Cct140728

TWICE-OVER GRAZING LEADS TO HERD MAKEOVER THE BEEF MAGAZINE

July 2014 $3.00

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FARM for BUILT TWO A

Bryce and Dawn McKenzie, Rosetown, Sask.

Publications Mail Agreement Number 40069240

“Hereford is providing the consistency, uniformity, grading results and meat quality the industry is looking for. We had straightbred Hereford feeders selling better than they had for 5 or 6 years last fall.

You can’t beat the Hereford cattle on the yearling market and there is tremendous demand for straightbred Hereford females.”

Bob Balog,

Balog Auctions, Lethbridge, Alberta

Canadian Hereford Association • 5160 Skyline Way NE, Calgary, AB T2E 6V1 • 1-888-836-7242 • herefords@hereford.ca

Established 1938 ISSN 1196-8923 CATTLEMEN EDITORIAL Editor: Gren Winslow 1666 Dublin Avenue, Winnipeg, MB R3H 0H1 (204) 944-5753 Fax (204) 944-5416 Email: gren@fbcpublishing.com

Contents CANADIAN CATTLEMEN · JULY 2014 · VOLUME 77, NO. 7

 M A NAG E M E N T

Field Editor: Debbie Furber Box 1168, Tisdale, SK S0E 1T0 (306) 873-4360 Fax (306) 873-4360 Email: debbie.furber@fbcpublishing.com ADVERTISING SALES Deborah Wilson RR 1, Lousana, AB T0M 1K0 (403) 325-1695 Fax (403) 944-5562 Email: deb.wilson@fbcpublishing.com Crystal McPeak (403) 646-6211 / (403) 360-3210 Email: crystal@fbcpublishing.com HEAD OFFICE 1666 Dublin Avenue, Winnipeg, MB R3H 0H1 (204) 944-5765 Fax (204) 944-5562 Advertising Services Co-ordinator: Arlene Bomback (204) 944-5765 Fax (204) 944-5562 Email: ads@fbcpublishing.com Publisher: Lynda Tityk Email: lynda.tityk@fbcpublishing.com Associate Publisher/Editorial Director: John Morriss Email: john.morriss@fbcpublishing.com Production Director: Shawna Gibson Email: shawna@fbcpublishing.com Circulation Manager: Heather Anderson Email: heather@fbcpublishing.com

Bryce and Dawn McKenzie run 700 cows plus a feedlot.

A FARM BUILT FOR TWO  CO N S E RVAT I O N

President: Bob Willcox Glacier FarmMedia Email: bwillcox@farmmedia.com

VG Meats debuts tenderness-tested beef in Canada . . . . . 12 Gravity always works . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16

Cattlemen and Canadian Cattlemen are Trade Marks of Farm Business Communications.

Fee-for-service conservation . . . . . . . . . . .20

Cattlemen is published monthly by Farm Business Communications.

Head office: Winnipeg, Manitoba. Printed by Transcontinental LGMC. Cattlemen is printed with linseed oil-based inks.

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Measuring agriculture’s shadow . . . . . . . . 24

Measuring 24 agriculture’s shadow

Verified Beef Production . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29

 G R A Z I NG

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Twice-over grazing leads to herd makeover . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26

Putting a value on biodiversity.

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FEATURES A farm built for two . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

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Holistic Ranching . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .18 Vet Advice. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22

Twice-over grazing 26 leads to herd makeover

Congratulations!

To our July survey winner, Carol Grafton, Prince George, B.C. This month’s survey is on page 38.

Cover Photo: Debbie Furber

Research on the Record . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23 CCA Reports . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28 Straight from the Hip . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30 Prime Cuts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 1 News Roundup . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32 Purely Purebred . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36 The Markets. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39 Market Talk . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .41 Sales and Events . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42 C A T T L E M E N · J U LY 2 0 1 4

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 COMMEN T

By Gren Winslow

Two-faced tories One says expand, the other says shrink

T

he Harper government has to stop talking out of both sides of its mouth in its dealings with the beef industry in this country.

In June the government tabled the text of the Free Trade Agreement with South Korea in the House of Commons and our energetic Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz announced China has begun the process of accepting bonein under-30-month beef and live cattle from Canada.

In the same month the ministers responsible for employment, citizenship and immigration, Jason Kenney and Chris Alexander unveiled their dismemberment of the Temporary Foreign Workers Program (TFWP) which will almost certainly choke off any hope of expanding production at Canadian meat plants.

It’s been a frustrating dance for those who represent the industry, which is reflected in Dave Solverson’s column this month.

Primary agriculture including feedlots is largely excluded from the new restrictions but meat processors were tossed in with the food-service sector who employ “low-wage” workers.

This means the proportion of TFWP workers at any plant is now capped at 10 per cent. Plants over the cap are frozen at 30 per cent or their current level, although current workers will keep their jobs until their permit expires, and the plants have two more years to “transition” down to 10 per cent by July 1, 2016.

The Tories intend to make companies hire Canadians first when jobs are available. As we now know thanks to the media some fast-food restaurants were replacing Canadians with TFWP workers because they would work for less. No one argues with the value of hiring Canadians first. Packers would love to hire more, if only they would apply.

“Our challenge is to find enough workers to move to these locations in rural Canada which are usually in smaller towns,” points out Ron Davidson, director of international trade, government and media relations with the Canadian Meat Council (CMC).

It’s far less expensive to hire in Canada than recruit overseas.

But even extensive recruitment, Davidson says, has not been sufficient to keep plants running at capacity.

“The serious implications for competitiveness, and for thinking about doing any value added or for doing any additional exports if we can’t have our plants at capacity puts us at a very serious disadvantage in an open trading market.”

The day I talked to Ron, Employment and Social Development Canada’s own job site had five pages of positions for meat cutters on offer from B.C. to New Brunswick and that’s just a small sliver of what the industry requires.

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C a t t l e m e n · j u ly 2 0 1 4

A survey of Canadian meat plants last year found the average yearly turnover was running around 30 per cent.

Sadly the turnover rate is much higher with Canadian workers than it is with foreign workers or permanent residents. In other words so-called temporary workers are more likely to settle down and become permanent residents and employees in these rural locations than Canadians who move across the country to find work.

Even with access to foreign workers and permanent residents many plants today have more than 100 unfilled positions cutting into their efficiency. Restrict their access to willing workers even further and their turnover rate is bound to be much higher. Imagine if you had to replace 40 per cent of your staff every year.

The irony here is packers don’t want temporary workers. They need full-time employees, a lot of them

A temporary worker's permit under the new policy only goes for two years, so one of the sad implications of finagling with a policy that was actually working quite well is that most TFWP workers will not have the time to meet the criteria to become permanent residents before their permit runs out. Instead, they will have to ply the skills they learned in Canada somewhere else.

Australia is as short of meat cutters as Canada, and Davidson says the Australian system considers them skilled workers worth holding on to.

The irony here is packers don’t want temporary workers. They need full-time employees, a lot of them every year, to keep their plants running at anything like a competitive level. To do that they offer a competitive wage, in many cases set under a union contract, which is generally more than what these workers can make in the U.S. for the same work.

Minister Kenney met with industry representatives and processors at a roundtable session in early July and while Davidson says their discussions were detailed and intensive, “we do not have a path forward at this point.

We’re still trying to find one.”

If Minister Kenney cannot be convinced that a meat plant isn’t the same as an A&W in a city mall, then perhaps Minister Ritz should tone down his travel plans.

Access is well and good, but only when you have product to sell. c

www.canadiancattlemen.ca

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 THE INDUST RY

NewsMakers Aaron and Adrienne Ivey of Ituna are the 2014 Outstanding Young Farmers (OYF) for Saskatchewan. The Iveys operate a mixed cattle and grain farm in partnership with Aaron’s parents. Aaron and Adrienne purchased their first land in 2000 after completing their agriculture degrees. For the past 15 years, they’ve focused on expanding their cow herd, their land base and their family which now includes Noelle (eight) and Colton (six). For more on their operation see our story, Counting on Forage, May, 2013, Canadian Cattlemen. Canada’s Outstanding Young Farmers for 2014 will be chosen in November.

The Canadian Angus Association (CAA) presented the Kasko Cattle Company of Coaldale, Alta. (photo below) with its Western Feedlot of the Year Award at its Carcass 101 event in June. The familyowned custom feeding and farming business was started in 1979 by Les Kasko and later grew to include his sons Ryan and Greg and son-in-law Todd. Kasko Cattle Co. now operates four feed yards in Alberta with a capacity of 44,000 head of cattle and more than 40 employees.

In 2010 Ryan Kasko allied with fellow

Rob Smith, CAA CEO (l to r); Ryan Kasko and Brian Good, CAA.

Alberta feeders Les Wall, Ed Stronks, Leighton Kolk and Shawn Murray to form the Allied Marketing Group, which was named the first brand feeding partner for Certified Angus Beef in Canada.

Cor Van Raay, the founder of Cor Van Raay Farms has donated $5 million to Lethbridge College and the University of Lethbridge, jointly, to establish the Cor Van Raay Cor Van Raay Southern Alberta Agribusiness Program. The $5 million will be shared jointly between the university and the college to establish endowed student awards, business-related academic programming, an agriculture entrepreneur in residence at Lethbridge College and an innovation and entrepreneurship program at University of Lethbridge.

Dr. Gord Atkins, a dairy practitioner from Alberta was presented with the Merck Veterinary Award at the Canadian Veterinary Medical Association’s annual convention in mid-July. Jean Gauvin, a companion animal practitioner from Lachine, Quebec is the new president of the CVMA. Rangeland consultant Kelly Williamson from Pambrun is the 2014-15 president of the Saskatchewan Forage Council. Joining him on the executive are vice-president Ryan Sommerfeld, a Gelbvieh breeder and director on the Saskatchewan Cattlemen’s Association from Medstead, past president

Aaron Ivey from Ituna, and finance chair Dave Kerr of Lashburn. New to the board of directors this year is researcher Greg Penner from the department of animal and poultry science at the University of Saskatchewan.

Obioha (Obi) Durunna, PhD, PAg, is the new regional livestock specialist for the Saskatchewan Ministry of Agriculture in Weyburn. He replaces Bob Klemmer who Obioha Durunna retired last year. Originally from Nigeria, Obi has a master’s degree in quantitative genetics from the University of Manitoba, and a PhD in genomics from the University of Alberta. His PhD research evaluated the genetics and genomics of feed-efficiency reranking in crossbred cattle. He worked as a forage beef researcher at the Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada Brandon research station until he moved to Weyburn in April.

Doug Gillespie of Neville was elected president of the Saskatchewan Stock Growers Association at its annual convention in June. Shane Jahnke of Gouldtown Doug Gillespie is first vice-president and Bill Huber of Lipton second vicepresident. Finance chair Helen Finucane of Regina and past president Harold Martens of Swift Current round out the executive.

The University of Saskatchewan has added to its forage lineup with the recent appointment of Dr. Bill Biligetuas as assistant professor of forage crop breedDr. Bill Biligetuas ing with the university’s Crop Development Centre. He received a bachelor of science in grassland sciences and an M.Sc. in rangeland management from the Inner Mongolia Agriculture University in China and his PhD in perennial forage management and physiology from the University of Saskatchewan. c

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C a t t l e m e n · J u ly 2 0 1 4

www.canadiancattlemen.ca

 our histo ry

By Mrs. A Jussila, Manyberries, Alta.

aunt kate From Canadian Cattlemen, June 1947

A

bout 14 miles southeast of Manyberries in the southeast corner of Alberta, lives a whitehaired old lady, Mrs. Rebecca Cross, commonly known as Aunt Kate, and loved by all who know her.

Her farm was for many years entirely surrounded by Higdon range and her unpretentious house has been an oasis for many a weary rider. Everyone has been welcome at her home, but especially is this true of the cowboy. Who knows how many have been invited to unsaddle their mounts and eat one of Aunt Kate’s chicken dinners.

No matter what the time of day, they were always welcome.

In the spring of 1948 Aunt Kate was taken to the Medicine Hat General Hospital with a serious heart condition. While sitting there by her bedside one afternoon, I was joined by Mrs. Gilchrist, a neighbour of Aunt Kate’s. On another visit she told me she had been visited there on different occasions by Mr. and Mrs. Chay Gilchrist,

Mr. and Mrs. Harry Hargrave and Mack Higdon. She added in her quaint southern accent, “It ain’t many high ups that would come to see a poor widder woman.”

At that I wondered how much depended on the “poor widder woman.” My surmise was borne out by the words of Aunt Kate’s attending physician, Senator (Dr.) F.W. Gershaw. He said, “She must be a wonderful person. She was half dead when she was brought in here and still brought in an armful of pussy willows to brighten the hospital wards for others.”

Generosity and thoughtfulness such as this surely must come from the heart. It is true that by her generous giving away of everything she had, Aunt Kate has remained poor in this world’s goods.

Perhaps spiritually she is far richer than most. As Chay Gilchrist has said, “Maybe she is far richer than the rest of us. Some people get so attached to material things that they lose sight of the things that really matter.”

How true that is! The true friendliness and hospitality is typical of the cow country. Could we but keep alive this tradition of the old West.

During the many years on the prairie, Aunt Kate naturally had many dealings with cattlemen. Perhaps the most amusing of these was when she traded Mack Higdon eight cats for a mule.

Aunt Kate’s life has been an active one, filled with hard work. Today she is able to take a few steps at a time. The evening sun is slowing setting on a life that can have few regrets. The heart that has had only kindness towards humans and animals alike, beats weaker now. Again she is in hospital and there is little left but to wait until that good range boss lets down the pasture bars and a good servant can go home to rest. c For more of the past from the pages of our magazine see the History section at www. canadiancattlemen.ca.

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C a t t l e m e n · j u ly 2 0 1 4 7

 MANAGE M E N T

By Debbie Furber

A FARM BUILT FOR TWO 700 cows, a feedlot, two people… and it works

A

picture-perfect scene of 700 black cows set against a canvas of white transforms to pairs on a collage of gold and green as Bryce and Dawn McKenzie put the final touches on their calving season. They have the strokes down pat after 38 years in the beef business and share some insights on how they manage a large cow-calf and backgrounding operation on their own.

Swath grazing has been a focal point since Bryce stumbled across the idea in 1988. It was a dry year and some grass he had cut didn’t seem worth baling. It was a pleasant surprise when the cows found it later under the snow and cleaned it up. Figuring that worked well, he tried a few more acres the next year, and the next, eventually adding spring-seeded oats to be cut in July for grazing later on.

Back then, the operation was much smaller. He grew up on a grain farm a few miles away and in 1976 bought an empty quarter along Highway 7 east of Rosetown, Sask., to start his own beef operation with eight cows, a bull and a dream! The couple has a knack for repurposing good used buildings to meet their needs and over time has moved in their home and five hiproofed barns, each for a specific purpose.

Today, the cows and heifers swath graze baler oats from December 1 through to March 15. There hasn’t been a winter yet they haven’t stayed out the full 100 days, Dawn says. They graze together on a quarter sec-

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C A T T L E M E N · J U LY 2 0 1 4

tion at a time and the swaths are laid down in such a way that the herd has to walk across them on the way to the water bowl. With 700 animals traipsing back and forth, it’s not long before snow and ice on the swaths get kicked aside and they’re into new swaths.

Lots of portable windbreak fences cut the wind chill considerably, but they’ll start supplementing with grain for extra energy if it gets below -28 C. There’s not enough sunlight hours on those short winter days to give the cows a chance to warm from the outside in, Bryce says.

They plan for one acre per cow for the 100 days, or 700 acres total. Underseeded with fall rye, the fields do double duty in spring for the new pairs and bulls. The fall rye greens up early drawing the cattle across the stubble to spread them out as they clean up remaining swaths.

The bull battery is kept fully charged with one for every 15 to 17 cows to ensure 75 per cent of their calves arrive in the first cycle.

They’ve switched to range-raised AngusSimmental bulls and have definitely seen the promised 20-pound weaning weight advantage using the hybrids compared to straight Angus bulls.

Since finding some bloodlines that are adding length and depth on the calves without compromising calving ease, they’ve been keeping the bulls longer and buying in more of the 70 Angus-type replacement heifers needed each year.

The herd is brought into the yard a couple of weeks ahead of calving starting April 1.

Pastures with a clear view from the dining room window are reserved for this purpose and readied by pushing up the snow ahead of time to give the cattle lots of dry ground.

The calving pasture leads up to the barn area where there is a large bedded corral surrounded by windboard fencing. The animals are free to come and go during the day, then are locked into the bedded area at night to ensure new arrivals are safe and sound.

Feeding in the afternoon helps keep the herd on a daytime calving schedule, so there’s not much night checking as long as the weather co-operates.

New pairs are moved out of the calving pasture each evening and morning, with heifer pairs going to their own pasture and mature pairs to another. Moving the pairs out helps prevent mismatches and mis-mothering and spreads the herd over more ground to reduce crowding as it doubles in size.

