Fresh funds for feeder cattle co-operatives

by SUSAN MANN

The provincial government is boosting funding for the Ontario Feeder Cattle Co-operative program to a maximum of $130 million and that will help more people buy cattle.

Cheryl Russwurm, program supervisor for the co-op program, says the funding increase will enable the co-ops to take on new members and increase borrowings for existing members. The program utilizes a provincial guarantee to provide competitive lending rates to members of all 19 co-operatives in Ontario to buy feeder cattle. In 2007, the Ontario Cattlemen’s Association agreed to administer the interest-free provision under the Federal Agriculture Marketing Programs Act with the Ontario Feeder Cattle Co-operative program. The cattlemen’s association also administers the program on behalf of the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs.

“We probably had four co-ops that were turning people away from wanting to be members and some of their current members were wanting to increase their borrowings with the co-op,” she says. But that wasn’t possible with the previous level of funding of $80 million.

“We had basically jiggled money as much as we could across the 19 co-ops that we have,” Russwurm says.

Since the program’s inception in November 1990, more than 3,000 members have purchased more than 1.3 million feeder cattle. Some of the principles of the program include: the board of directors or each co-op approves members and their purchase requests, a five per cent assurance deposit is required, cattle are bought and sold in the name of the co-op and currently members can borrow up to a maximum of $250,000.

Russwurm says the cattlemen’s association on behalf of its farmers and members of the co-ops had requested the government increase funding for the program. Of the amount announced by the province, she says “it’s a very, very awesome thing.”

The co-ops negotiate loans with lenders to be able to provide reasonably priced and secured loans for their membership to buy feeder cattle. The co-ops can normally negotiate a fairly attractive interest rate compared to what the average producer can get, especially an 18 to 25-year-old farmer, she says.

The program is popular among young farmers. Russwurm says for the past 15 years about 25 per cent of the membership has been producers under the age of 35.  BF