GREAT FALLS, Mont. – The Restricted Feeder Cattle Import Program is one free trade deal that couldn’t come soon enough for some American cattle producers.
They say if the program had been instituted sooner it might have prevented the recent anti-dumping duty charged on all live Canadian cattle exported to the United States.
“If there had been as many feeders going north as there were fats going south, there wouldn’t have been as much support for the anti-dumping petition,” said Keith Bales, president of the Montana Stockgrowers Association.
Read Also
VIDEO: How to check your feed mixer’s efficiency
Dwayne Summach, livestock and feed extension specialist with the Saskatchewan Ministry of Agriculture, showed visitors at Ag in Motion 2025 how to use the Penn State Particle Size Separator to check the efficiency and performance of your total mixed ration feed mixers.
Under the program, American cattle can be sold to Alberta feedlots without health tests from October to April. The fly that carries bluetongue can’t survive during those months. Bluetongue is one of four diseases Agriculture Canada wants to keep out of the country.
A licensed veterinarian certifies the cattle are healthy at the time of shipping and each gets a U.S. Department of Agriculture eartag. The cattle are shipped to Canada in a sealed truck. Each animal is immunized upon arrival with long-acting tetracycline to ward off anaplasmosis. The shot costs $6 per head.
A group of disgruntled Montana producers known as the Ranchers-Cattlemen’s Action Legal Fund convinced the U.S. government to temporarily impose an anti-dumping duty on Canadian cattle earlier this year. The group accused Canadian producers of selling cattle to the U.S. below the cost of production.
That duty is expected to stop at the end of November because a U.S. trade panel ruled in Canada’s favor last week.
A strong supporter of the feeder project, Bales and producer Brian Severin of Belt, Montana, have profitably sold cattle through the program.
With rebounding prices this fall, “it’s fun selling cattle again,” said Severin.
However, he said the program needs streamlining because disease control measures demanded by the Canadian government continue to make shipping cumbersome. He also questions the bureaucracy.
“There is no screen at the 49th parallel that keeps diseases out,” he said.
Talks between Canadian cattle producers and Ottawa are under way to open the border year round.
Cattle from North Dakota, Montana, Idaho, Washington and Hawaii are eligible for the program.