A large pen directly back of the barn is for new pairs in cold weather and those needing extra time to mother up. Bryce designed a handy calf carrier attached to the back of a four-wheeler to get new pairs up to the barn area quickly and safely. The calf rests on its belly with legs dangling through the frame as if in a standing position and the cow follows right along behind.

The two calving barns don’t see as much use as when calving started in Feb-

www.canadiancattlemen.ca

management

ruary, but they still come in handy when weather turns ornery. The area below the hayloft in one barn is insulated with a home-built maternity pen in an enclosed room and permanent pens across the alley. The back section is open to be used as a loafing area for calving cows and can be set up with pens as needed. This area and the second insulated barn with temporary pens are cleaned out after calving to be used for storage.

Calving days are busy from sun-up to sundown patrolling calving pastures on four-wheelers. They expect about 30 calves a day at the peak of the first cycle. The standing record is 125 calves in four days.

Procedures are kept to a minimum during calving. As soon as possible after birth the bull calves are banded and each calf receives a dangle tag numbered to match the dam’s. These are prepared ahead of calving and kept organized in a large tray built for this purpose. Details of the births are recorded in a pocketbook to be entered into the computer each evening.

Their rule of thumb is to give the cows what they need to take care of their calves, Bryce explains. In addition to their regular health and mineral programs, the cows receive vitamin ADE shots and a scours vaccine ahead of calving. They’ve found this makes the calves stronger at birth and the vitamins and immunity pass through the milk to get the calves off to a good start.

Toward the end of calving they’ll start mov-

ing the pairs over to a swath-grazing field greening with fall rye. The pairs are moved farther from the yard as the calves get older, starting in one of three 40-acre paddocks that each hold 30 to 40 pairs. Another three 80-acre paddocks hold 50 to 60 pairs apiece. Two 160acre pastures hold about 80 pairs each and then there’s a quarter section of grass.

It works like a fine waltz in real life, Dawn says. The smaller groupings help spread out the pairs to reduce crowding in stormy weather compared to running all of the pairs together on a quarter. Lots of four-foot-high windbreak panels are set up in random fashion around the pastures so calves can easily find spots out of the wind.

Their efforts have combined to essentially eliminate early-calfhood illnesses.

Coyotes are more likely to take a calf than scours, he says. It’s not unusual to spot them sneaking into the calving pasture as they scan the area with binoculars from the window between patrols.

Branding and vaccinating happen before trailering the pairs to summer pasture. In years gone by, they’d arrange crews to help, but all of their work to get everything ready the day before turned out to be a waste of time if the crew cancelled on short notice.

The calf-handling system they built is much more reliable. It’s a mini chute and squeeze across from the regular setup for the cows with alleys and gates arranged for easily sorting the calves from the cows.

Here, Dawn has painted a silhouette of a

They aim to have 75 per cent of their calves born in the first cycle.

www.canadiancattlemen.ca

PHOTO: Debbie Furber

pair on the side of the big barn that works like a charm to attract cattle back down the alley to the point where it turns.

The two of them can work 80 pairs and as many as 100 in a steady four-hour session. It takes a few days to get the job done, but they can work at their own pace when it fits their schedule.

After weaning from the 17 summer pastures, the cows graze their way into two large pastures reserved for fall grazing and then trailed to the first swath-grazing field in December.

They consider themselves fortunate to have all of the 42 quarters owned and 30 quarters rented land in their system contiguous so that the cattle can be trailed everywhere.

Ten quarters are for hay and silage. Alfalfa is the mainstay for silage for their backgrounding operation, not only because of its nutritional value, but because it’s a perennial that makes good use of early spring moisture on their sandy land and it’s ready to chop in July before custom silage crews get tied up doing annual crops.

Another 10 quarters are for growing oats and lentils in rotation. The oats, mainly for the feedlot, are stored in open-ended softcover Quonsets that double for equipment storage as they empty out.

In recent years, they’ve scaled back their 2,000-head feedlot operation by eliminating most of the custom backgrounding to concentrate on backgrounding and marketing their own calves. They’ll buy in some as well, depending on their feed supply.

Weaning is in October with calves from each pasture group penned together so they’re with familiar animals. They hold off on vaccinating until the calves are settled in and well started on feed. In December, they’re sorted according to size and sex.

They’ve been marketing straight off the farm for the past seven years, aiming to have the feeders out of the lot before calving starts to simplify the workload.

The feeders are weighed and sorted into seven-, eight-, and nine-weight heifer and steer groups penned in semi-load lots for viewing. An information sheet with the closing date for bids and details on each group, including the health program and their veterinarian’s contact information, is circulated to order buyers they’ve contacted beforehand.

Though the jobs are never ending and require a diverse palate of skills, the McKenzies don’t call it work because they are living their dream and have the security of being self-sufficient in pasture, silage, hay, grain, and labour. c

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 Nutriti o n

By John McKinnon

Choosing the Right Mineral More Than Price

C

hoosing the right mineral for the cow herd is not an easy task as there is a wide variety of choices including loose minerals that vary in calcium and phosphorus concentration, molasses-based tubs and blocks, trace mineral salts and numerous commercial protein supplements. To further complicate matters, within a given supplement category, you will find variability in terms of specific mineral concentrations, mineral bioavailability and price. When faced with this complexity, many producers settle on a product with the lowest price tag.

With this article I would like to explore why price is not always the best option when selecting a mineral supplement.

First let’s look at the mineral needs of your herd.

One reason there are so many types of minerals on the market is that like other nutrients, your cow’s mineral requirements change with stage of pregnancy. Two critical periods are the last trimester of pregnancy and the 60-day period from calving through breeding. While mineral needs are not as high for the remainder of the year, nevertheless they are still important. Several companies have developed programs where specific mineral formulations are fed during each of these periods.

These include trace mineral salt formulations, range minerals, late gestation/calving minerals and minerals for the breeding herd. Adjustments are made for changes in specific mineral requirements such as magnesium and calcium, to compensate for reduced pasture concentration of specific minerals with advancing plant maturity or the addition of a certain percentage of chelated minerals for situations where there is a known deficiency.

Another important consideration is the mineral content of your forage, particularly with respect to choosing a 1:1 or 2:1 mineral. Legumes such as alfalfa and legume/ grass mixtures tend to be high in calcium (i.e. 1.0 per cent to 2.0 per cent) and intermediate (0.3 per cent to 0.4 per cent) in phosphorus content. Grass-type forages and cereals cut for greenfeed generally contain equal parts calcium and phosphorus (0.2 per cent to 0.3 per cent). The choice of which calcium/phosphorus mineral to feed will depend on which feed category or mix of feeds you are using.

Perhaps the most important consideration is firsthand knowledge of the area where you raise cattle, both in terms of soil and water mineral content. Mineral deficiencies in cattle can be classified as primary or secondary. Primary deficiencies result from low mineral concentrations in the forage which in turn results from mineral deficiencies in the soil. An example is selenium which is low in forages grown on grey wooded soils. Selenium deficiency in pregnant beef cows results in white muscle disease in newborn calves

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and can be prevented by strategic supplementation either through a mineral feeding program or injection of selenium/vitamin E. Secondary deficiencies result from interactions between different minerals. Minerals exist in a variety of charged states, both positive and negative. These charges result in a variety of potential interactions that can tie up specific minerals and result in deficiency situations. An example is secondary copper deficiency which can result from high soil molybdenum levels and/or high water sulphate concentrations. A general rule of thumb is that the ratio of copper to molybdenum in the diet should be greater than 5:1. Ratios less than 2:1 are a good indication of an induced copper deficiency and call for specific supplementation strategies. High dietary sulphur levels will also tie up copper.

In this case, both the sulphur level of the feed and the water needs to be considered when calculating total sulphur intake. Water sulphate levels less than 500 parts per million are considered ideal, while levels higher than 1,000 parts per million are a concern for copper deficiency as well as other issues such as polioencephalomalacia. Total dietary sulphur levels greater than 0.4 per cent (dry matter basis) have been shown to induce copper deficiency in beef cows.

Elevated forage potassium levels is another example where mineral interactions can result in production losses. High dietary potassium can reduce the cow’s absorption of magnesium. This can result in “grass tetany or staggers.” Cattle with this disease show many neurological symptoms including hyperexcitability, inco-ordination, muscular spasms, and paralysis and in severe cases coma leading to death. High dietary potassium levels also impair the cow’s ability to mobilize calcium stores at or near calving. This can lead to an increased incidence of milk fever with many of the same symptoms observed with grass tetany. Forage potassium levels vary with plant species, use of potassium fertilizers (i.e. manure application) and with environmental conditions. For example cereal greenfeed grown as a replacement for hay during periods of drought can have elevated potassium levels, particularly when grown on land that has had manure applied. When fed as the primary forage source, this high potassium forage increases the risk of both of these diseases at or near calving.

As you can see there are many factors to consider when choosing the right mineral supplement for your herd.

The mineral supplement with the cheapest price tag will not always meet your requirements. Knowledge of local conditions and forage and water mineral content are a starting point. To truly fine tune the decision, I suggest working with a qualified nutritionist who knows your area and your operation. c

John McKinnon is a beef cattle nutritionist at the University of Saskatchewan

www.canadiancattlemen.ca

Stand up, be proud An open letter to Canadian ag When Greg Stewart retired as FCC President and CEO, he put his heart into this letter challenging all of us who work in agriculture to speak positively and tell the real story of ag. Reading it helps explain why FCC launched Ag More Than Ever, and why we remain so strongly committed to the cause.

Agriculture More Than Ever is an industry cause powered by more than 300 partner organizations and 450 agvocates committed to speaking up and speaking positively for our industry.

Agriculture matters to this country, and there’s absolutely no question in my mind that the future for Canadian agriculture is bright.

The industry is thriving, family farms are prospering and I see incredible amounts of optimism, pride and passion across the country. And with this success comes a responsibility – an obligation to this industry to let everyone else in on the secret, which is this: even though it’s sometimes tempting to downplay your success by saying how tough farming is, you know in your hearts you’d never dream of doing anything else. Deep down, you’re intensely proud of what you do, and it’s time to quit hiding how successful this industry really is.

It’s our obligation to make our voices heard about where the industry is heading because believe me, if agriculture doesn’t take control of its own destiny, somebody else will. So if you’re benefitting from ag, you have an obligation to give back by driving the outcome, rather than waiting to be told what to do by someone who doesn’t fully understand or appreciate the industry. That means standing up and telling the truth about Canadian agriculture, because right now, that’s just not happening enough.

So let’s take a deep breath and say it out loud together: Agriculture is the best industry in the world. We’re honoured to be part of it. We can only hope that our children find the same fulfilment from whatever path they choose in life. We’re incredibly proud of what we do. And yes.

We want the Canadian public to be proud of our success, too.

Short of fulfilling my childhood dream of being a farmer, my career in agriculture has been the best ride I could have imagined. I can’t help being excited for the future of this industry.

I’m forever grateful for the opportunity I have had to serve this amazing industry and the wonderful people in it. Thank you.

I wish you all great success. Stand up and be proud – you’ve earned it.

FCC is a proud partner of this cause.

Greg Stewart

32735 E AMTE_Greg_Exit letter_8.125x10.75.indd 1

AgMoreThanEver.ca

2014-06-27 7:33 AM

 PACKERS

By Debbie Furber

VG MEATS DEBUTS TENDERNESSTESTED BEEF IN CANADA

V

G Meats is marketing Canada’s first tenderness-tested steaks.

Kevin Van Groningen says they started with 100 per cent sensory-panel tasting for steaks sold to Jacob’s Steak House and expanded April 30 to provide 100 per cent tenderness sampling for steaks sold through Longos 27 retail locations in the Toronto area.

He and his three brothers, Cory, Chad and Kyle, and their parents, Wayne and Joan, own and operate VG Meats at Simcoe, Ont. The custom processing business established by their grandparents in 1970 has grown to include a retail store at Stoney Creek and a cow-calf to finishing operation.

Van Groningen says working alongside their grandparents and parents in the family business was sort of like home-schooling.

Along with the art of fine butchering he and his brothers learned from an early age the importance of a satisfied customer.

“Nothing can wreck an otherwise good day like having an unhappy customer and nothing makes customers unhappy faster than a tough steak,” says Van Groningen.

Tenderness has always been an illusive target for the beef industry, yet everyone knows it’s critical, he says. If the beef’s not tender, people have a hard time focusing on other attributes such as juiciness and flavour.

While studying food science at the University of Guelph Kevin did some digging into the mystery of the “random tough steak scenario” and became quite handy at doing the Warner-Bratzler shear force (WBSF) test that has been the tenderness gold standard for researchers since the mid-1900s.

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Later on VG Meats started sending steak samples to Dr. Steve Miller at the University of Guelph for tenderness testing of cattle in some of the beef genetics projects he had underway. They were able to start identifying some trends, however, it was difficult to trace the tenderness to individual animals due to delays in getting the information back from the university. When it got to the point that they were sampling almost all of the carcasses, VG Meats invested in the equipment to bring the testing in house.

Every carcass is tenderness tested by taking a one-inch-thick steak between the 12th and 13th rib. The samples are cooked and cooled according to the WBSF protocol and then six cores are tested to measure the amount of pressure needed to slice through the meat.

The highest of the six readings gives the tenderness score for the steak.

Researchers consider anything under 4.3 kilograms as tender: 2.0 is the very best and consumers don’t seem to differentiate between a 2.0 and 2.5. They’ll notice a bit of a difference between a 2.0 and a 3.0, but find miles of difference between a 2.0 and a 4.0. Once tenderness gets up to 5.0 they’ll be chewing more.

Each carcass is tagged with its own tracking code associated with the animal’s electronic identification number in the company’s Track It Farm to Fork database, which is Beef Improvement Ontario’s Biolinks program on the back end. Each piece of meat throughout the fabrication process gets its own tag with the original carcass tracking code.

“The tagging procedure does take extra

Kevin Van Groningen

time during fabrication, but this is adding value for our customers, us and our producer so it’s worth it,” he says. “We still have to be conscientious of operating costs and the final cost to the consumer, but if we don’t do it, we will never know if changes should be made or not, or where to make changes.”

VG Meats offers nine steak cuts with the VG Tenderness-Tested stamp. “These are cuts that research considers grilling steaks that should be tender,” Van Groningen explains. “There can be others and as we learn we have identified some of those for possible inclusion in the program.

“We aren’t telling consumers that the steak should be tender, we are saying, yes, it is tender and we can report exactly what it is. What we are offering consumers is the ability to know the precise tenderness.”

Tied to the VG Tenderness-Tested program is a QR code symbol on the back of the steak package. Scanning the codes with a smartphone will take consumers directly to the company’s Track It program. Entering the tracking code from the meat package into the program, either on the smartphone or back at home on the computer, will retrieve information on when the beef was processed, where the animal was raised, the finishing ration and tenderness score along with a tenderness scale. The program also gives consumers the opportunity to rate the steak, offer comments and ask questions, which lets them be actively involved in deciding how beef should be produced.

“Our tenderness program is possible because we are a small butcher shop —

www.canadiancattlemen.ca

packers

we’re talking head per day, not head per hour — and we can offer high value to consumers,” Van Groningen says.

The same attention to detail that goes into harvesting and fabricating the beef starts at the farm where the “high care” mantra means VG Farms and the local producers who supply cattle meet certain animal care and handling requirements to ensure the well-being of animals and, in turn, quality beef products.

The family recognizes it will take time to educate consumers and producer suppliers on tenderness as a different way of looking at quality beef because everyone is tuned into grading information. As VG Meats is learning first hand, there is no correlation between the tenderness score and grade. In other words, a carcass that grades AA can very well score better on tenderness than one that grades prime.

They’re finding that approximately 35 per cent of the carcasses hit the desired tenderness level by day four after harvest when the first shear force test is done. The remainder goes into an aging program and are retested on day 28 after harvest.

Still, there will be five to 10 per cent that didn’t change and will never meet VG’s standards, so they have to be marketed in a different way.

Van Groningen says it’s too early to say what causes the random tough steak scenario. The first step is to get the data, which is now all part of their regular business setup. There is lots of research that has been done on conditions that affect aging and the natural enzymes associated with aging, however, the test to measure the desirable enzymes is not yet commercially feasible. There may also be opportunities to identify production practices that benefit tenderness and select for animals with genetics for tenderness.

Though stepping out to offer Canada’s first tenderness-tested steak program has required a significant investment all around, the family feels it is a way to have a positive impact and give consumers exactly what they are asking for.

Targeting tenderness

Ontario Ministry of Agriculture’s Brian Pogue, played a matchmaker of sorts for the VG Farms-Longos working partnership that put tenderness-tested beef on the shelf.

Through his position as beef cattle program lead, he was aware of Longos’ interest in finding some way to highlight its beef www.canadiancattlemen.ca

counter and of the Van Groningen family’s operation and their interest in further differentiating VG Meats.

“Studies through the years have consistently shown that 20 per cent of Canadian consumers say they’re not satisfied with their beef-eating experience. Too tough is the reason given most often,” Pogue says.

