The Rural Voice, 2005-09, Page 43e
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says of his customers. Some
customers have decided this was the
time for them to retire, he says.
The situation in the northern part
of Bruce and Grey Counties has been
made worse by this summer's
drought that has left farmers with no
pasture and no second cut hay.
While the opening of the border to
live cattle exports in July was
important, it didn't have as big an
impact as it would have a year
earlier, says McKillop.
In the last normal year of trade for
Ontario beef farmers, 2002, beef was
the second largest commodity in
terms of annual farm gate receipts
with a value of approximately $1.2
billion. Beef exports from Ontario to
the U.S.A., in 2002, were valued at
$354 million in live cattle and an
additional $292 million in beef
products.
But with more than two years of
closed border, Canada had
started to rebuild its
processing capacity -- by 24 per cent
since the border closed with the
discovery of a single case of BSE in
an Alberta cow in May, 2003.
Canadian plants can now process
85,00() head per week and capacity
continues to grow. By the end of
2006 we will be able to process
105,000 head and be almost self-
sufficient, McKillop says.
The greater slaughter capacity had
already caused a price recovery even
before the border reopened. "The
U.S. price had been coming down
and the Canadian price had been
going up. Maybe there had been
speculation the border would
reopen."
Though the border is open again,
for Wendy Holm, the B.C.
agrologist, economist and farm
writer, the lessons of the crisis
haven't all been learned, particularly
by governments that left farmers high
and dry with lack of backbone.
"This BSE fiasco sets some very
dangerous precedents for all
commodity groups. Anyone could he
next. Unless we understand what
happened and why, all of Canada's
farmers remain vulnerable," she says.
"In the face of Washington's
crippling blockade of Canadian cattle
and beef, Ottawa's blithe disregard
for the trade interests of Canada'.
GB
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SEPTEMBER 2005 39