Farmers struggle to expand Ontario beef herd

Wednesday, January 6, 2016

by JIM ALGIE

Expansion has yet to begin among Ontario’s relatively small beef cow herd, Beef Farmers of Ontario (BFO) President Bob Gordanier told a large audience of more than 300 farmers, Wednesday.

The Dufferin County-based Gordanier was part of a heavily-attended session on the opening day of the annual Grey-Bruce Farmers’ Week and has spent much of his BFO term arguing for increased cattle production in Ontario, citing relatively high prices, strong export prospects and the elimination recently of trade impediments with the United States over Country of Origin Labelling. Despite two years of unprecedented prosperity in beef cattle markets until recently, however, Ontario farmers have yet to invest seriously in expansion.

Several Beef Day speakers concentrated on growth, including Tom Hamilton, provincial government beef systems lead, who spoke about the profitability of large-scale cow herds. During a six-person panel that closed the session, two young Bruce and Huron County farmers expressed optimism about their recent investments in beef.

Lucknow-area cow-calf operator Elliott Miller said his 80-cow herd wouldn’t likely be where it is without the help of a neighbouring couple. They noticed his interest in cattle as a teenager as they prepared for retirement and helped him establish his current herd through the sale of a dozen foundational cows.

Teeswater-area cattle feeder Brendan Zettler, who farms with his parents and siblings, also works off-farm as a sales agronomist with Parrish & Heimbecker, Limited (P&H) at Amberley. With degrees in both teaching and agriculture, Zettler chose to farm because it’s his passion.

Asked in an interview later about the current prospects for cattle herd expansion, Zettler said his P&H clients are actively talking up beef.

“They are optimistic for the future,” Zettler said of farmer attitudes toward beef. “They are saying it’s profitable right now to be expanding, or they’re looking at the need to keep growing so they can be profitable.”

“Guys need to be expanding if they want to stay viable,” Zettler said.

Hamilton argued that BFO could find a group of willing, prospective farmers among the current wave of immigrants coming to Canada from much more troubled areas of the world. Zettler also described a group of committed urbanites now taking a course in farm business management he teaches at Georgian College in Owen Sound as potential industry participants.

So far, however, expansion talk has yet to translate into inventory, Gordanier said. Statistics Canada data on Ontario beef cattle population for July show a 1.2 per cent decline year over year to the current level of 1,738.4 million head. That’s a smaller drop than Canada’s national decline at 2.1 per cent and significantly below three and 2.8 per cent declines in Saskatchewan and Alberta, respectively.

But Gordanier estimates the Ontario beef cow herd at between 275,000 and 280,000. And that’s well below the levels of 30 years ago when cow herds ran to about 344,000 head.

High prices of recent years — a trend that ended in mid-October — on top of the ruinous years following Canada’s 2003 BSE (bovine spongiform encephalopathy) crisis have contributed to current caution, Gordanier told his Elwmood audience — plus a shortage of new, younger farmers.

“The question is how do you get and keep young producers in the beef industry?” Gordanier said.

“For years we sat around the kitchen . . . and did nothing but complain about how tough this whole business is and there’s no question it was tough,” Gordanier said. “But also that has lost us a generation of producers.”

Veteran Grey County cattle feeder Dale Pallister, whose six-generation family farm feeds more than 10,000 cattle annually, made a similar point during Wednesday’s panel.

Farm children need to see “the value their parents do in seeing that new-born calf or harvesting that crop,” Pallister said, describing “the things that really turn the parents on” about their lives in agriculture.

“If all the kids ever hear around home is how hard farming is, they’re not going to be interested,” he said. “It’s not all about money,” Pallister said. BF