Cows and pigs love Manitoba
Manitoba appears to be the place for livestock, judging by numbers released by Statistics Canada.
Its livestock inventory as of Jan. 1 shows Canada’s cattle and calf herd is 3.2 percent smaller than it was a year ago and the hog herd is 1.2 percent larger.
Manitoba, Quebec alone
On the cattle side, all regions saw a decrease except Manitoba, which was up 4.2 percent, and Quebec, up two percent.
Manitoba also showed good growth in hog numbers with an increase of 2.7 percent, versus the national average of 1.2 percent.
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This strength in the leystone province when most other regions are shifting into the liquidation side of the beef cattle cycle indicates that predictions about the end of the Crow Benefit are proving true.
Because of the long distance to export markets, feed grains grown in Manitoba and eastern Saskatchewan are best upgraded into meat before being shipped.
The numbers from Statistics Canada also showed the importance of export markets.
Canada’s beef herd started expanding in the mid 1980s.
On Jan. 1, 1985, the total number of cattle was 10.956 million. The number peaked Jan. 1, 1996 at 13.186 million. The bubble broke last year when high feed costs and dropping cattle prices spilled red ink over most producers’ spreadsheets.
Growing American demand had been driving the market. By 1995 it had soaked up 47 percent of all Canadian beef cattle produced in that year, said Statistics Canada.
Mainly down south
And almost all of the exports went to the United States.
The story is the same in the hog sector. Exports of live hogs and pork represented 35 percent of domestic production in 1995. Again, the U.S. was the major buyer.
This overreliance on one market could spell disaster if a dispute ever limited north-south trade.
In fact, hog producers are already aware of how touchy the Americans are about meat imports.
Both meat sectors pin their hopes on rising demand from Pacific Rim countries.
But the competition is hot with Australia and the United States spending freely to attract Asian meat buyers.
It will be hard to win market share, but vital if Western Canada’s post-Crow agricultural economy is to prosper.