“The question was whether we could go ahead and produce a product that would be very tender so that when cooked in a rational way would be an enjoyable eating experience. Kevin and Cory made the pitch to Longos and so far, it (TendernessTested steaks) has been well received by consumers.”

Communicating the actual tenderness level to consumers rather than simply stating the steak had been tested for tenderness was a well-planned strategy designed during the two years leading up to the Longos launch.

Ultimately Longos and VG Meats might find that people prefer certain tenderness levels over another and could concentrate on delivering those products.

The QR code is expected to initiate activ-

ity in the meat aisle by giving consumers an opportunity to help identify the genetics and management practices that consistently produce tender, flavourful, juicy beef.

“We know some of the difference is due to genetics and the heritability for tenderness is high indicating that we could select for tenderness,” Pogue says. Only two breed associations in North America have expected progeny differences (EPD) for tenderness, however, relatively few animals have progeny that have been actually measured for tenderness so it’s important to study the accuracy of the EPDs. EPDs could be used to predict tenderness, but come with no guarantee. Likewise, certification programs are really estimations, whether they validate that a process was used to tenderize beef or in future with new technologies correlate beef tenderness with an indicator of tenderness in order to market “guaranteed tender” beef.

VG Meats’ tenderness-tested products are unique in that they test and score every carcass, says Pogue. c

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13

Addressing a Potential Market Failure in the Forage and Grasslands Sector The CFGA recently addressed the House of Commons Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food on the issue of innovation and competitiveness in the forage and grasslands sector. One question from the committee centred on the issue of various forage legume inoculant markets that commercial enterprises no longer support. Producers relying on forage legumes understand that it has become a challenge to access inoculants for forages such as sainfoin, bird’s-foot trefoil, crown vetch, ladino, alsike, red and white clovers, as well as milk vetch. While the CFGA is addressing this issue through its Research and Extension Committee, it could take some time to resolve and may require an industry-wide solution that includes input from stakeholders such as the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, forage seed companies, as well as research and extension personnel in the public and private sector, among others.

Ideally, the CFGA is looking for a solution that does not burden any one party and provides the inoculants required for these specialty forage legumes.

The Committee noted that sometimes markets fail for various reasons. The Committee asked the CFGA if there might be a co-operative model whereby the organization could take “ownership” of the products of research into forage legume inoculants on behalf of its stakeholders. This is an interesting proposition — and there are a number

Canadian Forage & grassland assoCiation www.canadianfga.ca Ph: 780-430-3020

of instances in agriculture where this type of model has evolved. CFGA will consider the feasibility of this scenario within the context of its long-term strategy.

That strategy will take form as it gathers information. The Research and Extension Committee has completed the framework for a research strategy, which is just one document the CFGA will need to construct its comprehensive strategy for the future. Currently, however, the CFGA does not have the capacity to develop all of the reports required internally, and may have to contract at least some of these services from external industry consultants. With the announcement of Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada’s (AAFC) Canadian Agricultural Adaptation Program (CAAP) (2014-2019), CFGA may be able to take advantage of a $50.3-million program that provides non-repayable contributions for industry-led projects that help the agriculture, agri-food, and agri-based products sector adapt and remain competitive. If the CFGA were successful in obtaining a CAAP grant, project costs would be shared on a 50:50 basis between AAFC and the CFGA. The CFGA could include its own funds and/or the funds of its members, industry supporters and other project participants.

In addition to the inoculant issue, the CFGA seeks a more comprehensive

understanding of the workings of the Canadian forage seed sector. This is of particular concern given the recent rescheduling of forage seed to Part III of the Seeds Act and the limited capacity to test the performance of new forage varieties on a national basis. These issues will not only have an effect on the 80 per cent of Canada’s beef production and 60 per cent of the dairy cow diet that are currently dependent on forages, they will also have implications for the use of forages in land reclamation, restoration efforts and biodiversity initiatives as the availability of cultivated and native forage seed and inoculant declines.

The CFGA is actively seeking strategic partners in the forage and grassland value chain with a mutual interest in specific forage and grasslands initiatives.

Partners could include any organization that is committed to sharing physical and/or intellectual resources with CFGA in order to achieve a defined common objective. The CFGA also recognizes that there are many individuals across Canada who appreciate the value of our forage and grasslands, are supportive of the CFGA, and may wish to be involved by becoming Patron Members of the CFGA. Those with an interest in becoming more actively involved in forages and grasslands in conjunction with the CFGA are encouraged to contact us through our website at www.canadianfga.ca.

For the latest innovations in hay tools, go to nhsmart.com/hay Š2014 CNH Industrial America LLC. All rights reserved. New Holland is a trademark registered in the United States and many other countries, owned by or licensed to CNH Industrial N.V., its subsidiaries or affiliates. NH04149141HT

 grazing

By Steve Kenyon

Gravity Always Works

M

y favourite type of water system is a gravity flow. You know me, cheap and reliable is always my favourite. I will describe the setup and operation of two types of gravity-flow systems. We will first look at a true gravity flow from a dam or dugout and then we will look at how we set up a turkey’s nest, for all of you flatlanders.

If I acquire a new piece of land that requires some water development, I first look to see if I can set up a dam to support gravity flow. I look for an area where the snowmelt or rainfall runs off with relatively high volume. If I can find a suitable location, I hire a backhoe to come in and dam up an area to hold back water. It is much cheaper to dam up an area than it is to dig a dugout.

I never want to see a dugout, or a dam, at the bottom of the hill; which is where most people place them. If you place it partway up the hill, with an area downhill for the trough, it will allow for a gravity flow. Make sure that when you make your dam, the overflow point will not wash it away. This requires the overflow point to be on solid undisturbed clay, or for a culvert to be installed at the top of your dam to allow for overflow. Once the dam is constructed and you have it full from run-off, the operation is quite simple.

If you follow along with me on the illustration you might actually make sense of this. The top of the water line,

The turkey’s nest is a form of gravity flow for when you have no elevation to work with

or inlet, is fitted with a screen, a float and a weight, which allows it to float about a foot or two under the surface. Be careful that the inlet is never allowed to suck air or you will lose your siphon. As the season progresses and your water level drops, your inlet stays just under the surface. The water line then goes up over the dam and down to the water trough. Here the float valve restricts the flow when the trough is full.

Warning!!! Make sure you have a wellmounted trough and a protected float valve. If the trough is moved or the float valve is broken, it can cause the trough to overflow and you can empty your dugout in a weekend. Been there, done that!

Also, if your float gets a hole in it and does not float so well anymore, there goes your water. My advice is to fill the float with mono-foam. I should say half fill it with mono-foam. I dare you to try to fill it

 Gravity f low

RUN-OFF

FLOAT

GRAVITY-FLOW WATER LINE

FLOAT VALVE

SCREEN WEIGHT DUGOUT OR DAM

STOCK TROUGH

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right up. This way it will always float, even if a black bear chews holes in it.

In the spring I use one of my gas-powered pumps to prime the siphon. I have found that a simple plastic shutoff valve at the inlet of the pipe turns this into a one-person job. Remove the inlet screen and attach the pump ensuring that the shutoff valve is still on the hose. Open the valve. Turn on the pump to fill the water line and push out all of the air. Now as you shut off the pump, close the valve on the line at the same time.

This will allow you to remove the inlet from the pump, reattach the screen and place it in the water without losing the siphon (like plugging the top end of a drinking straw so the juice does not flow out). Open the valve again as you place the inlet back into the water. Without the valve it is a mad scramble to get the hose into the water and then to attach the screen under water, which almost always causes air pockets that are hard to get out. Alternatively, you could have someone hold the float valve at the trough closed while you reattach the screen (plug the bottom end of the straw). Then open the valve and let your siphon flow. And you’re done! Your new gravity-flow system is at work. If it is set up right, it will be worry free all summer.

The turkey’s nest is another version of a gravity flow for when you don’t have any elevation to work with.

In my area, every quarter of land pretty much has a dugout on it somewhere. Usually when you need to make a dugout, you bring in a track hoe and dig a hole in the ground that usually leaves you with a big pile of clay next to your water source. At a couple of sites I have used this clay pile as a storage tank, or a turkey’s nest.

www.canadiancattlemen.ca

grazing

I get the hoe operator to hollow out the middle of the pile and then line it with silage plastic. This gives you an elevated water reserve to siphon out of. I also recommend putting a page wire fence around it to protect the plastic from wildlife. Once the turkey’s nest is built, the operation is simple.

I run two separate water systems. The first one uses a gas-powered pump to fill the turkey’s nest. You need an inlet hose with a screen, float and weight, and then a discharge hose pumping into the nest. Depending on the size of the nest, I usually just estimate the amount of fuel needed to fill the nest, then I start the pump and walk away. I like to have a

three- or four-day supply of water in the nest and I always make sure that the overflow point on the nest allows the water to drain back into the dugout.

When the nest is full I then set up a separate gravity-flow system to a trough with a float valve. To prime the siphon, it is easier to remove the end of the siphon hose at the trough and haul it over to the pump. Connect it and pump water backwards up into the nest. When the hose is full shut off the pump, disconnect and return the end to the trough. The siphon keeps flowing as the bottom end is disconnected and the inlet remains in the nest under water. The key to this system is never let your nest run dry as you will lose your siphon. The main diffi-

culty with this set up is protecting your plastic liner. I have had to replace one a couple times now.

Both of these systems are relatively inexpensive and mostly worry free. When you have five different grazing cells with 26 different watering sites, “cheap, easy and reliable” is a welcome thought.

“Like” us on Facebook at Greener Pastures Ranching for more tricks and tips on water systems. c Steve Kenyon runs Greener Pastures Ranching Ltd. in Busby, Alta., www. greenerpasturesranching.com, 780-307-6500, email skenyon@greenerpasturesranching.com or find them on Facebook.

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 Holistic R a nc hi ng

By Don Campbell

PLANNED GRAZING

E

ach year we are presented with an opportunity to graze our cattle in a manner that will improve our land, increase our profit and make us more sustainable. Planned grazing works. It has been shown to be beneficial under all environments. Planned grazing has the potential to increase or even double the production on a set land base. What impact would doubling your grass production have on your bottom line? Are you taking advantage of this knowledge to help you build a more profitable, more sustainable business? We are halfway through the 2014 grazing season but it is never too late to begin to do a better job.

Doubling grass production seems like a wild prediction. How can this be possible? Let me share some personal history. I was introduced to the concept of planned grazing in the mid-1980s. At that time I was a conventional rancher. I used continuous grazing and felt I was doing a good job, the best I knew how to do at that time.

Planned grazing shifted my paradigms. I began to see that cows are tools to improve the land. I realized that proper grazing could improve the ecosystem building blocks. The result would be healthier land, increased production and increased profit. I have used planned grazing for the past 25 years. The result has been that my grass production has more than doubled on a ranch that I felt was under good management 25 years ago.

Planned grazing focuses on helping you achieve your landscape goal. Everyone would have a different goal in their own words and unique to their situation. A common theme might be “let’s leave the land better than we found it.”

The building blocks are energy flow, water cycle, mineral cycle and succession. Stop and think about it. Does anyone have trouble doubling grass production in an ideal year when growing conditions are excellent? I think we would all agree that this is commonplace. When we improve the ecosystem building blocks we help create more excellent years. Suddenly doubling the grass production makes sense. It is not some wild starry-eyed idea.

There are two main requirements to achieve healthier pastures. We need to stop the overgrazing and cover the bare ground. Overgrazing occurs when we graze too long at one time (graze period) or when we return for a second graze before the plants have fully recovered from the previous graze (recovery period).

Graze Period: Stopping overgrazing requires a short graze period. I suggest a graze period of three to five days to get started. Once you see the benefits of a short graze period you may choose to use an even shorter graze period. The rule of thumb is: the shorter the graze period the better. The graze period you decide to use will be based on your commitment to land improvement and your availability of labour.

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Recovery Period: The recovery period is king. Plants must be allowed to fully recover from a graze before being grazed a second time. The best indicator that a plant is fully recovered is that it is ready to flower. Grazing a plant at this stage has no detrimental effects. In fact grazing at this stage is beneficial to the individual plant and to the ecosystem.

The rule of thumb is: full recovery is essential. I suggest a recovery period of 60 to 90 days to start. You will need to experiment to find the recovery period that works best for you. My experience has been that as you move closer to 90 days your results will be better. In some of the drier areas grazing once a year may be the best choice.

Bare Ground: The ideal situation is to have no bare ground. Literally every inch of ground should be covered by a growing plant or litter (dead and decaying plant material). It is possible to double your effective rainfall by having no bare ground and soil with a high organic matter.

Effective rainfall is defined as the amount of rain available for plant growth compared to total rainfall. When it rains some of the water runs off, some soaks in, and some is lost to evaporation. The rest is available for plant growth and this amount can be doubled with an effective water cycle.

Moisture is the limiting resource in most of Western Canada. What improvements would you see by doubling your effective rainfall? It is interesting how everyone talks about the rainfall and almost no one talks about the water cycle. Often when we talk about dry spells or drought we are really talking about an ineffective water cycle. We can’t change our rainfall but we can improve our water cycle. When we do this it has the same results as increasing our rainfall.

Another often overlooked part of planned grazing is the replan. Basically this means preparing a grazing plan before the growing season begins. Once growth starts we are constantly monitoring our regrowth (an indicator of growing conditions) and adjusting our management to match our growing conditions.

Planned grazing has three main components: it helps you achieve your landscape goal (what does your land need to look like to provide short-term profit and longterm sustainability?). It focuses on increasing the health of your land by improving the ecosystem building blocks. It allows you to adjust your management to match the growing conditions you are experiencing in the current year.

I hope this gives you cause for thought. Planned grazing works. It is based on sound proven principles. It has helped many people and it has the potential to help you. I encourage you to investigate planned grazing. I hope you have an excellent growing season. Happy trails. c Don Campbell ranches with his family at Meadow Lake, Sask., and teaches Holistic Management courses. He can be reached at 306-236-6088 or doncampbell@sasktel.net.

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CONGRATULATIONS!

Donald Bertagnolli Rocky Mountain House, Alberta

Danean Edgar Wolseley, Saskatchewan

The next generation of Canadian agricultural leaders is growing, and CABEF is proud to support them. Congratulations to these six exceptional students who have won $2,500 CABEF scholarships. Based on their applications, the future of the agriculture industry is in great hands.

Michelle Ross Grenfell, Saskatchewan

Stephanie Dousselaere Cartwright, Manitoba

Colleen Crunican Denfield, Ontario

Mario Roy St-Jules-de-Beauce, QuĂŠbec

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 conservat i o n

By Debbie Furber

Fee-for-service conservation Ranchers engineered it now they are testing it out to see how it works in the real world

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t’s been 80 years since respected American professor, ecologist and author, Aldo Leopold, recognized that conservation would ultimately boil down to rewarding private landowners who preserve the public interest. The southwestern Saskatchewan ranchers who formed the Ranchers Stewardship Alliance Inc. (RSAI) in 2010 believe that day has arrived.

As to how it can be done, they hope to demonstrate that this summer when they run a pilot program using their Prairie Beef and Biodiversity (PBAB) model.

What sets this apart from traditional conservation schemes is it’s a results-based model that pays participating ranchers, says RSAI director and rancher Sue Michalsky of Eastend, Sask.

Landowners and managers would offer clearly defined ecosystem services with specified outcomes and get paid when they deliver the desired results.

The buyers of these services may be government, environmental groups, businesses, industries, individuals, or foundations — anyone who values these services for environmental or marketing reasons.

PBAB targets any natural grasslands area shared by grazing livestock and species at risk. The aim is to stem the decline in grassland biodiversity as measured by the preservation of habitat for species at risk.

The presence of at-risk species is an accepted indicator of biodiversity because maintaining habitat for one species generally benefits others and the grassland ecosystem as a whole.

For the pilot, the ranchers selected the Sprague’s pipit and Swift fox as their target species. Both are listed as indicator species and species of special concern under the legislation.

The hope is a PBAB model could eventually complement the usual conservation programs such as conservation easements, permanent cover programs and costshared beneficial management practices (BMPs) for grazing grasslands that are used today.

“As it is, ranchers are doing all of the work,” says Michalsky. “Cost-share programs might occasionally work for species

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at risk, but there’s little in it for producers except paying half the cost of the project plus all the ongoing maintenance. It’s bothersome, too, that some BMPs don’t have a benefit to species at risk.

“We want to see a program that works for ranchers and species at risk.”

“ We want to see a program that works for ranchers and species at risk.”

Sue Michalsky Eastend, Sask.

The grasslands of the Northern Great Plains in the adjoining corners of Saskatchewan and Alberta contain the highest density of Prairie species at risk in Canada. The alliance contends these creatures survive here because their habitat has been maintained by ranchers right back to the homesteaders’ era when vast areas of native prairie were turned over.

In other words the decline in species on native prairie can be traced to the decline in ranching when it wasn’t profitable enough

to curb the conversion of grassland to grain production, supported by government through the years, and other industrial and residential uses.

