The strike at one of Canada’s largest packing plants has increased pressure on the already short supply of trucks available to haul cattle.
The supply has been stretched even thinner as trucks haul slaughter cattle thousands of kilometres farther to American packing plants since the strike at Lakeside Packers in Brooks, Alta., began Oct. 12.
“The Lakeside strike has put more pressure on the trucks to go south. Turnaround time is longer and everything backs up,” said Steve Primrose of Primrose Livestock in Iron Springs, Alta.
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Each day the Lakeside strike continues, the backlog of cattle builds. The southern Alberta plant has capacity to kill 4,700 head of cattle each day. Since the strike began, the plant has only operated partial shifts on a few days.
“We just can’t even begin to keep up with that,” Primrose said.
Before customers arrange sales to American packing plants, they must find trucks to haul the cattle.
“They phone us to see if we can handle the cattle. The problem is getting a truck. We put them on a list and try to take a few from everybody and the list is getting bigger.”
After the BSE crisis began, several livestock trucking companies went out of business or sent their livestock trailers to the finance company or switched work to Alberta’s booming oil patch.
Ron Scarth of Merritt Equipment manufactures many of the livestock trailers used in the industry.
He said there is 25 percent less equipment available to haul cattle in Canada than there was two years ago.
Scarth said there is little good quality equipment available to lease or buy. Orders this fall for trailers won’t be filled by the Colorado-based company until March or April.
Marcel Roberge of Roberge Transport in High River, Alta., said he has seen increased demand for trucks since the Lakeside strike began.
“We are getting substantial pressure, but you can only do what you can do,” said Roberge, who has rebuilt his fleet up to 130 trucks from a low of 75 hauling cattle during the BSE crisis.
“There’s a pretty serious truck shortage out there.”
To entice trucks and drivers back to the livestock business, the rates charged to producers for hauling cattle have increased substantially, said Roberge.
“We’ve had to charge them astronomical rates, but it’s not going in our pockets. It’s what the truckers are demanding. In order to steal truckers from the oil patch, you’ve got to pay them a lot of money.”
Brad Wildeman of Pound-maker Agventures in Lanigan, Sask., said before anyone can finalize American packing bids they must secure trucks to haul them to the packing plant.
Combine the strike with the busy fall season of cattle moving from pasture to feedlot and the trucking shortage is intense.
“It’s probably the limiting factor to getting cattle across.”
Wildeman said the only bright spot is there are not a lot of fat cattle backed up in Canadian feedlots, which would force owners to ship cattle at any cost.
According to the United States Department of Agriculture, the number of fat cattle exported from Canada to the U.S., has steadily increased in the past three weeks.
For the week ending Oct. 1, there were 11,749 fat cattle exported. The following week ending Oct. 8, there were 14,154 cattle exported. For the week ending Oct. 15, the number was up to 17,686.
