New president for Beef Farmers; new check-off fee proposed, too
Tuesday, February 25, 2014
by SUSAN MANN
Rebuilding the Ontario beef herd is among the priorities of Beef Farmers Ontario this year, says newly elected president Bob Gordanier.
“We’re probably down 100,000 cows here the province and we need to step that up and get back into shape,” he says. “We need to get more Ontario calves in our Ontario feedlots and get them through to our processing plants that definitely need cattle.”
The current beef herd in Ontario is now at 275,000 to 290,000 head, he says.
About his election as president, Gordanier says “I’m very excited about representing beef producers here in Ontario.”
Gordanier, who was Beef Farmers of Ontario vice president for two years, has a 50-herd commercial cow-calf forage-based operation with his son Andrew. Their farm is near Orangeville in Dufferin County. Matt Bowman of Temiskaming was elected vice president. He farms with his family near New Liskeard and they operate a Charolais-based cow-calf operation with 110 cows. They also have 700 acres of cash crops.
At this week’s annual meeting, delegates voted 77 per cent in favour of increasing the beef check off to $4 per head from $3. Of the $4, $3 goes to the provincial organization, while $1 is for national groups, such as the Canadian Cattlemen’s Association, Canada Beef Inc. and for research. The new check off still has to be approved by the Ontario government.
The Ontario portion of the increased check off would raise an additional $800,000 annually for Beef Farmers of Ontario to enable the organization to continue supporting core programs, the Ontario Corn Feed Beef program and county funding.
Gordanier says increasing the check off has been discussed for about a year and was first proposed by delegates at county annual meetings.
Another priority for Beef Farmers this year includes working with the government to restore the risk management program. The current cap on the program means the program isn’t “really working the way it was designed,” he says.
The organization also wants to work with the government to enhance the breeder and feeder financing programs, he says. The feeder program is to finance feeder cattle purchases while the breeder program is to finance breeding livestock purchases. The two programs work in conjunction with one another.
Beef Farmers is also exploring marketing beef through a community shared agriculture model to people living in condominiums in cities. So far, the organization has done the modeling and “we’ve already done a lot of surveys. It’s very favourable so we’re hoping to get that started in the spring,” he says.
Rob Lipsett of Grey County is joining the Beef Farmers board this year representing the backgrounding sector. He replaced Bill Herron, who stepped down after serving six years on the board. Lipsett lives in Annan, has a 150 cow-calf operation and backgrounds all of his own calves. BF