As a consequence relatively few people have been left holding the species-at-risk bag. Many who still ranch in this area feel it’s unrealistic to expect such a tiny percentage of the population to bear the cost of protecting native prairie and species at risk, especially as their families were not the ones who broke up the grasslands in the first place.

Michalsky says the alliance initially envisioned a program that would provide reliable, long-term financial incentives for the ranchers’ good stewardship right up to the present day. Programs built on the business-as-usual model, she says, can actually be a disincentive if they tempt producers to undo BMPs already implemented to qualify for a new program.

Ranchers who participate in PBAB will need assurance that they are complying with the species-at-risk legislation and won’t be left with the cost of removing expensive infrastructure, such as fencing, if science turns up a better way to get these beneficial results in the future.

Given that most grassland ranchers already support the habitat of many species at risk, the PBAB’s guiding document makes recommendations, but stops short of prescribing management practices.

“If you have species at risk on your land, you’re probably most of the way there and may only need to tweak things a bit,” says Michalsky. “The program leaves it up to ranchers to decide how to produce the desired results and in this way rewards people already providing the service.”

Taking the lead

In late 2011 the RSAI contracted three studies to flesh out their ideas with a grant from the Commission for Environmental Co-operation, an international body headed up by the three ministers or secretaries of the environment from Canada, the U.S. and Mexico. The CEC then commissioned RSAI to design a resultsbased program, which led to the creation of the PBAB.

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conservation

One two-part study, Grassland Stewardship Conservation Programming on Natural Grasslands Used for Livestock Production, by the Miistakis Institute at the University of Calgary, reviewed marketbased programs from around the globe to find those that best met RSAI’s criteria, promote conservation of grasslands and species at risk while improving ranch profitability.

One option was certification-style programs. Of the handful that have been tried, only three remain. This report uncovered significant hurdles in marketing certified “conservation beef ” to consumers. Primarily, there’s no solid evidence that consumers will pay a premium for it.

Payment-for-ecosystem (PES) programming showed more promise. The study found several that promoted biodiversity or endangered species and RSAI incorporated some of their concepts into the PBAB. (Both reports are on the Miistakis Institute’s website, www.rockies.ca.)

The next question was how to value an ecosystem service. For this, RSAI turned to former Agriculture Canada range management specialist Chris Nykoluk of Lumsden, Sask. In consultation with Dr. Ken Belcher, an agricultural economist at the University of Saskatchewan, Nykoluk looked at five options in her report, What are Native Prairie Grasslands Worth and Why it Pays to Conserve this Endangered Ecosystem.

Best estimates range from $5.40 to $13.88 per acre per year beyond the costs associated with grazing livestock. She suggests a rancher’s actual cost of providing the service would be the most appropriate pricing mechanism. (This report is posted at www. pcap-sk.org.)

The model was then refined by stakeholders during two intense workshops on the target species involving representatives of RSAI, South of the Divide Ecosystem Stewards, Canadian Cattlemen’s Association, Western Stock Growers’ Association, Saskatchewan Stock Growers Association, government and non-government organizations.

Saskatchewan Environment has also funded more research into the habitat needs of Spraque’s pipit and Swift fox and the development of another module that accommodates the habitat needs of the greater sage grouse without harming other species.

Environment Canada’s emergency order in December to protect the greater sage grouse angered many ranchers who felt www.canadiancattlemen.ca

they’ve already co-operated fully with voluntary stewardship programs and done as much as they can reasonably be expected to do to protect this particular species.

Not set in stone

RSAI is essentially breaking new ground in Canada so this pilot run will be monitored carefully to identify the model’s strengths and weaknesses as well as the outcomes

for payment purposes. There is a concern that the monitoring could easily cost more than the amounts paid to the ranchers so that too will have to be evaluated. The ideal would be for the ranchers to feel they are being adequately compensated and the buyers to feel they are getting their money’s worth.

For more information contact Sue Michalsky at 306-295-3696. c

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21

 vet aDv i c e

It’s in the stars

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riday, June 13 and a full moon. An astrological phenomenon made for witches and those rummaging for bad omens; an event not to be repeated until 2049 — a cycle of 35 years. It’s an interesting span of time that stirs the imagination of those, like myself, who spend most days wondering about the future. If the past 35 years are any indication, a great deal will change through the next 35, especially when considering emerging disease, issues affecting humans and animals, and the human food supply. There are many events already unfolding requiring special heed if we are going to remain healthy and safely feed ourselves through the next four decades.

Antimicrobial resistance tops the list. Microbes have emerged as the real predators of the new century. Very few lives haven’t been touched in some way by the resistance of common bacteria to antimicrobials, many tragically. How we control, prevent and treat disease is about to dramatically alter how we produce milk, meat and eggs. Getting bigger and more efficient, which seems inevitable, will have to happen without the routine use of antimicrobials in both preventing disease and enhancing production. Biosecurity, stress reduction, immune stimulation, better vaccines, animal welfare are about becoming better, while submitting to consumer demands.

The cost of feeding ourselves will rise, perhaps double, to compensate for necessary change.

Managing risk is paramount. The indiscreet use of precaution can no longer be at play in the game of managing risk. The same can be said for carelessness and voyeurism. A classic example: the billions dedicated to preventing variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD) between 2000 and 2013, now totalling 220 cases globally over 20 years, in contrast to the thwarted search for answers related to porcine epidemic diarrhea (PED) across Canada and the U.S. that killed eight million pigs over several years. Managing the risks associated with BSE (mad cow disease), once rendered animal products were identified as the primary link between animals and human vCJD, dulled the senses of our research community, while a new disease like PED was allowed to emerge and run rampant through an industry. Cause and prevention were orphaned in the shadow of inadequate swine biosecurity and common-sense sanitation of vehicles transporting livestock across Canada and the U.S. The recent flap over a single case of vCJD in Texas acquired during travel highlights the inadequacies in our ability to manage risk. It stands in stark contrast to Dr. Lyle Peterson’s recent address to the American Society of Microbiology where he named Chikungunya virus as the biggest threat in U.S. epidemiology. The virus’s arrival in the Western Hemisphere was probably through an infected traveller. Chikungunya disease, similar to dengue fever — another emerging disease — is historically a mosquitotransmitted disease of Asia and Africa. The virus causes an acute illness with high fever and varying periods of joint pain that may persist for years. Recently, Chikungunya reached epidemic proportions in the Caribbean with 51,000 cases across 12 countries within months. There is widespread fear that international crowds

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attending the FIFA World Cup will introduce it to Brazil. While neither Chikungunya nor dengue fever is related to animal production, they represent serious diseases spurred by burgeoning globalization and environmental change.

These events, along with the emergence of Schmallenberg virus and the spread of bluetongue virus out of the Mediterranean basin should signal animal agriculture that new and highly infectious microbes spread easily between nations. The potential for disease to create ecological disaster will only be tempered by vigilant surveillance and essential control of invasive species, both seriously underfunded.

Another example is the all-too-familiar story of West Nile virus (WNV) from the time it walked off a ship in 1999 and invaded crow rookeries in New York City. Migratory birds and mosquitoes quickly spread WNV across North America. The advance of human cases followed avian deaths. A worrisome feature of WNV is the change occurring in its epidemiology and clinical features.

Human outbreaks are more frequent and often associated with severe illness. Historical patterns of WNV provide few indications as to the future behaviour of the virus in North America. In addition to avian and human illness, many horses are affected. West Nile became the leading cause of human arboviral disease (insect spread) in the U.S. (nearly 2,500 cases last year with 1,300 progressing to brain infections).

The world holds its breath about a deadly new virus for which there is no cure and about which little is understood. It’s called Middle Eastern respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV), a new pathogen that could present a global threat. The virus causes coughing, fever and pneumonia and has a death rate of about 30 per cent. Confirmation that domestic camels serve as reservoirs and a recent upswing in cases has health officials on high alert.

MERS was first reported in 2012 in Saudi Arabia. Cases linked to travellers in the Gulf have cropped up in 13 countries. So far in 2014, more cases have been detected than combined totals in 2012 and 2013. The Centre for Disease Control in the U.S. is preparing for the first case of MERS to walk off an airplane onto American soil. About one million Muslims are expected to travel to Saudi Arabia in early October, for the Hajj, presenting the potential for a global spike in infections.

Animal agriculture recently found itself embroiled in another case of animal abuse that eventually went viral. A case that saw Canada’s largest dairy processor, Saputo, suspend pickup of milk from Canada’s largest dairy (Chilliwack Cattle Sales) until corrective measures were instituted. Animal welfare, an integral part of modern food production, is now everyone’s business. Agriculture now finds itself impelled to follow standards often established in the court of public opinion. c Dr. Ron Clarke prepares this column on behalf of the Western Canadian Association of Bovine Practitioners. Suggestions for future articles can be sent to Canadian Cattlemen (gren@fbcpublishing.com) or WCABP (info@wcabp.com).

www.canadiancattlemen.ca

 researc h o n t h e r eco r d

By Reynold Bergen

Ergot — Low Levels Cause Big Problems

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rgot develops when a fungus called Claviceps purpurea infects susceptible grass and grain plants during flowering. Rye is the most susceptible annual crop, followed by triticale, then wheat. Barley and oats are less susceptible but not completely resistant. Ergot is not a concern in corn but it can infect a number of perennial grasses.

Cool, damp weather conditions during the flowering period (as happened in Western Canada over the last few years, and appear to be shaping up again this summer) cause the flowers to stay open longer. This allows more opportunities for ergot spores to spread and infect the seed head. Ergot spores can survive for a year on the soil surface. Less summerfallow, continuous grain-on-grain rotations and unmowed grass in road allowances allow ergot spores to build up in the soil and help the disease cycle to continue and build.

In infected crops some of the grain in the seed head will be replaced by black ergot bodies that resemble mouse droppings. These ergot bodies contain toxins called ergot alkaloids. Like all toxins, the severity of their effects depends on how much toxin was consumed, for how long, and the physiological state of the animal. At very high levels (2,000 parts per billion, or ppb) in feed, ergot alkaloids will cause dry gangrene of the ears, tails and feet. But more subtle effects (e.g. reduced appetite, growth and performance, prolactin, milk production, reproduction and immunity) start to appear at much lower levels (200 ppb).

Canadian beef nutritionists will soon be able to make more refined feeding and management recommendations regarding ergot-contaminated feed. Researchers at the University of Saskatchewan are using the Prairie Diagnostic Centre’s extremely sensitive Liquid Chromatography — Mass Spectrometry (LC-MS) equipment to detect ergot levels as low as one to three ppb.

A common recommendation is that grain samples with more than 0.1 to 0.3 per cent ergot bodies by weight will pose a risk to cattle. This roughly equates to five to 20 ergot bodies per litre of grain, though this will obviously be affected by the bushel weight of the grain. The Saskatchewan Agriculture Development Fund (SADF) is funding a project led by Dr. Barry Blakley (Toxicology Centre), John McKinnon (Animal and Poultry Science), and Jaswant Singh (Western College of Veterinary Medicine). In this study, a grad student is counting the number of ergot bodies per litre in many infected wheat and barley samples varying in bushel weight. Actual ergot alkaloid concentrations will also be determined using the LC-MS equipment. This will lead to better on-farm guidelines for producers to

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determine when lab testing is recommended for ergotinfected grain samples.

The cow-calf sector doesn’t generally feed a lot of grain, but ergot is also found in the seed heads of annual crops used for greenfeed, swath grazing, or bale grazing.

Ergot toxins can be much more highly concentrated in distillers grains, screenings, and screening pellets. To better understand the effects of ergot alkaloid levels on cow-calf production, SADF is funding another research project with Drs. McKinnon, Blakley and Singh. In this study, the researchers have formulated pellets containing 39,000 ppb ergot alkaloids by blending barley, canola meal, oat hulls and ergot-contaminated wheat screenings. The pellets have been mixed with silage to create four diets containing zero, 125, 250, or 2,000 ppb ergot alkaloids. These diets will be fed to cow-calf pairs for one week. Blood samples will be collected and analyzed for the hormone prolactin. Ultrasound will be used to measure blood flow in the uterus and tail. This project will help identify the ergot alkaloid levels that first start to subtly affect the cow’s physiology. Based on these results, the diets will be refined and a followup experiment will collect longer-term measurements on cow reproduction and pre-weaning calf growth.

We also don’t know when ergot bodies start to develop in the seed head, when ergot alkaloids first appear, or how fast they accumulate in the ergot bodies. The Saskatchewan Ministry of Agriculture, led by regional livestock specialist Sean Thompson, will collect seed heads throughout the summer from a variety of ergot-infected grain crops around the province. These samples will be analyzed for ergot levels using the LC-MS equipment to determine how ergot alkaloid levels change as the crop develops. This will help determine how early ergot alkaloids can be detected in the seed, how fast ergot alkaloids accumulate in the seed, and help to develop better recommendations around the use of ergot-infected crops for swath grazing, bale grazing, greenfeed or silage.

For more information about ergot, and how to identify, sample, test for, and deal with it in feed grain and screenings, type ergot in the search box at www.beefresearch.ca/blog.

The Beef Research Cluster is funded by the National Checkoff and Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada with additional contributions from provincial beef industry groups and governments to advance research and technology transfer supporting the Canadian beef industry’s vision to be recognized as a preferred supplier of healthy, high-quality beef, cattle and genetics. c Dr. Reynold Bergen is the science director of the Beef Cattle Research Council.

C a t t l e m e n · J u ly 2 0 1 4 23

 conservat i o n

By Peg Strankman

Measuring Agriculture’s Shadow “

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he value of biodiversity to provide ecosystem services like pollination to agriculture is more and more recognized,” says Dr. Shannon R. White, a University of Alberta ecologist working with the Alberta Biodiversity Monitoring Institute (ABMI). “Measuring biodiversity is the base for valuing the ecosystem services responsible for purifying our air and water, and ensuring the productivity of our agriculture and forestlands.”

Alberta’s biodiversity monitoring expertise is being used in the seven new regional land use plans and was recently shared internationally in a workshop organized by the United Nations (UN) Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). The workshop is part of the Livestock Environmental Assessment and Performance (LEAP) project that is looking to improve the environmental performance of the livestock sector. ABMI is now involved in the component working to develop indicators to evaluate biodiversity.

White says Alberta is fortunate to have this high-quality biodiversity information available to inform land use planning. Other countries at the LEAP workshop are finding the lack of equivalent data very challenging. White sees the potential of using the advanced work available from Alberta to help develop indicator proxies for other countries with less available data.

For more than 10 years, ABMI, a not-for-profit organization, has been monitoring biodiversity, providing a knowledge base for land use management planning. “We need to know what’s there to help us plan for what we want the landscape to look like in the future,” says White.

There are well-accepted indicators for the health of our economy but no such accepted indicator for ecosystem health. Alberta is one of only a handful of jurisdictions in the world to begin measuring and reporting on the state of ecosystem health.

“ABMI has permanent sample sites laid out in a 20-kilometre grid across the Alberta landscape with a total of 1,656 sites. All sites are sampled once in a five-year rotation,” says White. “Making sure there is appropriate sampling of rangelands is a challenge. In many areas the evenly spaced grid sample sites fall on cultivated land and supplementary sampling is needed to ensure the biodiversity of rangeland in the area is captured.

“ABMI doesn’t monitor absolutely everything,” says White. “Pollinators like native bees haven’t been monitored but there is discussion about changing that.”

ABMI data for over 2,000 species, including breeding birds, vascular plants and mites (soil invertebrates) provides a measure for the status of species. The status of habitat is assessed using remote sensing data focusing on the amount and distribution of major habitats such as grasslands and protected areas. The human footprint is also monitored to understand how development is impacting provincial ecosystems.

The 2011 South Saskatchewan Planning Region (SSPR) report presented the assessed status of 85 of the monitored species in the grassland region finding them to be 54 per cent intact. The percentage was lowest for grassland-associated species such as Sprague’s pipit, and Prairie crocus. Intactness is the measure of human influence with 100 per cent intact being no human influence.

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Dr. Shannon R. White

Non-native weeds were found at some level at 100 per cent of the surveyed sites suggesting some decline in ecological health and agricultural productivity. Dandelion are found across 83 per cent and flixweed across 60 per cent of the grassland region of SSPR. Noxious weeds like creeping thistle (53 per cent), downy chess (18 per cent) and perennial sow-thistle (10 per cent) were also found. Since weeds give an indication of ecological health land managers are able to use this information in developing appropriate programs.

Silver sagebrush habitat, important in the life cycle of the endangered sage grouse, was found to be 30 per cent intact, information useful in the implementation of the species’ recovery planning.

No larger than the tip of a ballpoint pen, soil mites are an important ecological indicator of soil health monitored by ABMI. Mites play an important role in nutrient cycling in soils. The average intactness is 55 per cent. The next survey will show if the intactness trend for mites is going in the right direction.

