Details are still pending, but the Canadian Federation of Agriculture (CFA) announced Aug. 12 it has started work on a “Hay West” initiative to get surplus hay “to those struggling in the West.”

A similar program ran in 2002 in similar circumstances, the CFA said, noting that 10 years later, when the situation was reversed, farmers in the West sent hay east to help farms stricken with drought in that region.

“We have our staff as well as a third party working towards determining how much of a hay surplus is available, and are looking to work with the railways and the government to help these farmers that are in dire need of feed for their animals,” CFA president Mary Robinson said in a release.

CFA said it will provide more information on the Hay West initiative as “details become available” and will work with government and stakeholders “to ensure that farmers are supported and surplus hay reaches those that need it.”

The Ontario Federation of Agriculture (OFA) on Thursday pledged $50,000 toward the CFA’s initiative — plus another $50,000 toward the Northwestern Livestock Emergency Assistance Initiative managed by Beef Farmers of Ontario (BFO).

The plan for the Northwestern Livestock Emergency Assistance Initiative, BFO said, is “to help protect and maintain the breeding herd while we await the completion of the federal-provincial AgriRecovery assessment” toward further assistance for the region.

BFO has also received provincial funding for the initiative, which it said will go to help deliver emergency feed relief to all impacted livestock farmers in the Rainy River and Kenora districts.

Eligible beef, dairy, sheep and goat producers must be residents of either of those districts, have a valid Ontario farm premises ID number and farm business registration number.

Eligible growers also must be able to “attest to experiencing an immediate livestock feed shortage as a result of the extreme dry conditions of the 2021 growing season.”

Producers in all four western provinces and northwestern Ontario are awaiting full assessments toward federal/provincial AgriRecovery drought relief.

The Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario and federal governments have already pledged funding for AgriRecovery in affected areas. The British Columbia government is also working on an AgriRecovery assessment but hasn’t yet announced its funding for the program. — Glacier FarmMedia Network

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The company announced it would “begin the process to temporarily idle” the Dunlop Drive plant effective Thursday (Dec. 17).

“This was a difficult decision for our team who are operating an essential service and are committed to delivering food for local families and access to markets for farmers and ranchers,” Jon Nash, leader for Cargill’s protein operations in North America, said in a statement.

“Our focus now is on continuing to keep our employees safe and getting our facility back to normal operations,” he said.

To prevent food waste, he added, staff are working to process the equivalent of “nearly 1.55 million meals worth of protein” remaining at the plant.

The company’s decision follows the declaration of a COVID outbreak at the Dunlop Drive plant on Dec. 4. Since then, Wellington-Dufferin-Guelph (WDG) Public Health said it has run a full infection prevention and control review of the plant and tested about 200 individuals “related to the affected area.”

As of Thursday at 2 p.m. ET, WDG Public Health said, 82 people at the plant have tested positive for COVID-19. Counting those cases as well as their close contacts, 129 people are now self-isolating as a precaution.

“All outbreaks are serious,” Dr. Matthew Tenenbaum, WDG’s associate medical officer of health, said Thursday in a separate release. “However, when we see an outbreak of this size, we must use all of the tools available to us to contain the outbreak and ensure the community at large is protected.”

Cargill said Thursday it’s encouraging employees to be tested, has “stressed the importance of social distancing for those across the community who have been impacted by the virus” and has “encouraged any employees who are sick or have been exposed to anyone with COVID-19 in the last 14 days to stay home.”

While the plant was operating, Cargill said, it had offered up to 80 hours of additional paid leave related to COVID-19. Employees will be paid for 36 hours per week as outlined in their collective agreement, the company added.

As for cattle producers supplying the plant, Beef Farmers of Ontario and the Canadian Cattlemen’s Association said they have been working to organize a set-aside program for Eastern Canada, similar to the plan which ran this spring in Western Canada to help manage a backlog of finished cattle as beef packers slowed or halted operations there.

