NITON JUNCTION, Alta. – For 25 years the massive head of a horned Hereford bull mounted above the stage at Beaver Meadow hall has watched over weddings, meetings and the annual Ranchers’ Ball.
Few times has the bull looked down on cattle producers so discouraged about their industry.
Even during the darkest days of the BSE crisis cattle producers never felt as bleak, said Lee Davis of Niton Junction.
“During BSE we felt we only had to hold on and we could get back on track and we’d survive and make a dollar. Now we see no light and no reason to dream or be optimistic,” Davis said during an Alberta Beef Producers fall meeting.
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“This is like a nightmare we can’t deal with.”
Davis blames the high dollar and the high cost of feed grain.
There seems to be little producers can do to coax their production costs below the price of cattle.
Davis and his family retain their calves longer to try and make more money on each one. They’ve diversified into a custom silage business and they’ve bought log quota to help bring in more cash.
“We’ve spent more money and work longer hours off the farm,” he said.
“How long are we going to have to do this?”
Other cattle producers have decided to sell their cattle and cut their losses, said Kelly Olson, an Athabasca cattle producer and the Alberta Beef Producers’ finance chair.
“A lot of people are to the point they want to get rid of their cows and they don’t care if they take a beating,” he said.
“They just want to stop the bleeding. I see a great desire to get rid of cows in this country.”
Mike Cook, a producer from Dapp, Alta., and chair of the Beef Information Centre, agreed.
“It’s going to be the largest liquidation of the country’s herd I’ve seen in my lifetime,” he said.
“It’s worse than BSE.”
Davis said he sees government help as the only way to ride out the crisis. The Alberta government’s recent $165 million transition payment for livestock producers was welcome, but the details are sketchy.
“I don’t know what the answer is.”
Olson said the only optimism he can muster is that cattle prices have been low before and they eventually bounced back.
“The optimism will come from the fact that it has corrected itself in the past.”