An extension of the provincial biodiversity monitoring is a project called Ecosystem Service Assessment supported by Alberta Livestock and Meat Agency and Alberta Innovates Bio Solutions. The project is developing tools that potentially could support domestic and international marketing of Alberta’s agricultural products documenting ecological integrity. The intent is to establish credible systems to map the value of ecosystem services such as carbon storage, pollination, and forage production. Tools like the biodiversity intactness index are created from the analysis of large amounts of information providing new capacity for people to make informed land management decisions for food production and for wildlife. This information also informs ABMI’s work within LEAP. LEAP has its origins in the criticisms arising from Livestock’s Long Shadow (2006), which put a spotlight on the world’s livestock’s green-

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CO N S ERVATION

The Western Beef Development Centre (WBDC) hosted its 16th annual Summer Field Day June 24, 2014 Presentations and abstracts posted at www.wbdc.sk.ca

house gas emissions (GHG). The UN report was widely quoted for one particular statement in the executive summary that livestock were contributing 18 per cent of the world’s greenhouse gases — allegedly more than the entire world’s transportation systems.

The report was widely criticized on a number of points including undue focus on GHG emissions without recognizing the benefits of livestock grazing. Many agriculture organizations, including the International Meat Secretariat, pressured the FAO to recognize taking a sustainable approach to livestock production meant understanding how to manage factors such as biodiversity. The work by ABMI in Alberta will help inform future international discussions about agricultural sustainability and improving livestock performance.

The stakeholders guiding LEAP are complementary to other international initiatives including the Global Agenda of Action in support of Sustainable Livestock Sector Development. Both encourage voluntary participation by the stakeholders when establishing long-term sustainable development in the livestock sector.

The development of frameworks to measure the efficiency of how resources are used is central to life cycle assessments. It is the basis of the sustainability discussions initiated by the Global Roundtables that have been set up to develop sustainable approaches for a variety of commodities including palm oil, seafood, and most recently beef.

The fact that ABMI’s expertise in assessing the impact of livestock on the biodiversity of a given environment is being recognized by the international community that is tackling these issues demonstrates the level of the Canadian industry’s commitment to developing a sustainable agriculture system. c

PRESENTS…

THE WBDC WOULD LIKE TO THANK THE 2014 FIELD DAY SPONSORS SPECIAL DISTINCTION • Termuende Trust Fund GOLD • Kelln Solar • Tru-Test • Blair’s Crop and Livestock Solutions • Canadian/Sask. Angus Association • The Western Producer/ Saskatchewan Cattlemens Connection • Rafter 8 Products • Saskatchewan Stock Growers Association • Canadian Cattlemen/ Farm Business Communications SILVER • Hergott Farm Equipment • Saskatchewan Charolais Association • Kramer Auction • Lamb Acres Electric Fencing • Saskatchewan Crop Insurance Corporation • Saskatchewan Simmental Association • Allflex Canada • RBC Bank • Discovery Ford • Boehringer Ingelheim Canada Ltd. • Dow Agro Sciences HYDRATION SPONSOR • Rio Nutrition

The WBDC would also like to extend our appreciation to the day’s speakers: Dr. Kendall Swanson, North Dakota State University Dr. Kim Ominski, University of Manitoba Ross McDonald, CCIA Terry Kowakchuk, Ministry of Agriculture Leanne Thompson, Sask.

Forage COuntil Glen Cartwright, Merck Animal Health Dr. Shannon Tracey, ALMA Dr. John Campbell, Western College of Veterinary Medicine Other special attendees: Paul Johnson, Ministry of Agriculture Bob Termuende and Scott Schultz of the Termuende Family Tim Oleksyn, PAMI board chair and chair of the WBDC Strategic Advisory Committee

A FREE DEAL FOR CUSTOM FEEDLOT OPERATORS Make sure you take advantage of your free listing in the annual National Custom feedlot Guide in the September issue of Canadian Cattlemen — The Beef Magazine.

All you have to do is fill in the blanks below and mail, Fax or Email it back to us before August 1, 2014. We’ll do the rest, at no charge to you.

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C A T T L E M E N · J U LY 2 0 1 4

25

 grazing

By Debbie Furber

Twice-over grazing leads to herd makeover Gerry and Linda Bertholet used twice-over grazing to bring back their native stands.

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hen Gerry Bertholet signed up for a workshop on grazing native grasslands, he certainly wasn’t expecting to learn that he was doing everything wrong. According to the professor’s theories, they were overgrazing, their cows were too big and they were calving too early.

It was a bit of a bitter pill to swallow.

He, Linda and their four children, Andrea, Kayla, Josie and Tanner, had put more than 20 years of heart, not to mention hard work, into building Maple Lake Stock Farms, a seedstock and commercial cow-calf operation in Manitoba’s southwest near Hartney.

“The professor, Lee Manske from North Dakota, explained how native grasses grow, and the more we thought about it, the more his method of grazing made sense,” Gerry says. “We used to save the native grass more for fall grazing. The way he explained it, if you graze native grasses after October 15, the cows will be taking the regrowth the plants need to get off to a good start in spring, and they do need to be nipped off early, between June 1 and July 15, to get

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them to tiller. You can only nip 33 per cent of the plants; any more than that and they won’t tiller, so you’ll get the same amount of biomass instead of increasing the biomass.”

They tested this idea on their own place by establishing four paddocks on 255 acres of native grass to start a twice-over grazing system on land they call Pluff’s pasture. Two paddocks were later subdivided to better manage grazing the high and low areas. Excess grass in the low areas is hayed to promote fresh growth for the next pass or next season.

Grazing starts around June 1 in the paddock where they left off the year before to stimulate the tillering process and provide an adequate rest period before the second pass.

The first pass is generally eight to 11 days and the second is 20 to 22 days finishing October 15. They aim to end the season with as much biomass as there was at the start.

A tame tall fescue pasture and a native bush-slough pasture on the remaining 65 acres of the half section add flexibility to the system. They are grazed if the pairs are moved to Pluff ’s pasture before June 1 or still there after October 15. Again, he’ll hay

areas the cattle haven’t grazed down to 33 per cent. When grazing comes to an end, the bales are fed in a large holding area not included in the rotation.

The tougher part of the revitalization was having to initially cut the stocking density from 60 pairs to 35, but that and twiceover grazing have made all the difference, Gerry says.

After three years, the pasture improved enough to start upping the rate by two to four pairs a year. Since 2011, the entire system has carried 51 to 53 pairs from mid-May to late November. Grazing would be done by midSeptember in past years when 60 pairs were left to continuously graze the half section.

They’ve been encouraged by the rebound in the native grass population, particularly the species little bluestem. “The twice-over system has allowed the native grasses to compete and fill in,” Andrea says, explaining that some of the land had been sown to tame grass years ago. The Manitoba Habitat Heritage Corp. monitors progress, taking species and population counts annually.

Gerry says the pasture looks like a golf

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grazing

course now in comparison to the before picture when bare sod was showing everywhere. The ag field man from Shoal Lake, Man., who looked at the pasture and encouraged Gerry to attend the native grass workshop, couldn’t believe the difference seven years had made when he toured the pasture this past fall.

They’ve seen dry spells, but not extreme drought since starting the revitalization in 2006 with support from the provincial critical habitat program. Excess moisture has been the bigger issue, leaving another halfsection pasture under water for the past three years. Tornadoes on top of that have ripped up bush making it difficult to implement a twice-over, or any kind of rotation on their other pastures.

Good grass; good genetics

The Bertholets also put the professor’s theories on cow size and calving date to the test. Every year since 2005, the cows and calves have been weighed in and out of Pluff’s pasture.

“We had big January-February calving cows so that’s what we put on the pasture the first two years. The next three years we put 1,000- to 1,200-pound cows with AprilMay calves there and found that those later calves just don’t utilize grass like the older calves,” Gerry says. “The gain on the January-February calves was 2.8 to 3.2 pounds a day on pasture, but when we switched over to spring calving, we had a hard time getting two pounds a day.”

The spring-calving cows developed gorged udders because of unlimited access to high-quality pasture at a stage when the calves weren’t big enough to utilize all of the milk. Come fall, milk production was decreasing at the same time as the pastures were drying up, so the calves were getting shorted both ways.

Consequently, they’ve gone back to calving the main herd in winter. The calves have good grass and good milk when they go to pasture and by fall, the cows are starting to wean those big calves on their own.

The use of Quiet Wean nose pieces quickens the natural process. “We put them on all of the calves when we weigh and vaccinate them around October 15, then let the calves back with the cows for a week or so and it’s done. There’s no bawling, no stress and the calves go right onto feed,” Andrea says.

Gerry says he’s not a big fan of late calving because it doesn’t maximize cattle genetics available today. Given the right conditions, calves should be finishing at 13 months of www.canadiancattlemen.ca

age not 30 months. Considering the price of land, if they had extra pasture, he’d rather put more cows out there than background calves to graze as yearlings.

The smaller cow size idea proved to have merit and in 2007, they made a major decision to remodel their Simmental-based herd.

“We sold 450 cows and basically started from scratch by keeping the heifers, buying top bulls and using AI to rebuild the herd from the bottom up,” he says. “Now, we are where we want to be with the breeding herd at about 300 head and the right type of cows for us.”

The right type is a 1,300-pound easyfleshing cow that weans 60 to 70 per cent of her body weight. They use a blend of Simmental, Angus and Shorthorn genetics in their crossbreeding program and run purebred lines as well. Simmental sires are used on Angus and percentage females because the Simmental breed allows percentage animals to be registered as such.

heir right type T is a 1,300-pound easy-fleshing cow that weans 60 per cent to 70 per cent of her body weight This way, they can work back up to registered purebred status a generation at a time, from half to three-quarters to seven-eights to fifteen-sixteenths, which is considered purebred.

Last summer, cows with January-February bull calves were placed on Pluff’s pasture. The average gain on the cows was 207 pounds and the calves averaged 3.84 pounds a day. The average weaning weight in late October was 970 pounds, which represented 74 per cent of the cows’ own body weights.

One first-calf heifer set the bar high, weaning an astounding 94 per cent of her own weight.

The stocking rate worked out to four acres per pair in the twice-over system, compared to 14 acres per pair at another location with a lot of native bush pasture and no rotation.

They attribute the favourable numbers from Pluff’s pasture to the combination of good genetics and good grass. “If you have good genetics, you need good grass to get

the most out of your genetics. If you have good grass, you need good genetics to get the most out of your grass,” Gerry says.

They still have some 1,700-pound cows, but their calves have to be in the top 10 per cent of the weaning weights for them to stay in the herd.

They also select for natural fleshing ability because experience tells them it gives the best feed efficiency.

For the first time, all of the bull calves were DNA tested. Hair samples were sent to BIO at Guelph, Ont., for analyses, including feed efficiency and carcass quality. The results were most interesting, he says, especially when comparing half-brothers. Some would be good for a trait and others not as good. They feel it would take several years of testing to pick up on trends before using the DNA results to make culling decisions.

Pedal to the metal

The Bertholets are pleased with how the makeover is unfolding and plan to keep moving in the same direction with their breeding program. Though there’s no immediate plan to increase the size of the herd, the farm has expanded in other ways.

“At one time, we had more than 500 cows. It was just too much labour-wise and the profit margin wasn’t there either,” Linda says. “We find we can manage 300 cows quite comfortably, but it has been more pedal to the metal the last three years since Andrea has been more involved.”

Andrea completed her animal science degree and is now a farm production adviser with Manitoba Agriculture.

Bull sales have really picked up over the last three years with demand for 50 to 60 bulls each year from an expanding buyer base within and beyond Manitoba’s borders.

Many of the bulls are out of their crossbreeding program, which captures the hybrid vigour bonus to pass on to their customers.

“Our main goal for the bull program is to produce sound bulls with moderate birth weights and top weaning weights because that’s what commercial producers need and want,” Gerry says. “Producers who calve in winter want calves that grow big fast to sell in fall. Low birth weight is the priority for producers with large numbers of cows that calve on grass and even though many of them aren’t too concerned with weaning weight because they background their calves, they still want calves that do well.”

For more information, visit www.maplelakestockfarms.com and follow farm happenings on Facebook and Twitter. c

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 CCA repo rts

By Dave Solverson

Promoting beef

T

he record-high cattle prices that started off the year have persisted into summer and that is a very nice surprise for producers.

Typically demand supports higher prices for the first couple of quarters before softening but this year it looks like demand will remain solid for the summer months. There are many factors contributing to the tight-supply, high-demand market scenario at play, the least of which is that Canada produces the best beef in the world.

I’m a proud producer of Canadian beef and am always glad to promote our product, especially in markets where the potential holds significant promise for producers. In June I had such an opportunity and was pleased to promote Canadian beef in China as part of a trade mission led by Agriculture and Agri-Food Minister Gerry Ritz. Canadian beef exports to China have grown rapidly since 2012 reflecting the reality that Chinese demand for beef has outpaced what they are able to produce domestically. According to some forecasts, China could double its annual global imports of beef before the end of this decade.

This is an excellent opportunity for producers but it is not without its challenges. The ability to export more Canadian beef to markets is tempered by the reforms to the Temporary Foreign Workers Program (TFWP) announced in June by Employment Minister Jason Kenney and Immigration Minister Chris Alexander.

On-farm primary agriculture, which includes feedlot workers, on-farm workers and the Seasonal Agricultural Workers Program (SAWP), is exempt from many of the major reforms, given the proven acute labour shortages there. The meat-processing sector is similarly plagued with chronic and acute labour shortages across Canada yet is subject to the reforms, which will have a detrimental effect on these businesses. The Canadian Cattlemen’s Association (CCA) has lobbied hard for the unique needs of the meat-processing industry to be recognized and be exempt under any changes to the TFWP. The CCA’s position is that trade agreements and market access expansions only work well if the resources required to maximize the opportunity are available. The CCA as part of an industry coalition will continue to promote this position and seek clarity around the new measures on the meat-processing sector. I’m sure the TFWP issue will be among the more lively discussions at the CCA semi-annual meeting in Charlottetown, P.E.I. in August.

Minister Ritz deserves credit for keeping the China agreement on track. Following meetings with his governmental counterparts, Ritz announced that China will work towards the necessary approvals to permit access for Canadian bone-in beef from animals under

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30 months of age (UTM) and live cattle. This is the latest in the staged approach to full market access with China first announced in 2010, with initial access for boneless UTM beef. The CCA shifted its priority to include bone-in UTM beef in January 2013 after China approved additional Canadian processing facilities to export Canadian beef to China. The CCA and the Government of Canada continue to work towards restoring full beef access.

The CCA also attended the World Meat Congress and the International Meat Secretariat (IMS) meeting in Beijing where I helped Minister Ritz to promote Canadian beef. The highly collaborative relationship between the CCA and the minister was noted by many stakeholders at the IMS meeting, with some intimating to me that the relationship was a role model for them to aspire to.

On its own, the China agreement holds huge potential for Canada’s beef cattle producers. When combined with other trade agreements the Government of Canada has reached, particularly with Europe and Korea — with the text of the final agreement of the latter free trade agreement tabled in the House of Commons by International Trade Minister Ed Fast in June — producers have a bright future shaping up in front of them for the long term.

Another file on the go is the World Trade Organization compliance panel on country-of-origin labelling (COOL). The wait continues for the final WTO report, to be issued to the governments of Canada, Mexico and the U.S. in late July, which will determine whether the U.S. regulatory amendment on COOL from May 23, 2013 is sufficient to bring the U.S. into compliance with the WTO. The CCA believes in the strength of Canada’s arguments that were put forth to the panel and continues to hold the view that COOL discriminates against live imports of cattle and hogs into the U.S. marketplace. The CCA believes that the best way to bring COOL into compliance is to amend the legislation to repeal COOL. Until COOL comes into compliance with the WTO, the CCA will continue to insist that the Government of Canada prepare to impose prohibitively high tariffs on key U.S. exports to Canada, including beef.

The Western Livestock Price Insurance Program (WLPIP) has had a decent level of uptake from producers. The window for the calf program has closed for this year but anyone feeding cattle or backgrounding in Western Canada should consider this tool. The CCA’s goal is for this to become a national program. Having more producers signing up for an account shows that this new program is supported as a way to manage the risk of unforeseen price downturns which is one of the biggest risks cattle producers face. c

Dave Solverson is president of the Canadian Cattlemen’s Association

www.canadiancattlemen.ca

BUILDING TRUST IN CANADIAN BEEF

Needle-free injections show promise Manitoba research gives fresh look at intriguing technology

When researchers study emerging technology they want to know how well it meets industry needs and whether producers will get value from it.

Manitoba researchers studying needle-free injections for beef cattle got a clear look at the potential benefits of the technology. But they also raised questions that may require further investigation.

Needle-free injections are both old and new. The technology has been around for years and was used in humans in the ’40s, says Kim Ominski, the University of Manitoba researcher who headed up the study team. Today, it is used quite widely in the swine industry.

In livestock a needle-free injection device (NFID) uses pressure to drive vaccine through the hide into subcutaneous or muscle tissue. Pressure on the nozzle triggers the injection as it reaches the hide. There are several brands on the market around the world.

