The pair of livestock and feed extension specialists with the Saskatchewan Ministry of Agriculture presented the initial results of their three-year study at the Ag in Motion Discovery Plus virtual farm show in July.

Starting at an equal shrunk weight of around 635 pounds, over the winter, the field calves gained about 25 lbs more than the drylot calves and finished at around 935 lbs.

“This can likely be attributed to a higher dry matter intake in the field calves,” said Smith.

“When looking at this from a feed efficiency standpoint, which measures the pounds of feed required to obtain one pound of gain, it does appear that the drylot calves had a slightly better efficiency.”

He stressed that it’s only the first year of the study and it’s too early to know if this is a trend.

Design

Peardon said the study analyzes weight gain, infrastructure and yardage costs, as well as nutrient recycling. Each fall, the project purchases 400 steer calves at around 550 lbs on average. Half of those calves will be allocated to field feeding (Treatment 1) and the other half drylot feeding (Treatment 2). Both treatments were fed on a barley silage-based diet delivered each day with a feed wagon into bunks.

The field pens (just over 30 acres in size) were surrounded by four-strand barbed wire fence. Each pen included three 24-foot rubber-belted feed bunks and three 24-foot windbreak panels. The windbreak panels and feed bunks are moved once a week to distribute the manure evenly over the field.

The drylot pens were a typical feedlot style, designed to industry specifications, with a windbreak fencing at one end of the pen, a cement feed bunk at the other and water in the middle.

Cost analysis

There was no difference in bedding costs or processing costs and not a significant difference in treatment costs. However there was a difference in death loss.

“The death loss in the field calves was about 1.5 per cent and in the drylot calves was 0.5 per cent,” said Smith. “That is associated with a higher overall cost for the field backgrounding calves, which brings their health costs up a little bit.”

Infrastructure depreciation was higher overall for the drylot calves due to the higher costs of setting up that system. However, equipment costs were higher for the field calves due to feeding time and running the machinery in a field setting versus a pen setting. The manure-handling cost was higher in the drylot calves because it must be hauled from the pen as opposed to being deposited on the field. Overall, this translates to 43 cents per head per day for the drylot calves and 39 cents per day for the field calves. These numbers do not include labour.

Combining all the infrastructure and supply costs, the total for the drylot calves was approximately $340 per head and the cost for field backgrounding calves was near $380 per head. That $40-a-head difference, works out to 30 cents higher per head, per day for the field calves. But with the extra weight gain observed in the field calves, the costs per pound of weight gain are roughly equal.

Conclusions

If the results from this year bear out over the next two years, it would indicate that field backgrounding could add value to an operation, especially if some of the infrastructure is in place.

“If you already feed your cows in the winter, if you already run a tractor and feed wagon every day and you might have a spare pen out in the field, backgrounding your calves will spread the fixed costs and the infrastructure depreciation over more animal units and there will be more gross value over the winter period,” said Smith.

However, Smith noted that there are still two years left in the study.

“This year was a great learning year,” she said. “But replication is important in research, so we’re looking forward to the next two years of data to go into more depth with the economics and performance data.”

The post Keep your calves a little longer appeared first on Manitoba Co-operator.

“We’re the last thread hold of the First Nation agriculture, farming way of life,” Gould told the Manitoba Co-operator.

Forty years ago, Gould’s community of Pinaymootang (Fairford) First Nation was home to more than 30 farmers. As the community’s population grew, available farmland diminished, squeezing some farmers out.

In the early 2000s, the BSE crisis hit Manitoba and Gould’s 150-head cow-calf operation.

“I still remember like it was yesterday,” Gould said, recalling when he and a bus of farmers from the First Nation drove to Winnipeg to seek aid, which they’d heard other beef producers were getting.

“It was there that we found out that there was no programs or anything set up for First Nation farmers, and my heart just sunk because what do we do? We were getting paid at the time 15 bucks a cow.”

The farmers from the community would get aid eventually, but for many it came too late.

Gould sold down most of his herd and took a job in the Alberta oilfields.

In 2011, catastrophic flooding around Lake St. Martin wiped out most of Gould’s fences and pasture land.

“And then we kind of had to start from scratch,” Gould said. “I wasn’t going to give up.”

