Beef is back.
Not that it ever went away, but it has changed course a few times over the past decade, but now cattle producers, especially those in southern Saskatchewan can start plotting even a few more interesting avenues of production and marketing.
Retail prices are now settling down, Americans and Canadians are prepared to resume their consumption of just over 54 pounds of the succulent product per person, per year, which represents an upward trend … the first in 10 years.
The peak of the beef consumption game in the United States, at least, was in 1976 when the average consumption rate was 95 pounds of beef, per person, per year.
The trend went steadily downward until this past year.
What has helped spark the upward trend say analysts and local beef producer Brian Ross, is the promotion efforts of fast-food restaurants, as well as several sit-down restaurants. Take those promotional ideas and couple them with some discount deals, and the consumers have responded.
Of course it can never be a total upward trajectory for cattlemen and women, can it?
Ross worries about the fact that some of these franchise operations in particular, go further afield to land their beef, bringing it in from Australia and elsewhere, which raises the specter of product dumping, which has happened before.
Then there was the recent repealing of the controversial legislation in the United States that effectively kept a large portion of Canadian beef off the shelves in American outlets. The Country of Origin Labelling (COOL) was finally rescinded, allowing Canadian producers a fairer opportunity to market to the U.S., but Ross noted, there are still some little games being played such as delayed inspections at border crossings or new wrinkles that hold up efficient delivery.
But that still doesn’t dampen the spirit as herd sizes once again take an upward swing to meet the growing demand.
The COOL set back was just added to the agony that the Canadian beef producers had to wade through about 12 years ago following a couple of BSE episodes that immediately closed borders and access to many international markets, some of which are just now, re-opening due to hard lobbying by political partners and the industry.
“It’s still the entrée of choice for millions of Americans,” said Don Murphy, a food-industry journalist and commentator in a recent American report.
The Saskatchewan Stock Growers Association along with the Canadian Cattlemen’s Association (CCA) noted that COOL was repealed last December and since then, in spite of the efforts of some agencies and groups to stall the freer flow of beef on the hoof, or in boxes, Canadian beef exports could climb to one million head this year, up from the 755,969 recorded in 2015.
Canadian cattle numbers have remained flat for two years at around 11.9 million. The total Canadian herd count used to be in the 12.2 to 12.3 million range.
Last year, there were just 281,591 feeder cattle shipped south from Canada along with 196,243 slaughter steers and heifers and 197,567 slaughter cows.
The stock growers said the response to the latest COOL decision was mixed at first with only 3,060 Canadian feeder cattle entering the U.S. from Canada in the first three weeks of the new year versus over 19,000 in the first three weeks of the previous year. But when it came to steers and heifers, the numbers were up by nearly 5,000 head to 15,836.
Contributing to the mixed-up situation was the fact that American feed lots were full at 25.9 million head in early 2016 with the total U.S. cattle population up by 3.2 per cent following a couple of difficult drought years that had cut their herd sizes.
Canadian beef analysts also warn that since Canada’s herd size had not increased over the past two years, if shipments to the United States (or elsewhere) were hiked to any substantial volume, it would put a squeeze on the domestic market and processing plants.
And, they warned, Asian markets are a very good bet for Canadian beef moving forward.
“They like Canadian beef, but a reliability of supply has been a problem,” said the stockgrower’s report.
“We need a rebound, of perhaps five million head,” said CCA president Dave Solverson, when asked to comment on the report.
So while there are glitches to react to, the overall picture is much brighter than it has been, and promising to be even better, said Ross, who predicted that “prices will probably start coming down for consumers as herd sizes grow. We could be seeing grocery and other beef retailers offering specials more frequently as well as those franchise restaurant beef specials.” Ross is one of several local beef producers. He and his wife Rosalee operate a 700 head cow/calf ranch south of Estevan near the United States border.