Cargill’s Guelph plant alone accounts for about 70 per cent of Eastern Canada’s beef harvest capacity, the CCA said, “which will create logistical challenges for beef producers.”

As the Cargill plant moved to shut down, BFO said Thursday it “immediately requested” that the Ontario Beef Cattle Set-Aside Program be activated.

BFO said it will communicate details of the program as soon as they’re finalized, adding that the program “may be triggered as soon as next week.”

“We have successfully implemented the set-aside program in Western Canada, and it is time to implement the same program that was proactively developed for Eastern Canada,” CCA president Bob Lowe said in a separate release Thursday. “The set-aside program will assist with market stability as well as managing the flow of cattle through the supply chain.”

Industry players and policy makers “also must look at and support all actions that can assist in our current situation,” he said, such as boosting processing capacity at provincially-licensed packing plants and holding back cows so slaughter plants can focus on fed cattle.

BFO, CCA and the Ontario Cattle Feeders Association “are working collectively with both levels of government on other potential short-term measures to help mitigate the fallout from the current situation,” BFO said Thursday. — Glacier FarmMedia Network

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Due to extremely limited processing plant capacity, an uncompetitive market and disruptions to trade and market access, Ontario’s beef industry was losing an average of more than $2 million per week last year and into 2020. The effects of COVID-19 are expected to aggravate this situation, despite the recent upturn in retail demand.

“Even with the ballooning box beef prices at retail, the price feeders are receiving for their cattle have not kept pace, despite rebounding cattle prices in other competing jurisdictions, including those in Western Canada,” said Beef Farmers of Ontario president Rob Lipsett, a cow-calf producer at Annan, Ont.

Limited processing plant capacity in Eastern Canada is one of the major factors in the existing crisis. Utilization of packing plants in the region rose from 85 per cent in 2016 to 95 per cent in 2018, restricting processing capacity and competition in the marketplace. This issue intensified in December with the closure of Ryding-Regency, the province’s third-largest packing plant.

Why it matters: Because of Eastern Canada’s limited processing capacity, many producers are feeding cattle for longer than expected, raising input costs. They then face penalties for overweight animals once they are finally sent for processing. This has resulted in producers losing $180-$300 per head on average for the past year.

“The depths and prolonged nature of the market losses experienced by beef farmers in Ontario have not been seen since the BSE crisis of the 2000s,” says Lipsett.

The impact of COVID-19 is adding pressure to an already financially strained feeder sector. One example of this is a reduction in access to dried distillers grains (DDGs).

This, Lipsett notes, is “due to a decline in oil demand, which has resulted in decreased ethanol production and therefore a decrease in the amount of DDG by-product available.” It’s generally more expensive and difficult to source substitutions for this particular ration.

“Everything with respect to COVID-19 presents risks to the supply chain across the country,” Lipsett said. “With that said, industry is working closely with industry and government partners across the supply chain to ensure contingencies are put in place, and cattle and meat continue to flow.

“However, even by minimizing disruptions in the beef supply chain, Ontario feedlot producers continue to face serious profitability challenges in the wake of the prolonged losses.”

BFO is among the many agricultural associations that have asked federal and provincial governments to enhance business risk management programs immediately, as well as other measures to support beef producers. The association’s recommendations were sent to both the federal and Ontario provincial governments on March 20.

“What impacts COVID-19 will have in the short, medium and long term are unknown, which is why it’s vitally important for governments to enhance farm safety net programs to ensure farm viability can be ensured if the market impacts of COVID-19 get progressively worse,” Lipsett said.

The full list of BFO’s recommendations is available on the association’s COVID-19 Updates webpage. The list includes:

• Uncapping the provincial risk management program.
• Providing an AgriInvest stimulus, contributing a minimum of five per cent of allowable net sales without producer matching contributions, making withdrawals tax-free and increasing overall funds that can be accessed.
• Raising the AgriStability trigger to 85 per cent, removing the reference margin limit and making enhancements retroactive to 2019.
• Removing late participation penalties and allowing producers that have exited the programs to re-enroll.
• Creating a fed-cattle and cull-cattle set-aside program to help manage the supply of cattle.

