The Rural Voice, 1981-08, Page 14ate,.
Tough times for beef producers
by Bev Brown
Farmers from as far away as Essex
County attended a recent spirited
meeting of about 350 beef producers at
Harriston. The producers are unhappy
with the continued low farm -gate prices
for beef, which do not begin to cover
the cost of production; but they are even
more unhappy with what they call a
"stone wall" response from the Ontario
Cattlemen's Association (OCA).
"We ate tired of being told we are
'out -of -order' by the OCA," said one
farmer, "and all we ever hear from the
government is 'let's have a meeting.' If
something doesn't happen as a result of
the meetings, pretty soon there won't be
any farmers around to go to a meeting."
The Harriston gathering was
sponsored by the Ontario Cattlemen's
Action Group (OCAG), an organization of
beef producers who are not satisfied with
the status quo and who want to look at
alternatives to the present beef
marketing system. "We are not
associated with either the Ontario or
Canadian Cattlemen's Association, or
any other farm organization," explained
Bill Benson, a Wellington County beef
producer. "We do feel very strongly that
a voice should be given to the 'grass
roots' cattle producers who have been
experiencing losses of approximately
$100 per head marketed."
Benson went on to say that "we have
been subsidizing the consumer with
cheap beef and we have been sucking the
hind teat for too long. We need eighty-
five to ninety cents per pound just to
break even on the cattle presently in our
feedlots."
Willard Calhoun, a Bruce County beef
producer who was also a platform
speaker, told the audience everyone is
scared of supply management. "But
everyone else puts a price on his
products, so why shouldn't the farmer,"
he said.
"But we already have supply manage-
ment in the beef industry," Calhoun
continued. "The meat packers are cur-
rently managing our supply of beef
through imports from the United States.
There has been so much beef brought
into Ontario from the U.S. in the past few
months that prices paid to Ontario beef
producers have been held down. If this
situation continues for another month,
we will be so saturated with cattle here in
Ontario, that there will be no recovery in
the beef industry in Canada, even if there
is a recovery in the U.S."
Calhoun concluded: "The cattle
business in Ontario is at the 'zero hour'.
We are able to compete with the U.S., but
we must stand together and demand that
we receive a decent price for our product.
or we will lose the industry to the U.S.".
Larry Schill, a Wellington County pork
producer said an increasing number of
county pork associations are discussing
the possibilities of supply management in
his industry. In the opinion of Schill (and
s,thfs was later echoed by Jim Harkness,
Secretary of OCAG), pork and beef
producers must work together towards
supply management systems for both
meats. "Neither one is going to succeed
by themselves," he said.
Harkness, who owns a five hundred
head beef feedlot just outside of
Harriston, described how the Ontario
Cattlemen's Action Group was formed in
August, 1980 when a group of cattlemen
attending the semi-annual meeting of the
Ontario Cattlemen's Association
requested time on the agenda for a
discussion of beef marketing. The re-
quest was no only refused, but an attempt.
was made to eject them from the
meeting. The group went back to the
hotel and formed the OCAG and
immediately prepared a draft outlining
the beef producers' problems which they
presented to the OCA in the Fall of 1980.
The number one problem, according to
the OCAG brief, is many beef producers
are being driven into bankruptcy and out
of business by high interest rates,
increased expenses and low product
prices. The OCA response to the group
was that the proportion of bankruptcies is
lower in agriculture than in any other
PG 12 THE RURAL VOICE/AUGUST 1981