PEOPLE in the cattle business spent 19 months hoping for it, but when the announcement came about the opening of the U.S. border to Canadian cattle, the celebration lasted only a few hours.
Overshadowed as it was by news of Canada’s second case of BSE, border news was nevertheless greeted with a “believe it when we see it” response.
Such healthy skepticism must be cultivated, because there are many forks in the trail ahead. The March 7 opening of the U.S. border to Canadian cattle younger than 30 months is by no means guaranteed, particularly not with traceout on the second BSE case in progress.
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A bill has been introduced in U.S. Congress that would stop the United States Department of Agriculture from enacting rules allowing cattle imports. The Montana Stockgrowers Association has denounced the plan. The R-CALF group has hinted its intention to file suit against the USDA and it may be joined in that endeavor by the National Farmers Union.
Most troubling of all, the powerful National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, long an ally of Canadian cattle producers in the quest for international cattle trade, last week announced plans to reconsider its position.
The Canadian cattle industry and the government will continue to press for an open border. Until they are told otherwise, March 7 is the operative date.
In the meantime, cattle producers should pay attention to that aforementioned healthy skepticism and continue with plans to grow other international markets and increase domestic slaughter capacity.
At least 12 processing plants in Western Canada are being planned. All of them are being driven by cattle producers who want to reduce their dependence on U.S. markets, whether for younger cattle or cows and bulls.
Organizers of all these proposals have pondered the hurdle of seller reaction when the U.S. border finally does open. Will Canadian cattle producers support new domestic facilities or will economics dictate that they sell in a potentially more lucrative U.S. market?
The choice will be theirs to make. Or perhaps theirs and their banker’s choice to make, to put it more bluntly.
It is unlikely that all proposals for new western Canadian plants will result in bricks-and-mortar facilities. But some of them will rise and in doing so will address the need for a larger domestic processing industry.
Plants dedicated to processing cull cows and bulls seem less vulnerable to U.S. border plans at this point, since there are no provisions in the current rule for exporting these animals. Their meat, on the other hand, has many potential markets that can be tapped.
Cattle producers are organizing these plants, and cattle producers will be asked to support them for the long term. If and when they do so, it will prove that hard lessons have been learned from the BSE crisis.
