The B.C. cattle industry has been critically short changed by the provincial government, setting of a cascade of economic pain, announced provincial ranchers in Prince George.
The BC Cattlemen's Association (BCCA) board of directors was in B.C.'s northern capital, Wednesday, for their annual fall meeting.
The main topic of conversation was the application process which launched Friday for drought relief cheques.
The drought, as evidenced by this summer's cold and wet extremes, was more than a year ago. The money is far too late to ward off the financial damage to ranchers, The Citizen was told, and the compensation amounts were much smaller than the needs identified by industry specialists.
"The industry was studied and the amount asked for was $11.5 million total, so the B.C. government only had to come up with 40 per cent of that and the federal government was committed to pay the rest," said Kevin Boon, general manager of the BCCA. "We weren't asking for the moon, that was just to cover the cost of feed that had been lost to the disastrous weather."
Instead, B.C. cattlemen can apply for a share of $2.5 million, the initial 40 per cent of which was determined by the provincial government. (By comparison, the cattlemen said, a disaster relief package for ranchers in Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba totaled $448 million.)
Kevin Johnson, general manager of the BC Livestock Producers (a rancher co-operative operating stock yards for cattle and farm equipment auctions) and a Prince George area rancher, said cattle producers all over the province had no choice but to sell off extraordinary amounts of their herds and thus their ongoing profitability.
"In our four stock yards alone we had 15,000 fewer head go through this year," he said, now that the massive cull has taken hold. That represents a quarter-million-dollar hit just in that direct way."
He estimated that the provincial herd, which accounts for about five per cent of the national beef supply, has been curtailed by somewhere between 10 and 20 per cent over and above the usual cyclical sell-off by healthy ranches.
"We had to winter only about half of what we normally would," said Mark Grafton of Prince George's Bar K Ranch north of the city. "Our pastures ran out of grazing early, there wasn't the hay supply to feed through the winter, so we had to get rid of quite a few head of cattle we would normally be using to maintain a functioning herd."
He said attempts to open up new beef markets in countries other than the United States made for an optimistic future in the business but the huge selloffs, coupled with the small and late compensation funds, means "we have been put at a distinct disadvantage to capitalize on that opportunity, because our herds are so diminished."
BCCA president Judy Guichon said the compensation package for B.C. was "absurdly low" and a government slap in the face to one of the only industries to step forward and laud the HST for its benefits to their business. "And now we even have to suffer the loss of that," she said.
"Our members have been led by government to believe those safety nets were there, we were told about the programs that would compensate them in times of disaster, but then the provincial government is the one that wouldn't step up. The feds were on board; the province would not put up the dollars."
Worse, the ranchers said, was the economic spinoff that was also exponentially diminished in B.C. communities, especially rural ones, due to cattle dollars that are not flowing to other businesses.
