LANIGAN, Sask. – Brad Wildeman has a simple explanation for why the cattle industry is bigger and more entrenched in Alberta than in Saskatchewan.
Because it’s there.
“There is no reason for it being there other than it is there now,” says the president of Pound-Maker Agventures Ltd., a feedlot and ethanol facility located about 120 kilometres east of Saskatoon.
Speaking to some 300 cattle producers gathered for the annual field day sponsored by the Western Beef Development Centre, Wildeman extolled the potential for growth in Saskatchewan’s cattle industry. He said the province boasts a number of comparative advantages over Alberta, which now has about 45 percent more cows than its neighbour to the east.
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There is a plentiful supply of feed grain here, with a freight advantage in the range of $15 a head relative to Alberta.
The cost of shipping grain to export position continues to rise, making livestock an increasingly attractive alternative.
The Saskatchewan countryside is replete with relatively isolated locations where intensive livestock operations could be built without encountering the local opposition that often arises in more urbanized Alberta.
There is a good supply of experienced, hard-working employees with farm backgrounds. For example, the annual employee turnover rate at Pound-Maker is five to seven percent, compared with the industry average of 30 to 35 percent.
The continuing construction of big inland terminals across the province is providing a ready source of reasonably priced, high fibre feedstock.
“With all the cleaning being done on the Prairies, there are thousands of tonnes of byproducts,” said Wildeman. “There is a great opportunity to capture that spent supply.”
He told the assembled ranchers that perhaps the most important single development that could put Saskatchewan on the fast track toward beef expansion is something that hasn’t yet happened.
The industry must become big enough to support a healthy packing industry, and for that to happen, the provincial government has to get involved.
“A lot of it depends on how active the province wants to be in putting in the things that will kickstart the industry,” Wildeman said in an interview.
As so often seems to be the case, it boils down to money.
“We are advising the provincial government that they should remove the foreign ownership requirements to allow these intensive livestock operations, and others, to come in to the province,” said Wildeman, who is involved in a number of cattle industry and agricultural development groups.
The current limit on farmland holdings by non-residents of the province is 320 acres. The provincial government has said it is willing to look at changes, but no formal action has been taken.
In the meantime, there are reports of ranchers from Alberta moving to Saskatchewan to take advantage of lower land prices.
Jim Pollock, an extension agrologist with Saskatchewan Agriculture at Moosomin, said he has received quite a few calls from Alberta asking about things like land, climate and pasture conditions in the area. Five farms in the area have been bought by Albertans since last fall, he said, with the intention of setting up cow-calf or feedlot operations.
In a later interview, Wildeman said the conundrum faced by the industry is that new money is needed to get things going, but money is hard to come by in Saskatchewan these days, especially in the agricultural economy.
Removing the foreign ownership restrictions is probably the single most important thing to be done to spur growth in the beef industry. There is money in Saskatchewan, but a lot of it is held by people of retirement age, he said, so it’s unlikely they would be investing in livestock projects.
“If we don’t remove the restrictions to bring new money in, it’s just going to take a long time.”
As it is, he expects to see some significant new investment in the next four to five years, assuming the provincial government can be convinced that it will generate enough economic activity to produce a net benefit for the provincial coffers.
“It’s just a matter of can they make that initial investment and do they believe that will come back to them,” he said “I guess we believe it will.”
