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Wednesday, June 29, 2005

(openbeefborders.com)

U.S. Cattle Industry Frets About New Canadian Slaughterhouses
This story was published Tuesday, May 17th, 2005

By Mary Hopkin, Herald staff writer

While the United States keeps Canadian cows from crossing the border, Canada is busy expanding its ability to kill and process its own cattle, which many in the domestic industry believe could result in the closing of Northwest slaughterhouses.

"It's not our intention to put the U.S. out of business, but we feel like a wounded animal backed into a corner," Glen Thompson, director of the Canadian Cattlemen's Association, told an audience of more than 100 members of the agriculture and cattle industries Monday at the Pasco Red Lion Hotel.

Thompson, of Iron Springs, Alberta, was among seven panelists, including Valoria Loveland, Washington's agriculture director, at a Washington Cattle Feeders Association forum. He said Canada's packing houses are rapidly expanding to be able to slaughter the country's own beef.

Thompson said Canadian cattle producers have lost nearly $5.6 billion in the more than two years since mad cow disease was discovered in an Alberta cow in Mabton and the border was closed.

Canada was able to slaughter and process about 72,000 head of cattle each week before the ban. Thompson said now the country's slaughterhouses can kill 88,000, and they are working to expand that capacity to 110,000.

Cody Easterday, a third-generation cattleman, said further delay of opening the border will not only be destructive to U.S. slaughterhouses, but will have a trickle-down effect through the entire agriculture community.

"We need them worse than they need us," Easterday said.

Loveland said she knows cattlemen are frustrated, but everything is at a standstill right now because of an injunction filed by the Ranchers-Cattlemen Action Legal Fund, or R-CALF, and granted by a Montana judge earlier this year that is keeping the border closed.

Last week, R-CALF, representing cow-calf operations, asked the courts for a summary judgment asking to prohibit import of Canadian cattle and beef, including boneless beef and other products.

Loveland said she doesn't believe a long-term prohibition will happen.

"I don't believe there is anyone here who thinks the borders are closed forever, but we are in a delay until the court cases are over," she said.

Ray McGaugh, Tyson's Wallulla complex manager, said the past few years have been extremely difficult for the plant, which killed about 12,000 head of cattle a week "pre-BSE."

"Now in a good week it's 6,000, but generally closer to 4,500 to 5,000," he said.

The decrease has had economic effects throughout the Mid-Columbia, McGaugh said. In 2001, the plant had a $52 million payroll, but by last year that had dropped to $36 million and the work force had dropped by about 160 employees, to about 1,700 employees, he said.

"This affects the livelihood of our team members," he said. "And when reduce our volume, it affects our suppliers."

McGaugh said there aren't enough cattle in the Northwest to supply Tyson and Washington Beef, and historically both companies have relied on Canadian cattle to fill the lockers.

Tyson is expanding its plant in Brooks, Alberta. By June, the plant, which currently slaughters about 3,900 cattle a day, will be capable of killing 4,700.

"It's time people understand the impact this will have on a long-term scale," he said.

Arvid Monson, who has owned the Monson Feedlot in Sunnyside since 1975, said the trickle down has started with the price of feeder cattle going up. Nothing will change until the courts rule on the R-CALF case, and every day it's putting the Northwest beef industry more at risk, he said.

"I can't figure out why we can't get more support, or find some avenue to expedite the process," said Monson, who agreed to sell the feedlot to Sunnyside in October.

Jim McAdams, president of the National Cattlemen's Beef Association, said now is not the time to make Canada, which has always been a partner in the beef industry, into its main competitor.

That would result in Northwest cattle growers sending their cattle to Canada and the country becoming the largest exporter of quality beef, he said.