CCA President Martin Unrau on Community Pastures, the Canadian Cow Herd & COOL

[shaney]

Martin Unrau is President of the [URL="http://www.cattle.ca"]Canadian Cattlemen's Association[/URL].

<a href="http://www.realagriculture.com">RealAgriculture.c om</a> spoke to him about a number of producer issues including the release of the community pastures, the state of the Canadian cow herd and the latest developments regarding COOL.

If you cannot see the embedded video below <a href="http://youtu.be/c_xnfUXRcRQ">click here</a>.

<iframe src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/c_xnfUXRcRQ" frameborder="0" width="560" height="315"></iframe>

[per]

Could be an indication of a paradigm shift in the thinking of cattle producers.

http://beefmagazine.com/blog/shrinking-cattle-numbers-could-lead-permanent-downsizing?NL=BEEF-02&Issue=BEEF-02_20120904_BEEF-02_141&YM_RID=kit%40pharocattle.com&YM_MID=1337094

[ASRG]

I suspect we are seeing a permanent shift in cattle numbers?
The older generation of ranchers is retiring and who will replace them?

Land is becoming too valuable to justify as a pasture- an example-when you used to come into Calgary from the north the rough hills were covered in cattle.....now it is all housing and retail.

Generally people are eating much less beef. This is a trend that will increase.

We shouldn't lament these changes. Those who want to escape will be able to, and those who want to get big will fill the void.

[kato]

We have to be careful that we don't go down the same path as the hog farmers though. Back when we got married, we had 30 sows, and sold weanlings at the local weekly pig sale. This was cash flow that kept our house going, and paid a lot of living expenses.

Fast forward to 2012. There is no such thing as a pig sale. The big killing plant near here will only take slaughter hogs in groups of 50. There is no such thing as a small hog producer, unless they're willing to feed out all their pigs and sell them direct for meat.

What's left is large corporate barns that are raising pork that is nowhere near the quality of what we used to have, and that are in some serious financial trouble. For example, about a week ago a barn in Manitoba was stuck with 1300 weanlings that no one wanted to buy, due to the bad markets. The owner started killing them, because there was nothing else he could do. The government found out about it, sent people to the barn, and declared in the news that the piglets were in "great distress", and proceeded to kill all 1300 pigs. And left them lying there for the traumatized workers to deal with. In the meantime, animal abuse allegations were flying all over the place, when in fact it was a financial issue.

The hog industry used to consist of thousands of farms with small sustainable pig herds scattered all over the country. Now it consists of large corporate operations in very localized areas that are turning out to be not financially viable. Those fancy urban investors have run like rats off a sinking ship, and it's all falling apart for those left behind.

Is this what we want? It would be easy to substitute cows for sows, and feedlots for large corporate barns in the story I just told.

IMHO, the bigger is better theory when applied to agriculture is not sustainable. It's like putting all your eggs in one basket, literally. That's no way to ensure a stable food supply.

[ASRG]

Do you remember the days when pigs were called "the mortgage lifters".....well not so much anymore?
Do you remember the days when the cream check bought the groceries.....well not so much anymore?
The times they are a changing....Bob Dylan.

[kato]

You got that right. Our job is to make sure they're changing for the better.

[Horse]

Kato if you are right then we blew it bigtime.

[RShields]

http://westwoodlandandcattle.com/pdfs/Cowsale.pdf
ASRG, this may confirm your land is too valuable statement, but also questions the part about getting bigger to fill the void. Bigger maybe doesn't make the grain comparison any better.
Cattle prices will have to get a lot better or the cows will only be on the very marginal production areas.

[grassfarmer]

Wasn't this a case of someone playing the cattle cycle
smart - building his herd through the low price years
and cashing out at high values? That was what I heard
anyway.

[smcgrath76]

Kevin is a relatively young guy with
really good math skills. They put
together a lot of the cowherd through
2002/2003/2004 on less expensive land in
eastern SK. The land and the cows have
gone up a bunch.
Another large AN dispersal at Midale in
a month or two as well. Saw lots of
grass sprayed at Meadow Lake this week
too. A friend with a bale truck says
they are spraying out 3 to 4K bales a
year worth of hay in that area.

[ASRG]

I hope the Woods do well on their cows.
What are they doing with the land? Selling or breaking it up for crop?

[grassfarmer]

I know someone else who moved down into that SE
Sask country in the same timescale and set up a large
cow operation on former grain land. His cowherd is
now worth more than he paid for the land. What to
do?? It's the same old dilemma of asset rich - cash
poor.
The way everyone was talking the clever money would
be in selling the cows and turning it back to crops -
but then you read the commodity forum on here and
it seems that grain farming in that part of the world
has been pretty bad this year.

[tman]

Grain farming in many parts of MB and SK has been more than a struggle this year. Been hearing and reading more poor and really poor yields than anything else.

[kato]

It's no easy ride for the grain farmers this year around here. From what we've been hearing, the crops are weighing light. They looked real good in the field, but the heat and dry since the beginning of August took a toll. The fact that they looked so good all summer makes for a bigger disappointment now.

The grass is not always greener on the other side. Just the thought of the expenses involved in growing grain is enough to make your head spin. We're happy to ride it out with the cow herd. Let someone else spend the big bucks.