YORKTON, Sask. – Saskatchewan can and will compete with Alberta’s feedlot industry, an industry leader told beef producers at a recent seminar.
Brad Wildeman, general manager of the province’s largest feedlot, Pound-Maker Agventures at Lanigan, said Saskatchewan cow numbers are increasing, which means more calves.
“We can probably continue to send the same amount of cattle out to Alberta that we are now and take this increased growth in Saskatchewan and feed it here,” he told reporters.
Initiatives by companies like Heartland Livestock, local communities and producers are signs that Saskatchewan is ready to expand, he said. Heartland is planning to build eight 10,000-head feedlots in Saskatchewan and Manitoba in co-operation with community groups, and producers are joining forces to background cattle.
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But major expansion won’t happen overnight.
“It’s going to be a slower growth than what we’ve maybe seen in Alberta,” he said. “I think the next five or six years we’re going to see a tremendous amount of change.”
Wildeman said ability of the hog industry to attract investment from local people is something the beef feeding industry has to work on.
“As cattle people, we’re more segmented … so it takes a little longer at sort of investing in some sector that perhaps we’re not in,” he said. “For grain farmers, maybe it’s just a little bit further reach. We need to convince them that we have a growing and expanding business and that we can do things right.”
The advantages to feeding cattle in Saskatchewan include a good supply of low-cost feed, the availability of workers and isolation.
“We’re seeing smaller-sized feedlot operators (in southern Alberta) just having to get out of the business because of the high cost of the land and some of the problems they’re having environmentally with some of the older feedlots,” Wildeman said. “We’re going to see a whole transition in the feedlot industry in Alberta so that’s why I think our opportunity is so great.”
Unlike Alberta, Saskatchewan’s industry will develop without much government assistance.
Wildeman said Saskatchewan doesn’t want subsidies, but the government could take a look at some “disincentives” like fuel, sales and corporate taxes.
And talk about putting farm labor under provincial labor standards scares investors away, he said.
“We need to reassure them that if they put their money here we’re going to be competitive in the long run,” Wildeman said.
The government made the right move when it took over Western Canadian Beef Packers at Moose Jaw last year, he said. If the province is going to have a growth strategy for beef there has to be processing.
However, Wildeman said it is in producers’ best interests to own that plant themselves.
“We can do different things than what they’re doing in Alberta and doing different things than what the big multinational packing companies can do,” he said.
He added one of the biggest impediments to growth is Saskatchewan’s export mentality.
“For the last 135 years, with feed subsidies and Crow rates, the whole focus was to grow the stuff and get it on the rail line,” he told the crowd.
He challenged them to develop a set of operating principles and an action plan, then get committed and get to work.
