Sask. cattle producers pleased to see spike in demand for beef

WATCH: As producers benefit from the recent increase in beef prices, concerns over fewer operations in Sask. persist. Sierra D’Souza Butts reports.

Although producers in Saskatchewan are benefitting from the recent increase in beef prices, concerns about fewer cattle herds and fewer producers across North America were highlighted at the annual Saskatchewan Stock Grower Association’s AGM in Moose Jaw.

“Finally after years of it being where we struggled to make money, we are finally catching up on some of the bills. We’re seeing more optimism on the price side,” Ryan Beierbach, a rancher from the Whitewood area, told CTV News.

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Beierbach said cattle market prices are on an upward swing due to the decline of cattle producers over the years.

“It was a really a poor market for quite a few years so a lot of the guys got out of the business and it shrunk the number of cattle,” he explained.

“Then we’ve had a drought in western Canada and in the U.S. that really made people shrink their cattle herds. It got to the point where the supply is so low it pushed the price up.”

The turnover in the market sparked much discussion at the meeting, including from one agribusiness expert who said the last time the beef market peaked was in 2005.

Since then, supply for cow and cattle herds have declined.

“Across Canada, we went from over five million beef cows to under 3.5 million beef cows,” explained Brian Perillat, an agribusiness specialist for More Than Just Feed.

“Numbers on the cow calf side have been shrinking. We’ve been importing feeder cattle to kind of offset some of those shrinking numbers. The overall herd hasn’t shrunk quite by that magnitude, but overall we’re shrinking.”

As a result, Saskatchewan producers have benefited economically most recently.

“Sometimes it’s about who has sort of the leverage, we call it, in the marketplace and right now the producers certainly have the leverage,” Perillat continued.

“As packing plants and feedlots, everybody’s competing for these shrinking supply calves that our cow calve producers are producing right now. They are probably getting the biggest beneficiary over the last year or two, in terms of these prices, as we’ve seen prices almost triple on calves that will be selling this fall here.”

The Saskatchewan Stock Growers Association said improving resources to support cattle producers are needed all-year-round due to market conditions always changing.

“Producers don’t have the ability to hold livestock for very long. When it’s time to market animals, you have to market animal products and you don’t have the ability to put it in the bin and wait,” president Jeff Yorga shared.

“We need to design programs that reflect that.”

Aside from cattle insurance, Yorga said there are a variety of risk management supports in place for producers.

“They also have the ability to forward sell right now. We’ve seen, I think, a record number of cattle that have been marketed on video sales for fall delivery - taken advantage of those high prices,” he said.

“We encourage producers to bring those tools.”