Injection comparisons

Ominski’s research studies focused on two areas. Could needlefree technology generate an immune response in beef calves? Was the technology easy to handle and cold tolerant?

Studies showed no significant difference in immune response between the NFID-administered product and the conventional needle delivery. And the delivery system worked in cold weather.

“Needle-free vaccination techniques offer a number of potential advantages,” says Ominski. “Many of the concerns of needle vaccination techniques are eliminated. That includes the risk of broken needles in meat and the risk of needle-stick injuries.

“Needle-free injections may also reduce risk of transferring disease through blood on needles. There is some conflicting research on that issue, so more study may be needed.”

One question raised in her research was a reaction in some animals at the injection site, she says. “On one hand, that’s a good thing in that we are trying to generate an immune response. But we would want to do further studies to ensure that they do not persist until slaughter.”

Industry acceptance

Whenever Ominski demonstrated this equipment at meetings, beef producers seemed intrigued with the technology. “They were eager to try it out and had many questions and comments,” she says.

Needleless injection equipment may be viable for low-dose vaccine delivery.

Cold weather handling. Researchers used a backpack and fed the injection line down through the sleeve of the handler’s winter coat. There were no issues, says Ominski.

Cost. These products are just emerging in the marketplace and costs are significant, ranging from $2,500 to $5,000.

Formulation, dosage and application. The needle-free system does not require different product formulation. However, the unit tested administered only one product at a time. And limited dosage means the technology is not suitable for higher-dose products such as antibiotics.

A producer’s response

Mitch Rey, a beef producer and masters’ student who was involved as part of the research team, says the technology is more complex so does require maintenance and some training to use.

He suspects it could be a challenge for cow-calf producers who may only use it four times a year at a maximum. But he believes feedlots, which handle larger volumes, often indoors, would likely consider the equipment easy to use and maintain.

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 straigh t f ro m t h e h i p

By Brenda Schoepp

Who Owns You?

A

s I stood in the massive greenhouse in Holland it was easy to see that farming had changed. The trays of herbs that generated 40 million euros (C$58 million) for this one glasshouse were vigorously growing under LED lights. It was the first step in the development of the “black box” where the plants’ environment was entirely controlled. My Dutch friend reminded me that you do not need sunlight to grow plants and today there are several systems in place where large amounts of produce is grown without sun.

The development of these systems seldom catches the attention of Canadian farmers, let alone cattlemen. It seems remote to tie spinach to silage but it is all part of a changing landscape. Think of the IP (intellectual property) that is behind growing nutritionally dense food in the dark? Or the precision of systems that measure water output and usage as well as nutrient drop and automatically adds what is needed on a per-plant basis.

Will the use of tall spheres to grow veggies reduce the need for land or beef? That is highly unlikely as populations grow and urbanization is a movement in full force. We do know that the need for land increases with consumption of core crops such as sugar, corn and rice (the world’s most consumed crop is sugar). Yet yields are increasing in little increments under conventional systems. Rice demand continues to climb as varietal research has slowed. The genome was sequenced nearly 10 years ago but farmers still plant familiar varieties with similar traits and keep the seed to do the same again. As the world starves for rice, there remains little data transfer back to the farmer.

The big guns want to change that for all farmed crops starting with corn and wheat. The technology on tractors to collect data was a starting point but the fact that nothing was done with the collected information spurred another idea. Why don’t we (Monsanto, DuPont Pioneer, Land O’ Lakes) charge the farmers to access their own data so we can sell them product based on the analysis? And so was hatched the idea of prescriptive farming.

At the heart of the discussion on prescriptive farming, where the farmer pays to have his own data collected and recommendations sent back to him, is trust. Do farmers trust that the same company that sells protected seed will honour the data as farmer owned and not sell it to other parties? What if it becomes tied to seed price or if information is withheld when planting or harvest is to begin?

Who is in charge and why isn’t the deal negotiable? More importantly — who has the risk and who profits?

Think about this carefully. Plant breeding and seed development takes years and a costly budget. This is

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what is needed in areas where environmental change is severe enough that seed performance is poor. But for the rest of the world, particularly in North America, prescriptive farming increases output with the same seed and rather than at a cost, is an income generator for the seed company. The extra income is generated off the back of the farmer who ensures that a portion of any yield increase goes directly to the service provider through the per-acre agreement. When taken a step further and the service provider installs the technology to capture the data, it may not be considered the property of the farmer in many jurisdictions. The farm takes small incremental steps ahead while the seed company/service provider leaps over the moon.

The risk of course is that it takes the heat off of plant breeding — a necessary research.

There is a value in prescriptive farming but we still need to ask who is in charge and who profits? Is there enough trust for it to work and how does the consumer see the practice? These are all questions that we could reflect into the beef industry today. Although we don’t grow beef in the dark we have learned how to feed cattle without grass — akin to shutting off the lights. The real time data systems that are in place are extraordinary and they were developed and are maintained by private companies so producers have a choice. But when it comes to the big question of trust, we recognize that we stand hand in hand with grain farmers. Because data collection and analysis is such a huge field that is largely undefined, unchallenged and not understood — everyone dives off the board together.

The formation of grain farmer groups to talk about their rights under the shadow of prescriptive farming is the first step into a new era of farming. Cattlemen must consider that at this time, we too need collective wisdom, driven from the ground up, to understand the value of our data and our rights as we move ahead. In all agriculture there is little time to look behind because there is so much future ahead. We grow plants in the dark, count the seeds on a head of grain from a drone in the sky, measure every drop of water in a spray tank and each event in an animal’s day. This data has value and since the field is so undefined, perhaps cattlemen should till it so they own their data and someone else does not own or restrict them. Individually and collectively, we must negotiate and protect our intellectual property — before they shut off the lights. c Brenda Schoepp is a motivating speaker and mentor who works with young entrepreneurs across Canada and around the world. She can be contacted through her website www. brendaschoepp.com. All rights reserved. Brenda Schoepp 2014

www.canadiancattlemen.ca

 PRIME CUTS

By Steve Kay

THE TIPPING POINT

Y

ou don’t have to be an economist to know when there is a tipping point in the balance between supply and demand. That point has come for the U.S. beef industry. Years of shrinking herds mean demand is outstripping the supply of cattle and beef. The result was a contra-seasonal, latespring rally in feeder cattle prices (to record highs) and in live cattle prices. Retail beef prices meanwhile continue to set new records each month.

The good news is that cow-calf producers are enjoying excellent returns to make up for the challenges of battling drought for the last four years. The bad news is that the record feeder prices are causing these same producers to keep sending heifers to market rather than retaining them for breeding. Heifers from January through May made up 53 per cent of all steer and heifer feedlot placements in the U.S., versus 52 per cent in 2013 and 50.1 per cent in 2012.

Expansion of the beef herd will thus be delayed at least another year. Even if 2015 sees the start of herd rebuilding, the market won’t see more cattle until late 2016 at the earliest. The feeder cattle supply will continue to shrink until then, as more heifer retention will mean even fewer cattle for feeding and harvesting. Feedlots’ and fed beef processors’ ability to run their operations profitably will be even more severely tested. More feedlots will close and two or three beef-processing plants will struggle to remain open.

Who will best weather this storm will be due to location, size and deep pockets. Southern Plains feedlots and plants appear more vulnerable than those up north because Texas beef cow numbers have fallen so much.

Nebraska is now just ahead of Texas in the number of cattle on feed. It had four per cent more cattle on feed May 1 than a year earlier. Iowa, South Dakota and Minnesota also reported larger numbers. Conversely, Texas’s

COF total was down four per cent and Kansas’s was down three per cent.

Southern Plains feedlots however, are mostly large, efficient and well capitalized. Some of the largest operations helped develop the modern cattle-feeding industry there.

They have survived 40 to 50 years due to their strengths and abilities. The same goes for the beef companies that operate in the region. Cargill early last year closed its large Plainview, Texas plant. That might have taken out enough processing capacity to allow other plants to remain open until cattle numbers increase again.

Feedlots up north, especially in the Corn Belt, are attracting more cattle in part because of lower feed costs and better costs of gain than down south. They have also become more professional in offering customers a wide range of services. Feedlots also have more buyers for their cattle. The four largest packers, plus two or three strong regional players, all bid on Corn Belt cattle. A brand-new player, Iowa Premium Beef, is due to start operations in November in a refurbished plant in Tama, Iowa. Iowa cattle feeders can’t wait.

Another Corn Belt strength is that feedlots under 1,000 head of capacity still proliferate. These lots produce many of the highest-quality cattle in the U.S. in terms of grade. That’s why grading percentages are so much higher than down south. Small lots can also produce small batches of cattle for specialty beef programs.

This also means beef plants up north probably have better operating margins than those down south.

Beef ’s biggest challenge though is how consumers respond to ongoing record prices. Their response so far this year has been positive. Everyone in the industry is hoping the desire for beef will offset even more sticker shock in the grocery store. c

A North American view of the meat industry. Steve Kay is publisher and editor of Cattle Buyers Weekly.

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 TH E INDUST RY

NewsRoundup identification

Ninety-eight per cent retention of ID tags on calves and yearlings

Krystal Savenkoff and Ross Macdonald helped tag 6,000 cattle.

You can realistically expect more than 98 per cent of your approved radio frequency identification tags to remain on your calves or yearlings when you ship them, no matter your production system, geography or the weather, assuming they were properly attached.

That’s the preliminary finding of the Canadian Cattle Identification Agency’s (CCIA) RFID tag retention project.

But the cows’ ears could be a different story, says Ross Macdonald of 98 Ranch near Lake Alma, Sask., who is leading the project under contract with the CCIA. Macdonald with Marty Kratochvil of the federal community pasture program, the initial co-operator on this project, and Krystal Savenkoff of the Western Beef Development Centre tagged approximately 6,000 head, 3,600 of them calves, in 18 herds from British Columbia to Ontario. This was done to ensure consistency of application and to be sure the tag were applied according to the manufacturer’s instructions.

Most of the calves were tagged at spring branding or processing in 2012 and most of the cows at preg-check time that fall.

An equal number of the seven approved CCIA tags and one Quebec-approved tag were used at each test site. All the tags were scanned before they were applied to be sure they were functional.

Far less than one per cent of the tags were duds.

The 18 herds range in size from 76 to 535 head and were selected by their location and setup to be representative of the differing geography, climate and farming styles across the country.

The producers scan the tags with hand-held readers once a year as dictated by their normal management so the exact time of the scanning varies from farm to farm.

Tag retention in calves was similar across herds and all models, averaging 98.9 per cent after 18 months. The small variation in retention between calves sold in fall and those sold as long yearlings suggests very few tags were lost over the winter.

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The cows as well as heifers tagged as calves and retained for breeding will be scanned again this year and in 2015. Some were hoping they could follow the cows for 10 years, but Macdonald says the original schedule calls for a final report on all the data to be completed in the spring of 2016.

So far, tag retention does seem to be more variable in mature cows than in the calves, however, more scanning and statistical analysis will be needed to gain a clear picture, Macdonald says.

The team’s initial observations indicate scanning during cold weather significantly reduced the battery life of hand-held readers and the pin in the tag applicator tended to break more easily. When working in the cold it would seem to make sense to have extra pins handy and, if possible, a second reader to switch out as needed.

Macdonald also advises producers to ignore retailers who try to talk you into buying the most popular applicator. Get the one designed for the tags you have purchased. If you prefer a different applicator then buy the tags designed to go with that device.

They also found the clearance of the plier head on all applicators was something of an issue when tagging cows with hairy ears.

All of these practical observations on the equipment, climate and working conditions will be included with the statistical analysis in the final report.

The purpose of this project is to collect baseline data on tag retention and readability to serve as the foundation for further study, to identify tag retention problems, and make recommendations to improve tag retention and readability.

Associations SSGA sets busy agenda

Putting a reward in place to deter cattle thieves, seeing a producer assurance fund off to a good start, and dealing with species at risk will add to the workload for the Saskatchewan Stock Growers Association as it mops up important files of the past couple of years, says president Doug Gillespie of Neville, Sask., who took over from Harold Martens of Swift Current at the SSGA’s recent annual meeting.

The SSGA will strike a committee to follow up on a resolution calling for a reward fund offering up to $5,000 for information leading to the arrest and conviction of people stealing livestock from an SSGA member.

Deepening discontent over the ramifications of the federal Species at Risk Act (SARA) and the related emergency protection order (EPO) for greater sage grouse were expressed numerous times by ranchers during presentations by government officials, including Saskatchewan Agriculture Minister Lyle Stewart.

David Ingstrup, a regional director with Environment Canada’s wildlife services branch, attempted to address some of the misconceptions surrounding prohibitions and exemptions under the EPO. He says the intent which is to address imminent risks, differs from a recovery strategy aimed at rebuilding the population in the long term.

Recovery plans are not set in regulation and don’t involve prohibitions.

The final EPO requirements to be published sometime this summer, will not apply to private lands, grazing pastures on federal and provin-

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cial land leases. The designated areas around breeding, nesting, brooding and wintering habitats won’t be expanded, and there are specific exemptions for activities related to public safety, existing residences, buildings, structures, and machines use in agricultural operations.

In a Q and A session SSGA members pointed out the EPO and recovery measures are aimed at ranchers, however, with no consideration given to controlling natural predators of the grouse such as skunks and snakes, whose populations have increased significantly since the 1980s when the greater sage grouse population was at a peak. West Nile virus has also taken a big toll on the bird’s numbers.

SARA allows for compensation when measures have an extraordinary impact, however, there has never been a regulation put in place to provide for payments.

That said, the act doesn’t rule out the introduction of incentives and there may be a way to work that concept into some of the new programs Environment Canada is bringing online. There is a possibility that the national conservation action plan announced in May will facilitate another layer of stewardship initiatives without the usual cost-share requirement.

At the end of the day, members resolved to lobby the federal minister of environment to delay the EPO until some meaningful consultation had been carried out with the ranching community. The association will also press both levels of government to enact sections of SARA supporting voluntary conservation agreements that offer full financial compensation so speciesat-risk habitat becomes an asset for ranchers rather than a liability.

Two other files that have been in transition from public to industry hands are the provincial brand inspection service and federal community pasture program.

The new Livestock Services of Saskatchewan (LSS) is up and running as a non-profit corporation that delivers brand inspection services, maintains the brand registry and licenses livestock dealers in Saskatchewan.

Cam Wilk, a former provincial manager of field services for the government’s livestock branch was appointed as the first CEO of the LSS in April.

Meanwhile the transition of the pasture program is proceeding much more smoothly now that the issues identified by patrons have been ironed out thanks in Continued on page 34

www.canadiancattlemen.ca

C a t t l e m e n · J u ly 2 0 1 4

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News Roundup Continued from page 33

some part to the ongoing support of ministry of agriculture specialists.

The work of the SSGA on these files is made possible by the willingness of the association’s directors to cover their own expenses when they travel on behalf of the association. The stock growers’ core operating funds come mainly from memberships, fundraising, donations, and contract income. Over the past two years, the association has realized a combined surplus of approximately $100,000, however, nobody

takes that for granted in light of rising costs if they are to represent their members’ interests on an ever-growing list of issues facing the industry.

One of Gillespie’s priorities for this year will be to encourage every member to sell one new membership, thereby doubling the membership base.

“Everyone knows someone who should have a membership, whether they have cows or not. We have associate memberships for anyone with an interest at any level in the beef industry, even if it’s just that they like eating beef.”

Gillespie runs a cow-calf operation with his wife Colleen and has been an SSGA member since 1980, but became more involved in the association during the BSE crisis in 2003. He was first elected to the board of directors six years ago.

that makes the family such deserving recipients of this award,” says Ross Macdonald of nearby Lake Alma, Sask., who made the presentation at the Saskatchewan Stock Growers Association’s convention.

Michael’s grandfather established the ranch in 1937 and his parents, Edward and Ferne, made the permanent move out west 10 years later. Under Michael and Tamela Cdn_Shorthorn_Assn 12/6/07 11:09 AM Page 1 the ranch has transitioned from a yearling ENVIRONMENT operation to cow-calf. Their children, Lane Burgess family wins and Britt, are now actively involved in the Saskatchewan environmental award operation while their eldest daughter Tiffany lives with her family in Alberta.

June 11 was a tree-planting day for Michael The diverse topography across the range and Tamela Burgess, who have a tradition in the Big Muddy Valley “badlands” next to of planting a tree in their yard for every the U.S. border is the stuff of western movie family milestone. This particular tree at sets but it’s the healthy, functioning ecosysCircle Y Ranch near Big Muddy, Sask., will tems in the background that really tell the be a reminder of receiving the environmenfamily’s stewardship story. tal stewardship award (TESA) in Saskatch“This ranch has it all,” Macdonald says. ewan in 2014.

