Manitoba slaughter plants can kill and process only a tiny minority of the province’s cattle.
And even though the provincial government and the National Farmers Union want to expand the packer side, the president of the Manitoba Cattle Producers Association thinks the present crisis will only end once the borders reopen.
“It’s a long-term strategy,” said Betty Green about the Manitoba government’s drive to expand slaughter at the small plants in the province.
“It doesn’t offer us anything right now.”
The province’s Made-in-Manitoba Beef Fund is a $2 million program that will try to increase provincial slaughter. Premier Gary Doer described the money as “short-term bridge funding to help producers through the (bovine spongiform encephalopathy) crisis.”
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The government hopes the money can help 22 provincial abattoirs kill up to 10,000 extra cattle per year.
The NFU wants the government to lend $12 million to a new farmer co-operative to build a slaughter plant for 60,000 cull cows per year.
Farmers would pay $10 for every animal they sell to pay for the plant. That would raise about $5 million per year, the NFU reckons.
Manitoba cattle producers are especially vulnerable to U.S. border closures. A large number of the province’s slaughter animals are shipped to U.S. packers rather than to Alberta plants.
