Glacier FarmMedia – It wasn’t hard to find young cattle folk in the barns at Manitoba Ag Days.
“They always say (average age) is getting older, but not in livestock, especially not in this kind of seedstock industry,” said Austen Anderson, as he braced himself against one of his Angus bulls. “It’s a young (person’s) gig.”
Why it matters: Canada’s cattle herd is at its lowest level in recent memory.
Read Also
A place of national honour for former deputy ag minister, Dori Gingera-Beauchemin
Long public service, focus on community and industry leadership launch Dori Gingera-Beauchemin into 2025 Canadian Agricultural Hall of Fame honourees
All around him, cattle breeding families were brushing cattle, tending to bedding needs and pitchforking manure. It was a youthful hive of activity.
For Lois McRae, another cattle breeder near Brandon, the relatively young profile of her industry’s demographics is heartening.
“We were brought up in the youth programs,” she said.
Those programs seem to set the foundation for the right sorts of people, those who can deal with the demanding business of quality cattle production.
“You have to have the love of livestock and you have to have the love of being there,” said McRae. “Whether it’s 40 below, somebody has to feed the cows.”
One of those youthful cow feeders is Alice Rooke, a 23-year-old English import whose family moved to the Alexander area 10 years ago. They left a sheep and cattle operation in the lush green of southern England for the dry and open territory of Western Canada. Today, they split their farm between commercial and purebred herds.
“You have to have an innate passion for it,” said Rooke, who graduated from the University of Manitoba last spring. “The livestock industry is a very passionate industry and I think that’s what really makes producers producers. It’s a pride thing.
“Livestock producers are proud to raise quality cattle and that’s what gets us up every day to go out and do the best job that we can, even if it’s -30 outside.”
– Ed White is a reporter for The Western Producer.
