they said it was all good!
We need an independent inquiry if we ever hope to learn what went wrong? Why aren't we getting one?

The feeding/packing industry in Alberta has evolved to what it is for a reason.....that was what worked? If we are going to fatten cattle on rustic pastures and process them in little slaughter houses someone is going to have to pay a lot more for that product? But wait....the consumer doesn't have to....they can eat chicken. Or if they prefer beef and Canadian beef is too costly they can buy cheaper products from the US or Australia?
Cargill and XL can compete for one reason......they are big and they can access cheap feedlot cattle. Without the huge feedlots and the big packers, we won't have much of a livestock industry in western Canada.
Now if I could just grow canola every year....!

[BreadWinner]

I'll correct myself, we weren't subsidizing the
cattle producer we we subsidizing the feedlot
industry. We were a 250 cow calf operation till
2007, got tired of working for free. All those
neighbors that didnt have cows received nice
cheques from the gov while we got none for
working all year long. It sure did not pay to be a
mixed farmer before or during BSE. Now we just
wait at the trough just like everyone else. If we
have a crop failure they can't tell us that our cattle
made up for our loss on the grain side. During
BSE the crops were better so they told us the
better grain side made up for our loss on the
cattle side. Gov programs sure didn't benifit those
that went ad diversified.

[errolanderson]

riders2010 . . . Alberta cattle feeding
numbers rival Nebraska / Kansas, only
Texas is larger. And most of these
cattle are finished within a 15 to 20
mile area.

My concern is impact on generational
feedlot operations. Feeders are now
heard losing up to $300 per head mostly
due to the state of the North American
economy, but XL mess has also pressured
bids.

Personally was bullish barley prices
into spring, but now . . . not so sure
depending on the outcome.

[riders2010]

Why wouldn't 5 or 6 packing plants geographically spread out work? The reason this system has developed is like everything else. The big boys that scream about gov involvement are the first ones and biggest ones to rake in any gov program. Where did all the gov money go to during bse? not the producers, but the fat cats spreading their bullshit that gov has no business in the economy. Yet they used gov money to kill off the smaller guys that wanted to start things. Our Prime Minister just donated 18 million to some african country, how far would that have gone to improve our beef system here in Canada?

There needs to be an entire new way of thinking. Start with a quality product, educate people about the product. These cattle organizations are failing the industry miserably because they are pocket puppets for the gov thinking that the mega factory production system is the way to go.

You can believe what ever you want about the big feedlot big processor that you want. I know when I bought beef more than once at retail more times than not the stench while cooking turned my appetite off. Is it the growth hormones constant antibiotics in the feed, shit up to the eyeballs, I don't know but talk to people many will tell you the same thing.

If you want the big outfit strictly for export fine if other countries don't care that is up to them, but I think plenty of market is lost worldwide because of what is done to those animals after it leaves most cow calf opertations and all the chemical growth begins.

As far as CFIA there obviously is some sort of problem with that system, but if xl or anyone else was cleanly run and knew what was coming out of their plant and had some honesty and ethics, whether cfia was there or not would be irrelivant wouldn't it.

I asked you previously because I do not know, is the system operating where xl simply reports to the cfia about what they find or is cfia active on the floor doing their own tests as production is going on?

The reason I ask is because much was made about xl not reporting to cfia in a timely manner so what was that all about?

[jethro456]

Breadwinner, dont you think there are many feedlots
in the situation as you. Many are feedlot/grain
farms and when losing money on cattle, the grain
side keeps them out of a payment position. The only
farms around here that have been sold because of
financial issues in the last 5 years have been
feedlots.

[BreadWinner]

Yes, allot of mixed operations are in trouble because programs are not designed to help when half your business is loosing money. If want to diversify best to start a whole different company so if you loose money you still qualify for help.

[ASRG]

riders: I haven't been in a packing plant for a long time but at Cargill, High River around 1995 the company had an onsite lab to test for various things. I assume XL probably is the same.

We had regional plants. They all went broke....why would it be any different if we did it again?
Economy of scale actually works in the beef packing sector.

At the end of the day every business has to make a dollar....otherwise why do it? There is no reason anyone can't start up a packing plant? Why isn't that happening....because there is no money in it! They simply could never compete with the likes of Cargill and XL. Ranchers Choice in Rockyview county tried....they went belly up within 6 months....a brand new state of the art mid sized plant!

XL may very well close their doors after the financial hit they have taken. Love them or hate them, Brian and Lee Nilsson know how to make a buck and they won't lose their shirts to keep the cattle business going.