The federal and Saskatchewan agriculture ministers agree on one issue so far.
Andy Mitchell and Mark Wartman, who met in Regina for the first time two days after Mitchell’s July 20 appointment, say the cattle industry, not government, should come up with the solutions to the current border crisis.
“We should be a partner on these things but I think the industry, the folks that are facing the situation on the ground on a daily basis, their knowledge, their understanding, their ideas, their innovation, we need to look at that,” Mitchell told reporters.
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“If you look back at the history, we know we’ve had a very successful beef industry in this country … and they’ve done great things and given the proper partnerships and given the creation of a good environment, they’ll continue to do that in the future.”
The Canadian Cattlemen’s Association is working on a contingency plan in case full trade with the United States is not resumed.
Options include expanding slaughter capacity, a delayed marketing set-aside program, targeted BSE surveillance and tax strategies.
According to the CCA, there are 58,000 fed cattle competing for 55,000 slaughter spots each week.
“Estimates are that with current cattle supplies and slaughter capacity there will be a surplus of approximately 510,000 head of fed and non-fed cattle in Canada in 2004,” said a News release
news issued by the Saskatchewan Stock Growers Association.
Many groups and communities are looking at building new plants or expanding or reopening existing facilities.
Industry is exploring the possibility of reopening a plant in the American northwest. Canadian cattle would be slaughtered there and the beef shipped back to Canada.
Mitchell said any plans to increase domestic slaughter capacity have to be sustainable and make good business sense.
“How we participate in any expansion is yet to be determined,” said Wartman. “Industry is the driver on this one.”
He, too, used the word sustainable to describe what a contingency plan should be, so “it’s not going to just fall apart when the border is open.”
Mitchell also met with the Agricultural Producers Association of Saskatchewan and the Saskatchewan Association of Rural Municipalities during his trip west.
The groups told him to move quickly on the agricultural policy framework review process and relayed their concerns about the Canadian Agricultural Income Stabilization program.
APAS asked Mitchell to support a national summit of government and industry to develop long-term strategies for agriculture.