“They manage their resource to maintain “It’s not as much about the intricacies of abundant forage throughout the year, and the cross-fencing or the water development wouldn’t you know it, wildlife flourishes, too.” or the exact timing frame of their grazing This wouldn’t be possible on the fragile plan. It’s the generational commitment of brown soils without years of well-managed the Burgess family that has stewarded the grazing. More details are available on the ranch through three and four generations, family’s website (www.circleyranch.ca). c

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C A T T L E M E N ¡ J U LY 2 0 1 4

35

 NEWS AB OUT YOU

By Deb Wilson

PurelyPurebred

Suggestions are always welcome. My phone number is 403-325-1695

 “In March 2012, Iowa became the third state to pass the Agriculture Protection/ Reporting “Ag Gag” making it illegal to gain employment to a farm under false pretenses with the goal of misrepresenting farm activities. Kansas and North Dakota passed legislation more than a decade ago similar to Iowa’s and Utah’s. This law is in effect for both livestock and crop farms. Former Iowa representative and third-generation farmer Annette Sweeney was instrumental in getting the law passed in Iowa.”(AG Media Summit) I ran across this article and it made me think that this is something livestock producers should be seriously considering in Canada.

Saskatchewan, moving into provincial politics and leaving his biggest legacy for Canada’s plant science industry through his work with CropLife Canada and GrowCanada.

 Beef Australia 2015 is rapidly approaching, and is to be held May 4 to May 9, 2015.

Leader Tours Inc. have put together a 14-day agricultural tour from April 30 to May 16, 2015 which will include Australia’s National Beef Exposition — Beef Australia, which is held every three years in Rockhampton, Queensland. The tour offers visits to beef operations as well as some free time on the Gold Coast. Details are available at www. leadertours.ca/beef-week2015/. Deadline to book on this tour is Sept. 1 so don’t miss out.  For Canadian seedstock producers the Olds Fall Classic will operate Oct. 3-5, 2014, in Olds Alta., at the Olds Regional ExhibiSTAMPEDE

By Gerry Palen

“Give her two of these and make sure you’re out of the corral in 30 seconds!”

36

C a t t l e m e n · j u ly 2 0 1 4

tion facilities. Breeds include Black Angus, Blonde d’Aquitaine, Charolais, Hereford, Limousin, Red Angus, Shorthorn, Simmental as well as the Stars of Tomorrow Jackpot Calf Show. Online entries deadline is September 15.  Alberta Agriculture has offered up to $3,000 to the Canadian Beef Breeds Council so it can rebate 50 per cent of the $149 registration fee for Alberta producers who attend the Livestock Gentec Conference August 12-14 in Edmonton. Alberta producers are encouraged to contact their breed association for more information on the conference and the rebate.  The Canadian Agricultural Hall of Fame selected three accomplished ambassadors for Canadian agriculture to join its prestigious ranks in 2014. The late Walter Browarny, Charles Froebe and Lorne Hepworth will be formally inducted into the national hall of fame at a ceremony on Sunday, November 9, 2014 at the Royal Agricultural Winter Fair in Toronto, Ontario. “Canadian agriculture thrives on a diverse group of individuals constantly pushing boundaries to drive our industry further,” says president Judy Shaw, Canadian Agricultural Hall of Fame Association. “This year’s inductees highlight the importance of taking an innovative approach — whether you are a farmer or a photographer — to make a lasting difference to our industry and our nation.”

Walter Browarny changed the face of livestock photography with his clean, simple approach to capturing Canada’s beef breeds.

His legacy as Canada’s cameraman of livestock lives on in the bank of more than two million images he created — setting the standard for his brand of authentic livestock photography that naturally features the best attributes of his subjects. Walter was born and raised in Calgary, Alberta and was nominated by the Canadian Beef Breeds Council.

Charles Froebe of Carman, Man., championed the creation of Canada’s national canola farmer association, improving marketing options and cash flow for farmers.

Lorne Hepworth began his lifelong career in Canadian agriculture as a veterinarian in rural

Email: deb.wilson@ fbcpublishing.com

 Breeders attending the Canadian Simmental Association AGM and YCSA National Classic, July 25-27 in Riding Mountain National Park were also offered a boat cruise on Clear Lake, the Riding Mountain National Park buffalo tour, a Genomics and EPD presentation by Dr. Dorian Garrick and a Ukrainian dance performance in addition to the Saturday evening banquet and Friends of Canadian Simmental Foundation Auction.

There were many generous donations to this year’s auction. A special thank you goes out to Bonchuk Farms, the 2014 Friends of the Foundation, for their donation of Lot #1-BLCC 42A. New Holland Agriculture made a generous donation of a 150-hour rental of a New Holland Tractor (T6 Series) and a new Round Baler. New Holland also provided sponsorship of the weekend events.  The Canadian Beef Breeds Council (CBBC) has appointed Dr. John Crowley as its director of scientific and industry advancement. Dr. Crowley was formerly with Livestock Gentec in Edmonton. He will continue to work in Edmonton and maintain a working relationship with Livestock Gentec, while fulfilling his duties for CBBC.  At Canadian Western Agribition this fall the Red and Black Angus, Gelbvieh, Polled and Horned Hereford, Limousin, Shorthorn and Speckle Park breeders will hold their national show and sale. Additional shows are scheduled for the Charolais, Maine Anjou and Simmental breeds.  The Canadian Angus Association hosted the first annual Carcass 101 event in partnership with Certified Angus Beef (CAB), supported by the Alberta Livestock and Meat Agency (ALMA) at Olds College on June 18-19. Thirty-one participants took part in the two-day event to learn about carcass traits. On the first day Brody Gardner evaluated three live steers ready to go to the Olds College National Meat Training

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PURELY PUREBRED

Centre, then asked the participants to rank the steers based on their traits and how they would grade. The group then put on hairnets and lab coats before entering the cutting room where Dr. Phil Bass, a meat scientist with Certified Angus Beef, explained the various parts of the carcass and their value, and how carcasses are graded in Canada.

James Bradbury, the director of market development with Canada Beef Inc., looked at what consumers are seeking from the beef industry and current trends facing the industry. Then Drs. Bass and Brad McLeod, a meat instructor at Olds College, gave a cutting demonstration on a carcass and explained how this skill has changed with the development of many more specialty cuts.

The second day featured John Crowley of Livestock Gentec, Rod Wendorff of Windy Ridge Ultrasound Inc., and Larry Sears of Flying E Ranche. Crowley covered the importance of genetic selection and the use of genomic technology with the Zoetis 50K test. Wendorff explained how ultrasound can aid in selection while Sears gave a rancher’s view on how carcass data can be used in cow-calf herds.

Ryan Kasko of Allied Marketing Group gave his perspective on feeding Angus cattle in Alberta. Then the group moved to the meat training centre to analyze the carcasses of the cattle they rated the day before.

Oscar Lopez Campos from Lacombe Meat Research Center in the meat science department led the session with the animal carcasses. Larry Corah, vice-president, supply development from Certified Angus Beef rounded off the day with his findings on the growth potential for the quality beef market in Canada.  Each year, ALMA hosts FutureFare, its annual feature celebration that provides industry, government and academia attendees with an opportunity to discover the names and faces behind the initiatives that are transforming Alberta’s meat and livestock sector. For FutureFare 2014, over 245 participants came to the River Cree Resort just outside of Edmonton to learn more about the successes of ALMA partnerships directly from the partners themselves.

Under the theme of “Feeding the Demand,”

Livestock Gentec’s 5th Annual Conference

The Genomics of Pro�itability

August 12th – 14th, Edmonton, Alberta

FutureFare 2014 kicked off with an evening reception featuring Cameron Bruett, JBS U.S. head of corporate affairs, and Clint Dobson, ALMA senior research and policy manager.

Bruett is also the chairman of the Global Roundtable for Sustainable Beef, and his talk the following day kept everyone totally engaged. To learn more go to http://alma. alberta.ca/ and check out News and Events.  Marta M. Haley, director of Global Market Access (Canada) for Elanco Animal Health will speak on the challenges and opportunities for a food-secure tomorrow at the annual Livestock Gentec Conference August 12-14 in Edmonton. Some say Canada is ideally positioned to assist the world as it strives to reach a food-secure future. The three critical elements of rising to the challenge centre around innovation — the discovery and adoption of new technologies to do more with less; choice, in how to best produce and select foods to meet the price, taste, and nutritional requirements of various geographies and populations; and finally Continued on page 38

Roy Berg Kinsella Research Station Field Day August 13th, 2014

Featuring sessions on: Including: Roy Berg Kinsella Research Station The Genomics of Profitability Fieldthe Day  Dedication ceremony honouring legacy of  Optimizing forage livestock August 12th –management, 14th, Edmonton, Alberta August 13th, 2014 Dr. Roy Berg production techniques, and animal Featuring sessions on: efficiency  Educati onal tours on ecology and livestock Including :  Optimizing management, livestock production producti on Genomic forage abnormaliti es and animal selecti on  Dedication ceremony honouring the legacy of Dr. Roy techniques, and animal efficiency Berg  First-hand look at the Technology as the firstand responder in  Genomic abnormalities animal selection  Educational on ecology and livestock o Angus, Charolaistours and Kinsella breeding herds production combatingasthe Porcine Epidemic  Technology thecurrent first responder in combating the  First-hand look at the o Current and emerging research technologies Diarrhea (PED)Epidemic outbreakDiarrhea (PED) outbreak current Porcine o Angus, Kinsella breeding herds  Refreshments, lunchCharolais and beef and dinner Theincreasing increasing role cow/calfenomics in  The role of of cow/calfenomics in selecting o Current and emerging research technologies and managing herd. the herd. selecti ng andthe managing  Opti onalRefreshments, transportationlunch and beef dinner Livestock Gentec’s

5th

Annual Conference

 Optional transportation For more information: contact Livestock Gentec at (780) 248 1740 or visit www.livestockgentec.com.

For more information: contact Livestock Gentec at (780) 248 1740 or visit www.livestockgentec.com.

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C a t t l e m e n · j u ly 2 0 1 4

37

PU R E LY PU R E B R E D

Continued from page 37

trade to allow food to be produced where it is most economical and sustainable and can deliver it to those who need it.  Leaders from across various industries have come together to form the first Canadian Roundtable for Sustainable Beef (CRSB). With over 68,500 beef farms contributing more than $33 billion to Canada’s economy and conserving over 50 million acres of Canada’s environmentally significant grasslands, the roundtable aims to be a leader in the continuous improvement and sustainability of the beef value chain. Fundamental to the success of the roundtable will be science-based information, multi-stakeholder engagement, communication and collaboration.

“The roundtable represents a breakthrough for the Canadian beef industry,” said Cherie Copithorne-Barnes, chair of the CRSB. “It’s important for industry stakeholders to come together to combine their expertise to ensure the industry remains economically viable, environmentally sound and

socially responsible for future generations.”

To view the full membership, find out how to become a member and for more information on the CRSB visit www.crsb.ca.  The Canadian Angus Association (CAA) honoured 300 years of membership at the National Convention banquet on Saturday, June 7, presenting three 50-year and two 75-year long-term recognition awards. The awards recognize breeders who have been a member of the association for 50 and 75 consecutive years. The 50-year recipients are Doug Henderson of Alberta; the Willms family of Saskatchewan; and Peak Dot Ranch of Saskatchewan. Isla Bank Angus/Stables family, Saskatchewan and the Harold Spady family, Alberta were recognized for 75 years of continuous membership and commitment to the agriculture industry.

Doug and his wife Linda Henderson operate Douglas J Henderson and Associates Ltd. (DJH). They are dedicated to the promotion of top-quality livestock that help to advance the agriculture industry. Doug is a life member of the Canadian Angus Association.

The Willms family reside in Saskatchewan. Jake and Bernice live on the original homestead and began the family farm.

Today the third generation of the Willms family are working on the farm. Tom Willms and Bryan Willms with his wife Tracey and children Kylie and Owen are the operators of Wilbar Farms. Terry and Barbara Moneo are the founders of Peak Dot Ranch. The ranch is located in the rolling hills of Saskatchewan and is one of the largest purebred breeder operations in Canada. It is a family-run operation that raises 750 mature cows.

Isla Bank Angus was established in 1938

by Robert Stables. Today the operation is run by Iain Stables. Iain is a great-nephew to Robert Stables. The farm is located in Delisle, Sask., and continues to grow.

The Spady family farm, Valleymere Angus, is located in the Battle River Valley near Alliance, Alta. Jack Spady began the herd in 1937 and then Harold Spady continued the family farm until he passed away.

Today, both of Harold’s sons help to operate the family farm. The cattle business has helped the Spady family to make a living for the past three generations. c

Answer our survey — and have a go at winning one of our caps

We have a goal to be the best beef cattle magazine in the business. But we need your help. If you could just fill in this survey and return it to me, you would be helping us set the future editorial direction for Canadian Cattlemen. All you have to do is tell me what you like about the magazine, and what you

We’d appreciate it if you could tell us a little about yourself. It makes it easier for us to keep your main interests in focus  I’m ranching or farming Enterprise Total beef cattle Yearlings on feed/pasture Registered cows Fed cattle (sold yearly) Commercial cows Horses Calves on feed/pasture Other livestock

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 I no longer take an active part in farming If not an owner/operator of a farm, are you:

 In agribusiness (bank, elevator, ag supplies, etc.)  Other (please specify) ____________________ My approximate age is:  a) Under 35  b) 36 to 44  d) 55 to 64  e) 65 or over

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C a t t l e m e n · j u ly 2 0 1 4

don’t like. There’s also some space for you to tell us what you would like to see in future issues.

ClIp And enClose your mAIlIng lABel. each month, we will draw one name from all the surveys sent in and send that person a Cattlemen cap. It could be you!

What do you think of: On a scale of 1 to 5, how do you and your family like these features?

5 – I always watch for it; let’s see more of it 4 – I regularly read it and like it 3 – I usually read it 2 – There are things I’d rather read 1 – I don’t want it; get rid of it Regular Columns 5 4 3

Regular Columns News Roundup Purely Purebred The Markets

5

4

3

2

1

Market Talk Sales and Events

2 1 Nutrition Comment Research Special features 5 4 3 2 1 Newsmakers Letters Calving Issue (Jan.) CCA Reports Custom Feedlot Guide (Sep.) Prime Cuts Stock Buyers’ Guide (Aug.) Straight From The Hip Animal Health Special (Sep.) Holistic Ranching Beef Watch (May & Nov.) What would you like to see? __________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________ How much time do you and your family spend reading 1666 Dublin Avenue Canadian Cattlemen?  Under 2 hours  Over 2 hours Winnipeg, Man. R3H 0H1

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 Market Su mma ry

By Debbie McMillin

TheMarkets Fed Cattle Although the fed market typically moves lower from spring into summer the tight supplies and good demand for beef have created a very strong move against the normal trend. The cash market continues to set new records. The last week of June saw Alberta fed cattle average $155.64/ cwts over $36 higher than the same time last year. Supplies remain tight overall but volumes are even smaller when looking at the cash trade. A large number of cattle were contracted earlier in the year at a good profit but still less than the current highs in this market. The cash-tocash basis has narrowed since the start of the year, and currently sits at $10.09/cwt under the U.S. The Canfax cattle-on-feed report continues to post higher inventories in Alberta and Saskatchewan. June 1 inventories were up nine per cent over last year at 888,581 head.

Much of this increase was placed in the first couple months of the year. May placements by comparison were down 17 per cent.

Marketings are also up seven per cent year to date in 2014. Domestic steer slaughter is up seven per cent while the heifer kill is running 10 per cent ahead of last year with a combined fed slaughter of 1,090,312 head.

The current state of the industry is evident by looking at the carcass weights. Steer carcasses averaged 827 pounds at press time, 19 pounds lighter than last year, while the year-to-date carcass has lost 31 pounds on average. Although the Canadian slaughter is larger than a year ago, exports of fed cattle to the U.S. are down five per cent at 193,384 head to mid-June.

Feeder Cattle Following the fed market, the feeders moved up to a new price range in 2014.

Several factors are driving North American prices: positive feeding margins, higher deferred fed cattle futures, recent moisture

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leading to lower grain prices and better pasture conditions as well as a smaller overall cow herd and tighter feeder supplies. Light volumes of 550-weight feeders currently average $238.40, or $88.65/cwt better than a year ago. Heavy feeders also continue to break records with 850-weight Alberta steers averaging $201.38/cwt at the end of June, an improvement of $74.71/cwt from last year. A smaller number of grass yearlings is expected at the end of the summer, which has feeders looking to secure their requirements early.

Some producers have already listed their grass yearlings with forward delivery dates and some grass cattle have been sorted and sent to town with heavier cattle to cash in on these boom prices. The feeder basis remains wide, averaging $25.55/cwt under the U.S. on the year compared to $18.67 under at this time last year. At the end of June the cashto-futures basis was $28.95 under. The pace of exports to the U.S. has slowed in recent weeks but overall is still running 43 per cent ahead of last year.

Non-Fed Cattle D1,2 cows hit a new record at the end of June at $110.38/cwt, $35 better than 2013.