Long history

Gould’s great-grandparents raised cattle long before the Gould farm was established. Their Anishinaabe community had a collective cattle herd, which families took turns taking 10 cows for two years. After two years passed, the family would keep the calves and pass on the cows to the next family.

Gould’s grandparents established the existing farm site in the late 1940s or early ’50s. They raised up to 80 cattle, “with a pitchfork,” Gould said.

He and his brothers worked on that farm as youngsters — pumping water by hand for the cattle, pitching hay.

“I lived that life. I lived without plumbing. I lived without running water in our house,” Gould said. “We were still pitching hay in the late ’80s, we were still pitching hay by hand.”

When they did get running water, Gould recalled the faucet was about 180 yards away from the trough. He’d fill barrels of water and pull them on a sleigh to the trough. Sometimes the sleigh would dump over on the way to the trough, and he’d have to start over.

“Sometimes I think maybe the old pump was easier,” he said.

When he was a little older, Gould’s grandfather gave him five cows to start his own herd. He was still pitching hay by hand. They had an old dump rake, which they pulled behind horses. In the early ’90s they bought a square baler.

“We thought this was the best thing ever,” Gould said. That summer they made a few thousand square bales.

As Derrick built his herd, he bought a round baler, tractor and side-wheel rake.

Family tradition

Today, the Gould family raises about 15 cows and nine horses, and cuts and bales hay to sell. They also fish on Lake St. Martin.

“We try to maintain that way of life, of living off the land for the next generation to come to have something to fall back on,” Gould said.

Gould continues to work off farm. He was involved in local politics for a while, and studied Aboriginal Political Governance at Red River College.

Gould’s father, Donald Gould, 86, still works alongside them.

“It really does something to me when I see my son and my father working together with me in the field,” Gould said.

This year, they burnt off a piece of land they weren’t able to cut since 2005 and wild hay came up. Gould’s son Blaze, 18, has made a business of cutting and selling hay.

Gould put his kids into 4-H, and all of them showed cattle. In 2004 his daughter won grand champion at the Lundar fair, and his son won reserve champion.

“One thing I was so proud of, that we were one of the only First Nations people who was involved in 4-H,” Gould said.

His granddaughter Danisse, 11, is also showing cattle with 4-H. She wants to be a doctor, said Gould. He laughed as he said he encouraged her to be a veterinarian — he’s done most of his own veterinary work over the years, self-taught.

His son wants to continue to farm, said Gould. Gould expressed concern for what supports Blaze would find, and said that in his experience, First Nations farmers are isolated from the Manitoba ag sector and don’t get the same supports.

Gould has struggled to get loans for farm equipment and infrastructure, and has had to go without crop or equipment insurance.

“Some days when I’m on the field and I’m working, I think — what if this thing catches on fire? This is a loss for me, a direct loss.”

Blaze will also have to decide if he’ll farm on the First Nation, where the land base is diminishing as the population grows, or leave to find more land to farm.

While this is fine with Gould, he said he wants to ensure the farming way of life is maintained at Pinaymootang.

“Growing up there, I wouldn’t trade it for anything. I know that land inside out,” Gould said.

“What you put into it is what you get out of it, and I always learned that from my Grandpa. My grandfather always said to us, ‘You wake up in the morning. You’ve got two good arms, two good legs. Don’t waste the day. There’s always something to contribute.’”

Gould’s son Blaze, 18, cuts and sells hay as a business.

The post Farm family ‘the last thread hold’ of First Nation agriculture appeared first on Manitoba Co-operator.

But just what the right system is will depend a lot on the variables of each operation.

“We shy away from recommending a specific type,” Carol Graham, habitat conservation specialist with the Manitoba Habitat Heritage Corporation said. “There’s (too) many variabilities within a pasture system to really be able to be specific.”

The Manitoba Habitat Heritage Corporation delivers SARPAL (Species at Risk Partnerships on Agricultural Lands) programming in collaboration with the Manitoba Beef Producers.

Producers interested in SARPAL, however, may be looking for guidance. The choice of grazing system drew questions more than once during a recent SARPAL informational meeting in Hartney, Oct. 10, with producers posing questions on stock density or grazing systems to avoid.

Graham had no blanket suggestion for those farmers, although program providers have noted benefit in twice-over grazing and its periods of rest.

