OLDS, Alta. – The tall grass grazes the bellies of the bison as the massive animals move slowly through the pastures at Buffalo Horn Ranch west of Olds.
Owned by Peter and Judy Haase, this is the largest registered herd of Plains bison in Canada and like many others in their industry, they have struggled through deprivations caused by drought, grasshoppers, floods, market downturns and BSE-disrupted sales.
Judy was a teacher and Peter a corporate photographer when they took over from Judy’s father in 1994 and introduced bison to the quarter section ranch.
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“When we started, it was a growing and expanding industry. Some things were occurring in our lives that led us to doing bison. Peter and I are nonconformists,” said Judy.
While it has been a struggle at times, they are determined to make it work through direct marketing plans, promotions and involvement in the natural food movement known as the Slow Food Foundation. The international foundation works to preserve heritage foods, as well as rare livestock breeds and plants. Through their efforts bison is now listed on the foundation’s “ark of taste.”
This fall they are going to Turin, Italy, for the Salone Internazionzle del Gusto food conference where farmers, fishermen, processors and academics from 150 countries will meet and share regional cuisine.
In keeping with the Buffalo Horn Ranch Natural Meats label, they keep the herd in as natural an environment as possible.
“We haven’t changed them so much that they couldn’t survive on their own,” said Peter.
The herd started with 20 calves and the Haases began marketing bison meat immediately. They bought sides of meat and started selling to friends and built a niche market in the Calgary area until their animals were ready for butchering.
They sell at the Calgary and Cochrane farmers’ markets during the summer and have also started a home delivery business taking meat packages straight to their customers twice a month year round. This is designed to cut back reliance on the commercial business where returns were too low to live on.
“The key for us surviving was direct marketing,” Peter said. “It subsidized what we were losing in the selling into the commercial market.”
The couple wants to reduce their herd size of 200 cows to ensure enough pasture and to have more time to work on direct marketing.
Selling direct to customers is hard work but it is more profitable.
Since BSE closed borders to trade, they also lost on breeding animals’ sales.
“Since BSE there hasn’t been a breeding market. If you sell into the commercial market you are losing money. Why would you start a commercial herd to lose money?” he said.
Peter is involved with the Alberta and Canadian bison associations and believes promotions showed a growing clientele it was a good meat choice. He is completing a three year director’s term with Alberta Bison Producers and sits on the Canadian Bison Association national marketing council.
The associations struggled to squeeze BSE aid out of the government and some of that money is just starting to flow now.
He is optimistic the industry has made it through this bad patch: “I think we are going to see in the next year a fairly substantial increase in the meat market.”
Five years ago no one was slaughtering heifers but that has changed because the discounts for the smaller females are gone. If the bulls or females reach the right weight and grade, they are worth $1.90 per pound on the rail this summer.
The industry also needed more slaughter capacity. A new plant is being built at Lacombe, Alta., and Sunterra Meats at Innisfail, Alta., handles some.
The Haases used to ship some to the North Dakota bison co-operative but the animals had considerable weight shrinkage after riding 24 hours on the truck.
Wait times are now longer under the new BSE export rules and the bison must be veterinary inspected and age verified through dentition. More producers are starting to verify age by using birth dates. Knowing the age is important because most bison are shipped to market when they are about two years old. Some can be close to the 30 month cutoff before they are fully mature for the market.
“They drop the price by a third or more even if it is just staying in the Canadian or European market,” Peter said.
The bison are grass fed and also receive purchased hay in winter. Market animals receive a finishing diet that includes some pellet screenings to whiten up the fat because most of their urban customers are not used to yellow fat.
The Haases were also among the first in Alberta to complete an environmental farm plan two years ago.
“We’re trying to do things right and take care of our land and our animals,” he said.
They are trying to give something back to the community.
For the last three years they hosted a bison barbecue and ranch tour as a customer appreciation day. The guests are invited to support a select charity for the day by donating money for the meal. This year they supported the Right to Play Foundation, which brings sports to underprivileged children around the world.
