Beef cattle feeding in Ontario. (DebraLee Wiseberg/iStock/Getty Images)

COVID-19 strains already-battered Ontario beef industry

Limited processing capacity remains financial challenge for province's feedlot sector, despite recent increase in retail demand

Ontario’s beef industry was already in the midst of an economic crisis, but COVID-19 is worsening the financial toll on the province’s cattle feeders. Due to extremely limited processing plant capacity, an uncompetitive market and disruptions to trade and market access, Ontario’s beef industry was losing an average of more than $2 million per week

“It’s been, actually, a good year. It’s been a year dominated by, I think, some good signals from the market. Prices were better than they’ve been in recent history, so those are positives for us,” – Brian Lemon
, Manitoba Beef Producers.

Bumper year for the beef industry, despite dry season

The beef industry is floating on high prices, high cattle volumes and cautious regulatory optimism going into 2018

Manitoba beef producers have plenty of reason to look back on 2017 fondly. The beef sector enjoyed good prices and high market volumes through the fall run, while early concerns about feed quantity evaporated as the province mostly dodged the drought conditions seen in south-central Saskatchewan. “It’s been, actually, a good year,” Brian Lemon, Manitoba


family shopping in a grocery store

New beef research strategy keeps focus on consumers and sustainability

The beef industry says the plan, which will run from 2018-23, will build on the first one that was begun in 2012

The beef sector has a new five-year research strategy that will continue to emphasize its core objectives of improving production practices and building consumer confidence. The previous strategy was released in 2012 and earlier this year, a review of it was launched that culminated in the Canadian Beef Research and Technology Transfer Strategy 2018-2023. “With

A U.S. Customs and Border Protection agent monitors the Canada/U.S. border near Sweet Grass, Montana, about 100 km southeast of Lethbridge. (CBP.gov)

Guenther: Canada’s beef export sector waiting, watching

As speculation swirls around U.S. President-elect Donald Trump’s promise to renegotiate NAFTA, officials with Canada’s beef industry are taking a measured approach. They’re not ignoring the possibility of trade disruptions in the U.S., said Ryder Lee, CEO of the Saskatchewan Cattlemen’s Association — “but neither are we lighting our hair on fire yet at each