“It gives us the ability to manage the diversity that’s in native prairies,” Graham said.

That means there will be cool-season plants that need a disturbance while they’re growing, but later another warm-season plant will also need a similar jolt. By dividing the grazing into two passes, both plants get what they need and the pasture as a whole gets a rest, which serves to build its overall productivity, she said.

SARPAL providers and partners, including the Manitoba Beef Producers, have generally been friendly towards the idea of rotational grazing, and not only in the context of SARPAL.

Rotational and, perhaps increasingly, high stock density rotational grazing are repeat topics among Manitoba’s grazing experts. Both grazing clubs and MBFI, the beef- and forage-oriented applied research farm north of Brandon, have held workshops and ran experiments on the subject. The concept is central for producers arguing for beef’s role in carbon sequestration and regenerative agriculture.

Where high intensity systems have won advocates, those champions pitch them strongly. They have been characterized in those circles as an unmitigated win-win, with more beef taken off the same land base, more forage, more biodiversity and more soil microbiology among the benefits.

For Manitoba farmers interested in SARPAL, however, high intensity may not be welcome, even if more relaxed rotational grazing is.

Nests may be trampled if stock density is too high, warned Christian Artuso, Manitoba program manager with Bird Studies Canada. Additionally, SARPAL program providers warn that higher intensity systems may not provide the ideal length of grass for some species.

Different species prefer different heights of grass, Artuso said.

At the same time, he said, more intensity might have a place if a pasture needs to be improved.

“There are scenarios where it fits and it could be a benefit… long term, we’re not quite sure if that’s the ideal, because we are looking for structure,” Graham said. “We are looking for exactly what a native Prairie grassland would look like throughout the year, and sometimes those grazing strategies don’t provide that structure at certain times when it’s critical.”

The Manitoba Beef Producers and general manager Brian Lemon, however, say it may be a matter of planning.

“Arguably, the strategy around that intensive grazing is to graze hard and then rest and to let it come back,” he said. “It’s about managing and doing that hard grazing on certain paddocks during a certain time of year while the other ones, you actually remove the pressure from the other ones and actually allow the birds in the other ones.”

Lemon pointed to one SARPAL member who, this year, put in an additional paddock of early-season varieties in order to house his herd away from his normal pasture and the birds using it as habitat during the spring.

The post What does bird-friendly grazing look like? appeared first on Manitoba Co-operator.

The program, which started in 2010, pairs young producers between the ages of 18 and 35 with industry leaders for a year-long mentorship geared to their individual interests. Participants also have a $2,000 budget for attending conferences and industry events. Applications for the 2018-19 program are now open and must be in by March 31. To apply or see the full biographies of the 16 mentees and their 16 mentors in the current program, go to the Cattlemen’s Young Leaders website.

Melissa Lee grew up on a large mixed farm near Rossburn, where she purchased her first purebred Red Angus cows and began raising and selling seedstock while still a youth.

After graduating high school she earned an adventure tourism diploma from Alberta’s Lakeland College and an environmental studies degree from the University of Alberta.

Her education led to a job working with Alberta Environment and Parks, first seasonally and later as a conservation officer. She currently works out of Dinosaur Provincial Park near Brooks, Alta., where she acts as a liaison with local farmers, ranchers and other landowners.

She and her husband, Leon, also own and operate Diamond L Ranch near Oyen, Alta. They raise high-quality Red Angus seedstock for both commercial and purebred producers.

Rachel Verwey was born and raised in Portage la Prairie, where she says she was surrounded by agriculture her entire life.

She grew up on a large mixed family farm with her mother, father, siblings, uncles and cousins. The family runs a 200-head commercial Charolais herd, milks 100 dairy cows and crops 7,000 acres.

She joined 4-H at an early age and was a member of the Gainsborough Combined 4-H Club for 13 years. During these 13 years she also became an active member of the Canadian Charolais Youth Association and has held office on both the national board as well as the Manitoba Junior Charolais Association.

She is currently enrolled in her last year of university at the University of Manitoba, and will be graduating in April with her bachelor’s degree in animal systems.

After university Verwey plans to become more involved with the family operations as well as working with her local Co-op as an agronomist as she becomes an ambassador for the Excellence in Agriculture Scholarship Program she will complete this year.