In early March, BFO requested an Ontario Cattle Emergency Assistance Program from the federal government. This included “business risk management funding to address the shortfall in current programming,” according to a March 6 press release.

— Piper Whelan is a field editor for Canadian Cattlemen at Airdrie, Alta.

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The Ontario and federal governments on Wednesday announced applications for cost-share funding can be submitted between now and April 30, “as long as funding for the initiative is available.”

Eligible projects must be wrapped up within the year, by Dec. 31 at the latest. Examples given Wednesday of eligible projects include:

• capital upgrades for “enhanced” food safety,
• improvements in “safe handling and housing” of animals, or
• new equipment for “safe and efficient” disposal of hides.

The public funds for this program will come from the federal/provincial Canadian Agricultural Partnership policy funding framework.

“This funding comes at a time of critical challenges in the beef industry due to shortages in beef processing capacity,” Joe Hill, president of Beef Farmers of Ontario, said in the governments’ release Wednesday.

The squeeze on packing capacity in Ontario was brought into sharper focus in December when federal officials cancelled the license for Ryding-Regency Meat Packers.

The Toronto company — whose license had already been suspended since September in the wake of several E. coli-related food recalls — was estimated to have handled about 10 per cent of Ontario’s federally inspected beef slaughter, or around 1,500 cattle per week.

The cost-share support, BFO’s Hill said, “will help enable investment in equipment and infrastructure that assists businesses in remaining competitive and adapting to market-driven demands.”

The two governments’ announcement Wednesday also included a commitment of up to $292,600 to help BFO with “marketing efforts to access emerging markets,” naming Vietnam, Korea, Taiwan, the Philippines and the European Union.

That money will flow through Ontario’s Canadian Agricultural Partnership-backed Place to Grow initiative, which, among its other programming, offers funding to support sector organizations’ market development work. — Glacier FarmMedia Network

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The Toronto company, along with St. Ann’s Food, announced a recall Tuesday of a long list of its products because of concerns with E. coli O157:H7. More products were added to the recall on Thursday.

The Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) says it suspended the licence of the company because the beef processor “failed to implement effective control measures in accordance with Part 4 of the Safe Food for Canadians Regulations (SFCR).” Part 4 describes controls that have to be applied in order to reduce risks.

Why it matters: Ontario farmers already have limited options for selling their beef cattle for processing. One less makes the market even tighter.

CFIA says the plant’s original licence suspension, in late September, related to ground pork, ground beef and burger products that were recalled by Alpha Meat Packers/Salaison Alpha at Anjou, Que.

The company got the affected products from Ryding-Regency Meat Packers.

“While Beef Farmers of Ontario (BFO) is very concerned about this situation and the impact on Ontario beef producers, we have full confidence in our regulatory system and will be reviewing the findings of the CFIA investigation when they become available,” the organization said in a statement.

“We have been assured by the leadership at Ryding-Regency that they are actively working with CFIA to resolve the issues that have been identified, with the goal of minimizing time out of the market.”

BFO encourages beef producers who ship to Ryding-Regency to contact the buyer they deal with.

— John Greig is editor of Farmtario.

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Producers at the Beef Farmers of Ontario (BFO) annual meeting in Mississauga on Wednesday voted 87 per cent in favour of the plan. A similar plan was rejected at last year’s annual meeting. As a constitutional change was needed, a two-thirds majority had to approve of the change.

Why it matters: The beef sector has been stagnant or declining in Ontario for years. It is hoped an increase in marketing, tied to the Ontario Corn Fed Beef Program’s successful history, can change that.

