Canadian livestock producers predict bumps in the road as they rebuild business relationships for March 7, when the Americans have agreed to allow in younger animals and meat from animals of all ages.
Part of the problem is finding enough truckers to haul the liner loads of feeder and slaughter-ready animals.
“We are so challenged here to find employees,” said feedlot operator Rick Paskal of Picture Butte, Alta.
Feedlots are looking for truckers, pen checkers and other skilled people after many had to lay off staff as the BSE crisis deepened.
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“To say on March 7 we are going to mobilize these fleets and load them with cattle is not even realistic,” Paskal said.
The USDA estimates the paperwork to allow in the animals will cost $10 per head. That charge is likely to be passed on to the primary producer.
“I’ll just pass it on in the price I pay for feeder cattle,” Paskal said.
The added administration will show up as broader identification requirements, more inspections and more paperwork on both sides of the border.
The identification requirements were not unexpected, said Dennis Laycraft, executive vice-president of the Canadian Cattlemen’s Association. He also said there could be some market disruptions as people prepare to rejoin the market.
“Our industry is full of people who examine it from a business perspective: what will be the best way to plan the next 65 days and consequently obtain the best possible return?” he said.
“At the same time we’re going to have people trying to buy cattle the same way and I think we’re going to see a pretty dynamic two months in front of us.”
Delay expected
Bison producer Mark Silzer is cautiously optimistic about the rule as it makes its way to the American Congress, where changes could be made. He also does not expect a wall of animals queued up at the border in March.
“March 7 is a target date but I expect confusion with the regulatory process,” he said.
“Producers have put a lot of hope that when the border opens it will be business as usual. It will never be the same,” he said.
Other producers worry about possible legal challenges to delay trade.
The Montana-based Ranchers Cattlemen’s Action Legal Fund has been critical of the 500 page rule.
“The rule represents a wholesale abandonment of the United States’s historically successful, science-based standard of disease prevention in favour of an unproven standard of disease management that has not been accepted by U.S. export customers,” R-CALF said in a statement Dec. 31.
The organization successfully launched a court injunction against the USDA last year to halt shipments of Canadian bone-in product.
It argues Canada does not test enough animals and without country-of-origin rules in place, American consumers could be at risk.
“The new rule will cause the U.S. food supply to be flooded with products produced in a country that does not even meet the minimal standards imposed by the international disease standard setting body, the World Organization for Animal Health,” the American group said.