She’s also an active agriculture advocate, active with Ag More Than Ever, Agriculture in the Classroom, and Dairy Farmers of Manitoba.

The post Manitobans participating in CYL appeared first on Manitoba Co-operator.

That’s the message Canadian senior biologist Dan Kraus had for an audience at the Canadian Museum of Human Rights (CMHR) earlier this month.

“We are witnessing in our lifetime the loss of an iconic Canadian landscape,”said Kraus who works for the Nature Conservancy of Canada. The NCC is hosting a cross-country lecture series and held one titled “Why Grasslands Matter” Oct. 18.

More than 70 per cent of Canada’s prairie grasslands have been converted to other uses, while much of what’s left is vulnerable from human impacts, he said.

Worldwide, 50 per cent of the world’s grasslands have been converted to crops and other uses, and there are few protected areas. The International Union for the Conservation of Nature identifies temperate grasslands as the world’s most endangered ecosystem.

Yet, as threatened as this ecosystem is, the state of grassland gets little attention from an indifferent public.

When asked to name critical habitats in need of preservation, most will cite tropical rainforests or coral reefs, he said. Seldom will they mention temperate grasslands.

It may have something to do with how little kids learn about the Prairies as an ecosystem, he said.

“Or maybe it’s our Canadian fixation with trees and forests. Whatever reason, the Prairies have taken a conservation back seat to other ecosystems in Canada. ”

Globally, grasslands have disappeared into the world’s original breadbaskets. What remains is now at risk due to other threats such as desertification, fragmentation and invasive species.

Here at home, more than 60 species at risk depend on Canada’s remaining grasslands, including the plains bison, swift fox and burrowing owl. The World Wildlife Fund’s recent report on the state of Canadian species has noted grassland birds are now declining more rapidly than all other bird species.

“Some species have lost over 70 per cent of their population in just 40 years,” Kraus said. “The song of the Baird’s sparrow and the chestnut-collared longspur and Sprague’s pippet are slowly dimming on our grasslands. Our conservation response has not been proportionate to the conservation need.”

Shrinking grasslands is a telling sign of the state of the beef industry, said Fawn Jackson, founding executive director of the Canadian Roundtable for Sustainable Beef, who also spoke at the CMHR

The majority of wildlife habitat reported by Canadian farmers is natural land for pasture, with the beef industry contributing 68 per cent of the potential wildlife habitat on 33 per cent of total agricultural landscapes all due to the high proportion of grassland, native and tame pastures used to raise beef.

But even as much of the remaining grasslands in Can­ada continue to exist due to raising beef, the last Census of Agriculture showed a further 4.3 per cent loss of total pasture since 2006.

“We know that grassland numbers go with cow numbers,” she said.

Jackson said farmers can be asked to produce biodiversity and other ecosystem services, but it’s going to require a partnership and beef producers need tools beyond easements, that also include forage insurance and insurance on cattle prices.

“There’s more that we can ask them to do, but at the same time we absolutely have to ask the conservation community do the same thing,” Jackson said.

Kraus said despite the deep losses Canada and Manitoba still have some of the largest and best tracts of grassland left in the world.

To date, the NCC has protected more than 80,000 hectares of grasslands across the country. Manitoba’s own four types of grasslands include the tall-grass prairie, mixed-grass prairie, fescue prairie and sandhill prairie. Natural areas where sites have been protected include the Tall Grass Prairie in the southeast, and the St. Lazare Plain and East Parklands Natural Areas and the Souris River Valley Grasslands.

Kraus said despite historic losses, existing Prairie grasslands remain “places of hope” and it’s important to remember that some of Canada’s earliest conservation efforts focused on grasslands. These include the efforts in the late 19th century to save the last wild plains bison and creation of the Last Mountain Lake Bird Sanctuary in Saskatchewan in 1887.

These were the result of impassioned efforts and partnerships to save and restore Prairie heritage and we can learn from them, he said.

“Our work here matters,” he said. “And there remain key and immediate opportunities to keep this iconic landscape intact.”

The post Imperilled grasslands need more attention, speakers say appeared first on Manitoba Co-operator.

Growing those numbers will require more producers, larger herds and more acres, according to Manitoba Beef Producers.

