I laughed until I cried
(“The chaos of lambing,” Jackie Irwin Paynter’s column in the Spring issue of ABS, struck a chord with sheep producers and tickled their funny bones. The Sheep Lady passed along one of the emails she received.)

ABS: I had time to read Atlantic Beef & Sheep this morning … and our barn is generally well organized for lambing! Well, I laughed and laughed until I cried at “your expense” as only another shepherd can appreciate the work involved in the process of delivering lambs.
Thank you so much for your article in lightening up our day in the midst of COVID-19. We are soooo thankful that we have soooo much to do while we are in isolation. Yesterday was a special day for me – the children and grandchildren paid a visit ... and we visited on the front steps.
Enjoy your rest (if only a little) before the next lambing and thank you for the laugh. It’s been your best article so far – keep up the great work!

Claude E. Gallant
P.E.I. Sheep Breeders’ Association
Cherry Valley, P.E.I.

Bigger isn’t always better
ABS: The recent closures of meat packing plants in Alberta, Quebec, and several American states due to the COVID-19 pandemic are shedding light on the tremendous expense of this style of massive meat processing operation. The expense borne by the workers at the plants is the greatest of all, their health threatened so severely, even causing death to two Cargill workers in Alberta.
However, the expense doesn’t stop there, as consumers are expected to see meat prices jump, farmers have seen the prices paid for their animals drop by more than 30 percent, and taxpayers will ultimately pay the price to help bail out this sector.
Several decades ago when the move to close smaller slaughterhouses in favour of building huge, single-entity plants was happening, the rationale was that there were going to be tremendous efficiencies in doing this. National Farmers Union studies showed that the promised efficiencies resulting in consumers having access to cheaper meat and farmers making a decent living simply did not materialize. The spread between what farmers are paid for their animals and what consumers pay for meat has grown. The working conditions at the plants with thousands of animals slaughtered each day are stressful at the best of times and downright dangerous now. Farmers suddenly have nowhere to sell their animals and consumers are starting to see less meat on the shelves.
Now is the time to look at how we can build a meat processing system that will not cause these massive problems. A move to build smaller, safer slaughter plants in each province would help to alleviate the threats to food security. We could assure meat supply from local farms to meet local demands. If one plant was forced to close it would not disrupt the food chain across the entire country. Providing safe, secure food from local farms to local consumers is entirely possible without putting meat packing workers at risk. Surely we’ve learned that bigger is not always better.

Vicki Burns, Winnipeg, Man.
Fred Tait (cattleman), Rossendale, Man.

Small slaughterhouses would make a difference
ABS: It’s May and the price of beef on grocery store shelves is climbing. A Cargill plant in Alberta had to close when 900 of its employees tested positive for COVID-19. One employee died.
I think one of the problems behind the situation is that many small slaughterhouses have gone out of business.
As a beef producer, I’d sooner deal with a small operation that has three or four employees than one that has 500. Why? It’s their livelihood. They care about the product they put out. How many recalls have there been from small slaughterhouses? Those employees know if they don’t get the job done, they won’t get paid. (In larger companies) workers don’t worry, they know they’ll still get paid. Government red tape and regulations are the reason why so many small slaughterhouses are out of business. New guidelines require processors to buy equipment that can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Marvin Peters
Springfield, P.E.I.

Young beef farmers most at risk for financial catastrophe during COVID-19
To Deputy Prime Minister Freeland, Minister Morneau, and Minister Bibeau: On behalf of the Young Cattlemen’s Council (YCC), we are writing to inform you of the critical situation that is currently faced by Canada’s beef farmers and ranchers due to the COVID-19 pandemic and how this particularly impacts young beef producers from coast to coast.
Young and new beef farmers are especially susceptible to market fluctuations as we often do not have sufficient equity built up in our operations to borrow money against to survive these difficult times. The financial difficulties of BSE in the early 2000s showed us that unless we put tools in place specifically designed to assist young producers, we will see a large exit from our industry, leaving a generational gap in farms and ranches as we simply cannot survive financially.
Price insurance is a key tool that helps us as young producers, yet, currently the premiums for this program are so expensive, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, that we cannot afford to participate in the program. We are asking the federal and provincial governments to establish the program in Eastern Canada, where the program does not yet exist, and cost share the increased cost of these premiums across Canada for a short, yet integral, period of time. We would note that cost sharing of premiums is already done for our counterparts in the cropping sector.
Price insurance enables us to borrow money that would otherwise be very difficult to acquire, or, at minimum, we would have to do so at much higher rates. Without price insurance, we may need to address cash flow challenges by selling cattle at the bottom of the market, or worse, exiting the industry and joining other unemployed Canadians.
We understand that the Canadian beef industry has put forward a number of recommendations that would benefit the entire sector. However, as young producers and the future of the beef industry, we wanted to highlight the importance of the price insurance recommendation, which will stand to greatly support young producers across the country during the pandemic.
We ask you to address this specific recommendation urgently and extend the deadline for attaining calf price insurance, which is on May 28. Should you have any questions, please do not hesitate to reach out to Jessica Giles, Youth Leadership Coordinator, at gilesj@cattle.ca.

Kayla Weston, President Young Cattlemen’s Council
Geoffrey Larkin, Vice-president Young Cattlemen’s Council

(In the latest census, a total of 10.7 percent of all beef cattle farms have an operator 35 years old or younger, 6.8 percent of beef farms are run by a sole operator that is 35 years or younger. Beef production spans all provinces, is Canada’s largest agriculture commodity –contributing $17 billion to the Canadian economy, and is the primary source of 228,000 jobs nationally.)