This kind of strength in cow and bull prices this late in the summer is unusual.

However, the value of trim buoyed up by the demand for ground beef continues to push this market ahead. Butcher bulls are averaging just over $120. Domestic cow slaughter is down four per cent year to date at 202,388 head while bull slaughter is up eight per cent with 1,797 head. The tight numbers are also pushing exports down, by 11 per cent, with 126,354 cows crossing the border year to date, Bull exports are running 11 per cent ahead of last year at 33,912 head. c Debbie McMillin is a market analyst who ranches at Hanna, Alta.

 DE B ’S OUTLOOK Fed Cattle After the July 1-4 holiday week in North America demand for some of the higher-valued middle cuts may lighten. The flip side is that any slide in beef demand should be softened by the strong prices for retail pork and chicken. Typically fed cattle prices drop towards the end of the third quarter when carcass weights and supplies increase and demand softens. But nothing is typical when it comes to the summer of 2014. The market may soften slightly over the next couple of months but by how much is an open question. Feedlots are current and there are no surplus cattle around so supplies remain tight for the foreseeable future and deferred prices remain strong.

Feeder Cattle Historically feeder prices increase through the summer in anticipation of tightening supplies and the approaching grass yearling run.

Given the current high-flying fed cattle market it’s hard to imagine the feeders won’t follow along.

Looking even further towards the fall feeder run, strong deferred cattle futures are supportive as well as current crop condition reports.

Near-term prices are well supported by very limited volumes and a strong overall cattle market.

Non-Fed Cattle Demand is strong and steady for non-fed beef moving through the summer grilling season. Cow and bull numbers will be seasonally smaller next month as most cows are out to grass with calves at side.

The summer market should hold relatively steady until larger volumes pick up towards fall.

More markets 

C a t t l e m e n · j u ly 2 0 1 4 39

M A R K ETS

Break-even Prices on A-Grade Steers

Market Prices

160

250

ALBERTA

150

210

140

190

130

170

120 110

Steer Calves (500-600 lb.)

230

150 Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec

165

ONTARIO

155

130

Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec

110

D1,2 Cows

100

145

90

135

80

125

70

115

60

105 Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Canfax weighted average price on A-Grade steers

Break-even price for steers on date sold

2014 2013

2014 2013

June 2014 prices* Alberta Yearling steers (850 lb.) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $186.83/cwt Barley . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.65/bu.

Barley silage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58.13/ton Cost of gain (feed) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71.34/cwt Cost of gain (all costs) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102.96/cwt Fed steers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149.35/cwt Break-even (November 2014) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153.88/cwt Ontario Yearling steers (850 lb.) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $188.82/cwt Corn silage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40.96/ton Grain corn . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.87/bu.

Cost of gain (feed) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76.34/cwt Cost of gain (all costs) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103.58/cwt Fed steers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 156.85/cwt Break-even (December 2014) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153.55/cwt *Mid-month to mid-month prices Breakevens East: end wt 1,450, 183 days West end wt 1,325 lb., 125 days

Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec

Ontario

Alberta

2014 2013

2014 2013

Ontario prices based on a 50/50 east/west mix

Market Summary (to May 31) 2014

2013

Total Canadian federally inspected slaughter. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1,131,376. . . . . . . . . . 1,089,201 Average steer carcass weight . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 848 lb.. . . . . . . . . . . . 882 lb.

Total U.S. slaughter. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13,010,000. . . . . . . 13,890,000

Trade Summary Exports 2014 2013 Fed cattle to U.S. (to May 24). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 179.836.. . . . . . . . . . .1 87,198 Feeder cattle and calves to U.S. (to May 24). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 208,884.. . . . . . . . . . 144,864 Dressed beef to U.S. (to April). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161.02 mil.lbs.. . . . . 144.18 mil.lbs Total dressed beef (to April) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 217.28 mil.lbs.. . . . 200.70 mil.lbs IMPORTS 2014 2013 Slaughter cattle from U.S. (to April) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0 *Dressed beef from U.S. (to April) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86.88 mil.lbs. . . . . . 11 5.42 mil.lbs *Dressed beef from Australia (to April) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17.79 mil.lbs. . . . . . . 12.30 mil.lbs *Dressed beef from New Zealand (to April) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8.86 mil.lbs. . . . . . . 12.65 mil.lbs *Dressed beef from Uruguay (to April) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.36 mil.lbs. . . . . . . 14.27 mil.lbs Canadian Grades (to June 28, 2014) % of A grades +59% 54-58% AAA 24.2 22.3 AA 27.9 8.1 A 1.7 0.1 Prime 0.3 0.5 Total 31.0 54.1

EAST WEST

Total graded 297,450 1,040,278

Yield – 53% Total 10.8 57.3 1.8 37.8 0.0 1.8 0.3 1.1 12.9 Total A grade 98.0%

Total ungraded 12,350 65

% carcass basis 8 1.6% 88.4% Only federally inspected plants

40

C a t t l e m e n · j u ly 2 0 1 4

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 market ta l k

By Gerald Klassen

Beef Demand Looking Forward

I

t is that time of year where I receive many inquiries in regards to fed and feeder cattle prices for the fall and winter period. We all know that beef supplies will experience a year-over-year decline during the third and fourth quarters of 2014 and therefore the true focus will be on the demand equation. Consumer income levels are the largest factor influencing beef demand which will determine wholesale beef values and the structure of the fed cattle market. Feedlots can determine the value for feeder cattle by looking at the expected fed cattle prices at the time of slaughter because input costs are known or can be locked in. Therefore, both feedlot operators and cow-calf producers need to look at the economic situation and how income levels will change for the average consumer when projecting the price outlook. Since the U.S. is the largest market for Canadian beef and live cattle, I want to discuss at the U.S. economy and how disposable income levels could strengthen over the next six- to eightmonth period. Alberta fed cattle prices have been hovering in the range of $148/cwt to $152/cwt throughout the spring and feeder cattle are now priced so that feeding margins are rather snug for the fall period. If we don’t see a significant change in disposable income, it will be hard to justify higher prices, even if supplies are contracting.

The U.S. unemployment rate has been improving since the recession. During May of 2013, the unemployment rate was 7.5 per cent and during May of 2014, the rate was 6.3 per cent. The number of unemployed persons has dropped by nearly two million people over the past year. This is fairly significant because people tend to improve their diets once their income increases. The long-term unemployment rate is 5.83 per cent so it is important to realize that the economy is nearing this level which could cause job growth to slow down. It is possible to drop below 5.8 per cent but if this occurs, I would expect employment rates to come back to the long-term average and would suggest beef prices are vulnerable to a correction.

Another factor I like to focus on is consumer confidence. This provides a good idea how consumers feel about their current economic situation and earning potential. Consumer confidence has  u.s. disposable income (Trillion dollars)

been in the range of 80 to 84 since the beginning of 2014. A reading of 90 reflects that the economy is functioning on all cylinders for potential growth so the overall consumer sentiment is slightly below this target. Seasonally, there is a dip in consumer confidence during the early-winter period which may result in a slight slowdown in consumer spending; however, the trend remains positive moving forward into the fall of 2014.

Over the past four years, American consumers have spent more on food products. Year-to-date at-home spending has been running at 2.1 per cent above last year while away-fromhome food spending is down 1.3 per cent compared to last year.

Away-from-home food spending has been positive each month except for March when it was down 8.4 per cent in comparison to March of 2013. This has brought down the year-to-date number.

Looking forward, I’m expecting both at-home and away-fromhome food spending to finish 2014 up approximately two per cent in comparison to 2013.

U.S. disposable income is very important for beef demand, especially for the higher-end cuts. The chart below shows disposable income over the past year and you can see how disposable income generally stagnates during the fall period. There is potential for this pattern to occur again because after a period of growth, there is usually a period of consolidation in the economy.

In conclusion, consumer income is the largest factor driving beef demand. Unemployment is expected to slowly improve but nearing the long-term potential. Consumer confidence and disposable income will likely consolidate during the fall period after a period of steady improvement and growth. Therefore, beef demand will have limited upside from current levels during the fall period. It is important to realize that the function of the market is to ration demand given the lower supplies available. The market needs to move to high enough levels so that consumption slows down. The beef and cattle markets appear to be nearing that price level. c Gerald Klassen analyzes markets in Winnipeg and also maintains an interest in the family feedlot in southern Alberta. He can be reached at gklassen7@hotmail.com.  u.s. monthly ground beef retail prices $/Lb. 4,000

13

January 2011 to June 2014

3,800

12.9

3,600

12.8

3,400

12.7

3,200

12.6

3,000

12.5

2,800

12.4

2,600

12.3

2,400

C a t t l e m e n · J u ly 2 0 1 4

May-14

Jan-14

Mar-14

Nov-13

Jul-13

Sep-13

May-13

Jan-13

Mar-13

Nov-12

Jul-12

Sep-12

May-12

Jan-12

Mar-12

Nov-11

Jul-11

Sep-11

May-11

Jan-11

May

Apr

Mar

Feb

Jan-13

Dec

Nov

Oct

Sept

Aug

July

June

May-12

www.canadiancattlemen.ca

Mar-11

2,200

12.2

41

 GOINGS ON

Sales&Events

Events

13

July 24-26

anadian Junior Limousin C Conference, Saskatoon, Sask.

25-27 2014 Canadian Simmental Association AGM, Elkhorn Resort, Riding Mountain National Park, Man. 25-27 YCSA National Classic, Elkhorn Resort, Riding Mountain National Park, Man. 29-Aug. 2 Canadian Junior Hereford Assoc.

National Show “Bonanza,” Lindsay Fairgrounds, Lindsay, Ont. 30-Aug. 2 Saskatchewan YCSA Classic, Prince Albert, Sask.

August 1

1-3 1-3 7 12-14

anadian Hereford Association C Annual General Meeting, Lindsay Fairgrounds, Lindsay, Ont. Canadian Junior Shorthorn National Show, Neepawa, Man. Manitoba All Breeds Youth Round-up, Neepawa, Man. Saskatchewan Pasture Tour, Yorkton/ Touchwood Hills Area, Sask.

Livestock Gentec Annual Conference and Field Day, Kinsella Ranch and Edmonton, Alta.

 ADVERTIS E R I ND EX Page Ability Pump & Equipment 33 Advantage Feeders 35 35 Airdrie Trailer Sales Bow Valley Genetics 34 Canada Beef IBC Canadian Agri-Business Education Foundation 19 34 Canadian Angus Assoc.

Canadian Charolais Assoc.

OBC Canadian Forage & Grassland Assoc.

14 Canadian Gelbvieh Assoc.

33 Canadian Hereford Assoc.

IFC Canadian Limousin Assoc.

34 Canadian Red Angus Promotion Society 34 Canadian Shorthorn Assoc.

34 Canadian Simmental Assoc.

34 Case-IH 5 Farm Credit Canada 11 Hi-Hog Farm & Ranch Equipment 35 International Stock Foods 34 Livestock Gentec 37 Merck Animal Health 29 Nester Livestock 17 New Holland 15 Plain Jan’s Inc. 34 Salers Assoc. of Canada 34 The Cattle Range 19 Western Beef Development Centre 25

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C a t t l e m e n · J u ly 2 0 1 4

17-22

21-22

insella Research Ranch — K renamed Roy Berg Kinsella Ranch Field Day, Kinsella Ranch, Kinsella, Alta. Itinerary and to register online go to www.ales.ualberta.ca/ FacultyResearch/RoyBergFieldDay. aspx 10th World Congress on Genetics, Applied to Livestock Production (WCGALP), Westin Bayshore, Vancouver, B.C. Maritime YCSA Classic, Truro, Nova Scotia

13 17-19

18-19 24-29

December 9-11

September 18-19

23-25

anada Beef Annual Forum and C AGM, Toronto, Ont. Agriculture and Agri-Food Council’s Summit Up, Pomeroy Inn, Olds, Alta.

October 3-5

lds Fall Classic, Olds Regional O Exhibition, Olds, Alta.

est of Canadian Agri-marketing, B Association Awards, Ottawa, Ont. 5th Annual Canada’s Forage and Grassland Conference and AGM — “Closing the Forage Gap,” Bromont, Que. Canfax Forum, Deerfoot Inn, Calgary, Alta.

Canadian Western Agribition, Evraz Place, Regina, Sask.

2 014 Western Canadian Grazing Conference — “Going Beyond Sustainability,” Radisson Hotel South, Edmonton, Alta.

January 2015 10-25

21-23

ational Western Stock Show & Rodeo, N National Western Complex, Denver, Col., www.nationalwestern.com Saskatchewan Beef Industry Conference, Evraz Place, Regina, Sask. c

November

 Event listings are a free service to industry.  Sale listings are for our advertisers.

5-8

Your contact is Deborah Wilson at 403-325-1695 or deb.wilson@fbcpublishing.com

2-9

7-16

armfair International, Northlands F Expo Centre, Edmonton, Alta.

Agri-trade Farm Show, Westerner, Red Deer, Alta.

Royal Agricultural Winter Fair, Exhibition Place, Toronto, Ont.

Saskatchewan Stock Growers Assoc. board of directors. Front row (l to r): Kelcy Elford, Caronport; Harold Martens (past president), Swift Current; Shane Jahnke (first vice-president), Gouldtown; Doug Gillespie (president), Neville; Bill Huber (second vice-president), Lipton; Henry McCarthy, Wawota; Lloyd Thompson, Carnduff. Back row (l to r): Terry Ostrander, Hallonquist; Robin Wiggins, Fox Valley; Kelly Williamson, Pambrun; Brent Griffin, Elbow; Tom Grieve, Fillmore; Kimberly Simpson, Kyle; Helen Finucane (finance chair), Regina; Laird Senft (Angus affiliate), Fort Qu’Appelle; Chad MacPherson (general manager), Regina. Missing: Keith Day, Gerry Duckworth, Dave Hoeft, Norm Nordgulen, Jason Pollock, Garner Deobald, Jack Ford, Tara Fritz, Jaime Whitworth, and Jeff Yorga.

www.canadiancattlemen.ca

Reasons to Believe Led by its three-year strategic intent, Canada Beef is well positioned to deliver a strong return on beef and veal producers’ national check-off investment by leveraging a dynamic Canadian Beef Advantage delivering recognized value. This is only the beginning.

As the beef industry aligns to a common vision, to deliver our united promise to consumers around the world, we will all see a profitable and sustainable beef industry. We must all strive to ensure we uphold our promise, continue to make our foundation stronger, and then we will have ensured those who matter most to us have the reasons they need to believe in the Canadian beef industry and what we bring to the table.

To deliver value to the producer, Canada Beef must deliver more than recognition, understanding and awareness of Canadian beef – we must create and sustain loyalty to the Canadian beef brand around the world. We must create a competitive atmosphere where the demand for our product is unparalleled. The story of Canadian beef is exceptional, and our challenge is to put our best foot forward in terms of selling and sharing that story. This is the essence of a strong brand – when both the emotional and functional/technical attributes of the product and industry work together to create passion, belief and trust with partners, customers, and ultimately the consuming public.

The Canadian beef brand represents the public image and perception of Canadian beef with consumers, customers and the beef industry.

Working closely with our industry partners, we can increasingly leverage the brand in targeted go-to-market strategies to build an affinity and desire for Canadian beef with consumers worldwide. The brand is a promise – a promise the Canadian cattle industry must keep. We must all keep this promise in order to see a bright future for our industry.

Canada Beef looks forward to working with our industry partners and stakeholders to promote and leverage the Canadian Beef Advantage and ultimately drive international brand loyalty. We must and will reward licenced brand partners who can help move the industry forward and deliver recognized value to beef cattle producers and consumers.

This promise is built on four brand pillars that both support and prove the validity of the promise: 1) 2) 3) 4)

The Product – flavourful and tender beef that is a wholesome and nutritious choice.

The Producer – they produce Canadian beef with integrity reflecting a rich heritage.

Quality and Safety – produced according to world class standards for animal health, and meat quality and safety.

Sustainability – producers and the value chain together are working to sustain the cattle industry for generations to come.

The Canadian beef brand promise is this: “Canadian beef has a rich heritage and tradition, produced sustainably and with integrity by Canadians who are global leaders in ensuring quality and safety. Canadian beef is grain-fed and produced from internationally recognized livestock genetics to deliver an exceptional eating experience.”

In order to give customers and consumers reasons to believe in our industry and resulting products, the entire Canadian value chain plays a significant role in making this happen. It is the role of Canada Beef to work specifically through business development with its chosen partners in select priority markets and segments who value, and will remain loyal through premiums paid for Canadian quality beef products. As industry, we fully acknowledge we all need to play an increasing role in ensuring Canadian beef delivers on its brand commitment each and every day.

As I mentioned, this is only the beginning of the evolution our industry is about to experience. Soon you will hear more about a Canadian Beef Centre of Excellence, which I believe will start the most significant change this industry has seen in the past 25 years.

Are you ready?

Rob Meijer, President Canada Beef Inc.

www.canadabeef.ca/producer

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