Exactly where those will come from isn’t clear, especially considering the cost of getting started in the business, said Heinz Reimer, MBP’s outgoing president.

• Read more: Research and ranching
• Read more: Beef cattle market continues to see volatility

“Sometimes we hear, I’m a young guy. How do I get the money to get into something like that?” Reimer said during a break in MBP’s annual meeting last week.

Manitoba Agriculture Minister Ralph Eichler raised eyebrows last summer by calling for a 70 per cent increase in the province’s beef herd over the next 10 years.

Manitoba farms were home to 440,200 beef cows on January 1, 2016, according to Statistics Canada. Eichler wants that number increased to 750,000 by 2026.

Eichler did not propose a strategy to achieve that goal, leaving it up to the industry.

Manitoba Beef Producers met with Eichler and held a brainstorming session with producers and industry representatives to float ideas. MBP then took Eichler’s proposal to its 14 fall district meetings for discussion. It summarized producers’ comments in a January 26 letter to the minister.

Producers raised several main areas of concern when asked what it might take to realize the government’s goal. A big one was where all these cattle would be sold, MBP general manager Brian Lemon said.

“One of the things I heard at several districts was, it doesn’t do us any good to put more cattle on the ground if we don’t have a place to market them,” Lemon told the meeting.

“It’s about making sure this is really sustainable. It’s about really making sure whatever we do to grow the herd is part of a broader strategy to grow the herd and actually sell the herd.”

Lemon said some of the things producers say they need to expand herds include:

• Better business risk management tools for the cattle sector.
• Streamlined government regulations to encourage growth.
• Improved access to Crown lands and community pastures.
• More available land at a reasonable cost for raising cattle.
• Improved water and wildlife management.
• A strong beef value chain and greater market access.

Industry analysts say the problem isn’t finding room for 750,000 cows. The question is what to do with them.

Manitoba is primarily a cow-calf province with limited slaughter capacity. Although there is some backgrounding here, most animals go to feedlots in Alberta and the U.S. for finishing.

Market prices are down from a peak three years ago, putting another damper on herd expansion.

But Eichler said the strategy to grow Manitoba’s beef herd is doable because of the increasing world demand for meat.

“The demand for animal protein is expected to double by the year 2040 as the world population increases. Along with using our best science and engineering for value-added processing, the strategy will position Manitoba as a dependable, sustainable supplier of meat and plant-driven protein-based products,” he said in an address to the MBP meeting.

Later Eichler, a former cattle producer himself, said now is a good time to expand herds while markets are soft.

“My attitude is, now’s the best time to hold heifers back and breed them. Why sell them in a depressed market? I would say, breed and hold. I wouldn’t empty out the pen right now if I was a beef producer. I’d be holding some of those heifers back and breeding them for future growth.”

Eichler’s call to grow Manitoba’s beef herd sparked several resolutions during MBP’s business meeting. One called for the Manitoba Agricultural Services Corporation to expand its forage program. Another requested a more flexible transfer of Crown lands between producers. A third wanted sales of beef breeding herds exempted from a tax on capital gains.

Even though a 70 per cent increase in beef numbers is ambitious, Reimer said it’s good for producers to have a goal.

“I don’t know if it’s practical but I think we can do it. If you don’t have a goal to go forward, what’s your initiative?”

The post Beef producers cautious about herd expansion proposal appeared first on Manitoba Co-operator.

Benjamin Hamm, farm management specialist with Manitoba Agriculture, says that’s the only thing that comes to mind when he looks at the market.

“In 2015 we had some crazy highs, up to $3.75 and even a few spikes to up to $4 a pound,” Hamm said. “If anyone has been watching the market, the market fundamentals sure have changed in the past few months. They are significantly off of what they were in the past two years, so a little bit challenging for a lot of producers to get used to.”

Hamm says that 2016 did start off with relatively high values but prices have been dropping every week.

“There have been some significant swings. We had awesome profitability in the cow-calf sector and backgrounders were definitely making some money in 2014 and 2015. But now we are seeing prices moving and are at a low of $170 on steer prices,” Hamm said.

According to Hamm, prices spiked close to $270 for the 800-pound steers, but now appear to be on a down cycle.

