FORT MACLEOD, Alta. — Martin Unruh sees a whole new world of beef production taking shape in the next 10 to 20 years.
However, Canadian producers are going to need a strategy if they want to remain part of it.
Unruh, who is co-chair of the planning group for the national beef strategy announced in January, had a harsh message for beef producers who met at recent zone meetings: make a plan to produce and sell premium beef worldwide or the industry will die.
“We’re producing this tremendous product. It’s costing us more (to produce) than it’s costing anybody else because we live in Canada where the weather is cold,” he said.
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“We have to find a way to make sure that we have a vision and a target for the future. So when I say that our industry is in jeopardy for the next 10 or 15, 20 years, I mean that. The profitability of our industry is in jeopardy.”
He said South America and Australia are making inroads into the fed cattle market, and the United States is always competitive. That, plus the urgent demand to maintain social licence to produce cattle, puts pressure on the Canadian cattle industry.
Customers like Canadian beef, but maintaining markets is difficult with low cattle numbers, let alone trying to service new ones.
“What’s happening now is we’ve got some markets, we’re moving a bit of product, but it’s off the shelf in two or three days instead of two weeks and we can’t replace it, so effectively we’re leaving the market,” said Unruh.
He said two years of profitability have encouraged producers to replace equipment and build a stronger foundation, which bodes well for herd expansion.
“We don’t have enough cattle to make the dent that we need to make in the global trade,” he told ABP members.
“We don’t have enough cattle to provide the product to the highest value market, to fill the boxes, to make sure that we can get into those markets and maintain those markets.”
He said the national strategy “seeks to position the Canadian beef industry as the most trusted and competitive high quality beef cattle producer in the world recognized for its superior quality, safety, value, innovation and sustainable production methods.”
His presentation was at least in part designed to obtain producer support for a $1.50 increase in the national checkoff for a non-refundable total of $2.50 per head.