Joe Hill, who was returned as chair of the BFO at the annual meeting, said the proposal was well thought-out and was the best hope of increasing value in the Ontario beef sector.

“Today is the day to fund it and bring it to life,” he said in making a plea for the approval of the increased checkoff.

Producers heard his request, but it was not a new story for them. After last year’s failure to fund what was called the Regional Marketing Initiative, BFO staff and directors provided extensive opportunity for beef farmer delegates to learn about the proposal during numerous meetings across the province.

That extra explanation seemed to work as the mood in the room at the annual general meeting of the organization was more positive towards the proposal than it was a year ago. That showed in the questions and statements of support before voting.

“We have to try it. I have to trust the people that the people who have been appointed will do their best,” said Stewart Cressman, a Waterloo County beef farmer.

The proposal was different this year with more details on how the program will be managed. A marketing committee has been formed of members of BFO and the Ontario Cattlemen’s Association, led by OCA executive director Jim Clark.

The OCA’s 20-year-old Corn Fed Beef Program now accounts for 30-40 per cent of all cattle processed in the province and has achieved market penetration into many major supermarket chains and also into targeted markets in Asia and the Middle East.

The goal is to use the branding experience of the CFBP to drive more demand and eventually grow the sector, especially the number of cow-calf operations in the province.

“Outcomes have to benefit our beef producers from top and bottom,” said Clark at the BFO meeting. “BFO and Cattle Feeders have to develop a process that works.”

Beef farmers in Ontario have challenges others in Canada do not, such as being the landing place of 85 per cent of imports from the U.S. and with ready large markets nearby. Cow numbers have declined over the past 10 years, with a stabilizing of numbers in the past three years.

— John Greig is editor of Farmtario at Ailsa Craig, Ont. Follow him at @jgreig on Twitter.

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“We heard livestock farmers’ concerns with the program so we’re making the first changes effective immediately,” Agriculture Minister Ernie Hardeman said in a release Monday. “We’re also continuing to consult with farmers to ensure future changes we make are meaningful and effective.”

Effective immediately for program claims assessed from Sept. 4 onward, the farm business registration number (FBRN) requirement has been changed to allow producers to apply for compensation if they have a valid FBRN number in the current or the previous calendar year, or if they have a valid FBRN exemption.

Ontario farm groups had noted revised program guidelines, in place since Jan. 1 last year, had set up situations in which, for example, a producer who hadn’t paid his or her FBRN invoice by March 1, then lost livestock to predatory wildlife on March 2, would be rejected for compensation.

Also effective immediately for claims assessed from Sept. 4 onward, Hardeman said Monday, the program’s pricing methodology has been updated to provide separate pricing for steers and heifers.

Last year’s changes to the program guidelines have “created numerous problems, most notably… the overly strict burden of proof producers must meet to have their claim approved,” the Ontario Federation of Agriculture said recently.

The ag ministry said Monday it will seek “additional input and advice” from the ag sector this fall on “introducing more ways to demonstrate that wildlife predation occurred,” and on making sure municipal investigators are “effectively trained to assess predation.”

The ministry said it will also seek input on creating a separate appeals process that “restores farmers’ confidence in the independence and transparency of the process.”

Standardized pricing models under the program will also be reviewed “to better reflect market prices,” the province said.

The ag ministry said Monday it expects a “majority” of program changes to be introduced early next year.

“We have heard loud and clear from our membership that the current operation of the program is producing frustrating and unpredictable results,” Beef Farmers of Ontario president Joe Hill said in a separate release Monday.

OFA, BFO and Ontario Sheep Farmers jointly put forward recommendations on the program in February this year and also took part in ministry-led focus groups last winter.

“Today’s announcement is a positive step in the right direction, and an important signal to farm groups that the province is serious about making meaningful program changes that ensure farmers are provided fair and responsive compensation for losses incurred due to conflicts with predators,” OSF chairman Robert Scott said Monday.