“Typically we see about two or three years of profitability and then a few years of not-so-great profit and then a few more years of profitability,” Hamm said. “2014 and 2015 held great profitability and amazing returns, which was good to see, but now we are in a different position.”

For 2016, Hamm expects to remain on the positive side, just not as positive as the past two years.

“We should still be about $100 above covering operating and labour on the cow-calf side. Backgrounding, a little bit more volatility. We did definitely see profitability in 2014, some profitability in 2015, but we are definitely having some losses on the backgrounding side and predicting to have some more in the future here,” Hamm said. “The longer you feed the calf the more risk you are exposed to and if you did buy on the high end and selling them out at a lower price. The math just doesn’t add up and we are seeing some significant losses.”

Cattle numbers

Hamm reports the beef cow herd in Canada sits at about 3.8 million head, with Manitoba holding about 11.5 per cent of the nation’s total at approximately 440,000 head.

“That number is significantly down from the highs we did see in 2003. Our numbers peaked in 2003 and 2004. And in 2004 and 2005, we were expecting expansion with the pricing and the profitability in the cow-calf and backgrounding side, yet we didn’t see it,” Hamm said. “I guess producers were skeptical that prices wouldn’t last too long and they definitely didn’t.”

Alberta continues to hold the majority of the national herd at 1.56 million, about 41 per cent.

The U.S. beef cow inventory sits about 10 times Canada’s at 30 million head of beef cows and Hamm reports that they did see some expansion in 2015 and 2016.

Some had predicted that Manitoba may see some expansion in 2016, but that did not come to fruition.

“We did think we might see some expansion in 2016. But all we did was cull more. So, we did some good production practices, it just didn’t help with the herd expansion in Manitoba,” Hamm said.

The post Beef cattle market continues to see volatility appeared first on Manitoba Co-operator.

The study, led by research scientist Tim McAllister of Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada in Lethbridge, with staff from AAFC, Environment Canada and the University of Manitoba, logs a “significant reduction in GHG intensity” when comparing 2011 figures with those from 1981.

The first results from the five-year (2013-18) study, published Dec. 23 in the journal Animal Production Science, credit “continual improvements in production and feed efficiencies, crop yields and management strategies.”

GHG emissions have long been a contentious issue for the livestock sector. According to the Canadian Roundtable for Sustainable Beef (CRSB) in a release Monday, Canada’s beef industry today accounts for 3.6 per cent of Canada’s greenhouse gas production and 0.072 per cent of global greenhouse gas production.

At the same time, lands that grow grasses and legumes for cattle sequester carbon, thereby reducing GHGs, the group said.

GHG emissions in the study were estimated using life-cycle assessments (cradle to farm gate) based mainly on Holos, a Canadian whole-farm emissions model, the researchers wrote in their paper.

Compared with 1981, in 2011 the same amount of slaughter weight was produced, with a 14 per cent decline in methane emissions, 15 per cent decline in nitrous dioxide emissions and a 12 per cent decline in carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuel use.

Enteric methane production — that is, from the animals’ digestive systems — accounted for 73 per cent of total GHG emissions in both years.

In all, the study found, the estimated intensity of GHG emissions per kilogram of live weight that left the farm was 14 kilograms of carbon dioxide equivalents for 1981, but 12 kg of carbon dioxide equivalents for 2011, down 14 per cent.

Past that, the study found that in 2011, beef production in Canada required only 71 per cent of the breeding herd (such as cows, bulls, calves and replacement heifers) and 76 per cent of the land needed to produce the same amount of live weight for slaughter as in 1981.

“We’re working to get a more accurate assessment of the Canadian beef industry’s environmental footprint and these results indicate that the footprint per kilogram of beef produced is getting smaller,” McAllister said in Monday’s release from the CRSB and Beef Cattle Research Council (BCRC).

The needed production and feed efficiencies, crop yields and improved management practices “wouldn’t have happened if it weren’t for investments in research and development, and the industry’s ability to adopt those technologies,” he said.

Those investments led to increased average daily gain and slaughter weight, improved reproductive efficiency, reduced time to slaughter, increased crop yields and a shift towards high-grain diets that enabled cattle to be marketed at an earlier age, the researchers said in their paper.

However, in terms of the industry’s overall sustainability, they wrote, “future studies are necessary to examine the impact of beef production on other sustainability metrics, including water use, air quality, biodiversity and provision of ecosystems services.”

