& Reuters News Agency
news
The United States Commerce Department has nearly tripled its preliminary anti-dumping duty on one of several Canadian firms that ship live cattle to the U.S.
Schaus Land and Cattle Co. based in Ontario is effectively shut out of the export market with this duty, said Dennis Laycraft, executive vice-president of the Canadian Cattlemen’s Association.
The duty was jacked up because of the method used to calculate their costs of production.
“They ended up with an inflated rate of costs,” he said.
Read Also
Stock dogs show off herding skills at Ag in Motion
Stock dogs draw a crowd at Ag in Motion. Border collies and other herding breeds are well known for the work they do on the farm.
While this duty has caused hardship across the board for exporters of live cattle, eastern Canada has been hit harder, say analysts.
In July, Ontario prices fell rapidly by about $5 per hundredweight compared to about $1.50 in the West where there is greater packer competition.
In a United States Federal Register notice, the commerce department said July 23 it was raising its preliminary duty on the Schaus Land and Cattle Co. to 15.69 percent, from the earlier announced level of 5.43 percent.
Schaus is mainly a cattle feeding operation.
It also raised the preliminary duty for most other Canadian firms to 5.57 percent, from the earlier level of 4.73 percent.
The U.S. department said the Canadian firms had given the department revised U.S., home market and cost data bases just before the preliminary duty announcement on June 30 and the latest upward revision “corrected a number of errors” including a significant understatement of costs in the previous report, the department said.
On July 12, Schaus informed the U.S. that it no longer had the resources to participate in the anti-dumping investigation. Even so, the department said it had no choice but to revise the anti-dumping duties, based on Schaus’ s last report.
“To do otherwise would allow manipulation of the administrative process in a manner that prevents determination of accurate anti-dumping rates and would thwart the proper administration of the anti-dumping law.”
The department also extended to Oct. 4 a deadline for its final ruling on the anti-dumping duties at the request of Canadian producers and companies.
Below market value
In a case brought by the Ranchers-Cattlemen Action Legal Foundation, a grassroots group of U.S. cattle producers, the department made a preliminary determination on June 30 that Canadian live cattle were entering the U.S. at less than fair market value.
Canada and the U.S. plan to work together to change World Trade Organization rules that define the definition of beef dumping as selling below the cost of production.
The U.S. National Cattlemen’s Beef Association has appointed a group to look at factors in addition to cost of production that could define dumping.