The three groups emphasized the program is important for livestock producers in the province, “particularly for those in the beef and sheep sectors where conflicts with wildlife are common.” — Glacier FarmMedia Network

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Why it matters: Beef Farmers of Ontario pulled from its reserves to fund at close-to $1 million deficit in 2017 and was planning to do the same in 2018 in anticipation of the $1.50 per head increase in checkoff being approved. The loss of the increased provincial checkoff will have national implications as Ontario has been slow to approve a new national agreement and increased checkoff.

“We’re simply not going to be able to draw down on our reserves as fast,” said Joe Hill, the newly elected president of Beef Farmers of Ontario (BFO). “We’re going to have to realign our budget, going to have some hard decisions around what our priorities are for spending and what it ultimately means is we’re going to have to take money from some areas where we’re going to have less focus and put it into areas where we have more focus so we can come back with a closer to balanced budget so we can keep going for the next couple of years.”

BFO’s board wanted the increase in provincial checkoff funds in order to pay for an expanded role in marketing and communications in order to try to stem the constriction of the Ontario beef industry and replace some of the $530 million in yearly beef imports from the U.S. that come into the province.

A provincial checkoff increase beyond the current $3 per head required a constitutional change for BFO, which meant provincial consultations and a two-thirds approval from farmers delegates at an annual meeting.

When it came to a vote of its delegates to the BFO annual meeting recently in Mississauga, the result was 61 per cent in favor, short of the 66 per cent support required for the constitutional change.

Most of the new money would have gone to the BFO’s Regional Marketing Initiative which invests in branded Ontario beef marketing initiatives. In the past year there were nine projects approved worth $390,000, with $148,000 invested by BFO, including projects such as:

• Flanagan Food Service developed a premium Ontario Beef private label brand called Carve.
• Norwich Packers created a grass-fed beef program.
• Ryding Regency developed a program for beef from cattle that hadn’t been treated with hormones.

“When you have a stake in the game you have the ability to have a say in how things are done,” said John Baker, the program manager for the Regional Marketing Initiative.

National beef politics also in play

Ontario has been slow to approve a new national agreement with the Canadian Beef Cattle Check-Off Agency that’s been approved by the rest of the provinces in the country. There is also a debate over an increase to the national checkoff which would also mean an increase to $2.50 per head checkoff versus the current $1.

Beef farmers at the BFO annual meeting voted to continue discussion of the increase in national checkoff. It would require a vote at next year’s annual meeting.

An import levy equivalent to the per-head checkoff also applies to beef imported into the country, and as a result, national funds that come back to the province can only be used for generic promotion of beef versus branded products or import replacement – the aim of the Ontario Regional Marketing Initiative.

When it comes to signing the national agreement on collection of the levy, Hill says the BFO board isn’t yet convinced there’s enough value for beef farmers in Ontario from an increase in the national agreement, although he says the wording of the agreement is mostly finalized.

“The national industry tends to be fairly western-oriented,” says Hill. “Arguably 80 per cent of the beef is from Western Canada, so it’s to be expected, but for the Ontario industry to really survive we’ve got to find some value adding in there, which we aren’t seeing from our national organization yet.”

It all comes down to the market. A large volume of Western Canadian beef is exported, whereas there are significant urban markets in Ontario currently underserved by Canadian beef. Eighty-five per cent of beef imports from the U.S. come into Ontario totalling more than $530 million each year, says Jim Clark, executive director of the Ontario Corn Fed Beef Program.

Beef farmers passed a resolution at the annual meeting that encourages the board of directors to get the national agreement finalized.

“We’ve been working at this for the last number of years,” said Larry Jinkerson, who moved the motion to approve the resolution. “It’s time to get on with it and get it signed. We’re the only province not on board.”

— John Greig is a field editor for Glacier FarmMedia based at Ailsa Craig, Ont. Follow him on Twitter at @jgreig.

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