‘We’ve got to start recognizing the value in our cull cows’

So says a former general manager of the Canadian cattlemen’s Association, noting that there is substantial killing capacity in Western Canada and that imports are likely to be curtailed

The Canadian cattle industry will have to change its attitude towards “cull” cattle in order to take advantage of a breakthrough made late last year on supplementary meat imports, says a former Canadian Cattlemen’s Association (CCA) leader.

Former general manager Charlie Gracey, now a beef industry consultant, says that in mid-December the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food recommended to the House of Commons that duty-free beef imports from Australia, New Zealand and South America be severely curtailed by limiting supplementary import permits to 1,500 tonnes. The Canadian Cattlemen's Association is confident that the changes will be made because both Liberal and Conservative members agree it should be done.

In 2002, 171,000 tonnes of beef were allowed into Canada under the import permits, amounting to nearly one in every four pounds of beef consumed. Gracey says that the imports of meat from cattle that weren’t fed to a high degree of finish in feedlots were unnecessary. Cows and bulls that would have yielded a similar amount of meat were exported to the United States. Gracey believes that imports were priced just low enough to make slaughter here uneconomical when American cow buyers were also bidding.

Beef imports using supplementary imports grew through the 1990s at the same time as more cattle went south of the border and Canadian packing plants were going out of business.

The challenge to the beef industry now is to continue to support a cow killing industry that has burgeoned since shipments of live cows were stopped on May 2003 because of the BSE crisis. There is substantial killing capacity for cows since the big plants in Western Canada started to kill cows and smaller plants such as Gencor, in Kitchener, came on stream. Cattle kill capacity in Canada totals 105,000 head a week compared to 72,000 head in 2002, says the CCA.

Gracey predicts that Canadian packers will pay more for cows when American buyers have access to cattle more than 30 months of age once more. That market will likely open up again some time this year.

“The challenge is directly on the cattle industry,” Gracey says. Farmers have to quit treating their older animals as culls. “One of the problems that we have with cows in Canada is that we market them seasonally… we’ve got to start recognizing the value in these cows.”

One of the reasons that importers sought the supplementary permits was to access large shipments of standardized products” with a consistent amount of visible lean meat. The Canadian industry must find a way to replace that meat, Gracey says. BF

Keith Reid is soil fertility specialist with the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs based in Stratford. keith.reid@ontario.ca