“Perceived” concerns about the beef sector’s environmental impacts “often overshadow the beneficial impacts of the beef industry,” BCRC chair Tim Oleksyn, a cow-calf producer from Shellbrook in northern Saskatchewan, said in Monday’s release.

Beef producers, he said, are “inherently motivated to be more efficient, which most often has social, economic and environmental benefits. Now that we have resource use and GHG emission benchmarks, we can move forward as an industry and more strategically target our efforts to improve.”

The CRSB’s sustainability assessment is expected to benchmark the industry’s social, economic and environmental impact, using 2013 as the baseline, and to be revisited and evaluated every five years.

Results from the remaining phases of the industry environmental footprint study are expected in 2018, the CRSB said. — AGCanada.com Network

The post Study finds Canadian beef’s GHG footprint shrunk over 30 years appeared first on Manitoba Co-operator.

The federal statistics agency on Thursday released estimates showing the herd at 13 million cattle on farms on July 1 this year, down 2.1 per cent from the same date in 2014.

Total cattle inventories at July 1 showed their greatest declines in Saskatchewan and Alberta, down three per cent at 2.715 million and down 2.8 per cent at 5.3 million respectively, compared to July 1, 2014.

Except for steers, up four per cent at 65,400 head, overall cattle inventories declined compared to July 1 last year, with the number of beef cows on Canadian farms down 3.4 per cent at 3.8 million head, and beef heifers held for breeding down 0.6 per cent at 612,600 head, StatsCan said.

Canada’s farmers had 1.4 million dairy cows and heifers on their farms, down 2.2 per cent. Overall, the number of Canadian farms reporting inventories of cattle and calves sat at 82,050, down 0.6 per cent.

Both slaughter and exports fell during the first half of 2015 compared with the same period in 2014, StatsCan said. “While cattle prices remain strong so far in 2015, limited cattle supplies mean that there are fewer animals available to market.”

January-to-June cattle slaughter decreased 13.5 per cent, to 1.4 million head, compared with the first six months of 2014, while exports fell 21.4 per cent, to 491,500 head.

Canada’s total inventory of cattle and calves on July 1 was 23 per cent below its peak level recorded in 2005, StatsCan noted.

Hogs, sheep

StatsCan’s estimate of Canada’s total hog inventories at July 1 sat at 13.225 million head, up 1.1 per cent from July 1 last year. Percentage-wise, the largest increases in inventory were seen in Saskatchewan and Ontario, up 2.2 per cent at 1.175 million and up 1.6 per cent at 3.092 million respectively.

Hog farms reported a January-to-June 2015 pig crop of 14.1 million head, up 4.5 per cent from the year-earlier period.

StatsCan, as of July 1, estimated 6,995 hog farms in Canada, down 0.4 per cent from the same date last year, with a total of 1.2 million sows and gilts, up 0.8 per cent.

Canada exported 2.8 million hogs in the first half of 2015, up 17.8 per cent from the same period in 2014, StatsCan said.

Noting “strong demand” for hogs in the U.S., StatsCan reported hog slaughter seven per cent higher in the first six months of 2015 compared with the same period in 2014. The most recent U.S. data show hog inventories increased nine per cent from June 1, 2014, StatsCan said.

Hog slaughter also increased in Canada in the first six months of 2015, up 2.9 per cent from the same period in 2014, to 10.5 million head, StatsCan said.

Sheep inventories at July 1 were down 2.1 per cent from July 1, 2014, as market lambs fell 2.1 per cent to 405,600 head, StatsCan said. The number of ewes declined 1.8 per cent, while replacement lambs fell three per cent.

Among larger sheep-producing provinces, Ontario’s sheep inventory at July 1 sat at 329,100, down 1.9 per cent; Alberta’s sat at 195,000 head, down 2.5 per cent; Saskatchewan’s sat at 119,000 head, down 3.3 per cent; and Quebec’s sat at 260,000 head, down 0.8 per cent. — AGCanada.com Network

The post Cattle herd still shrinking in StatsCan estimates appeared first on Manitoba Co-operator.

“This verification program is open to anyone across Canada who wants to participate. We have had some interest from Manitoba already. One Manitoba producer has their verification scheduled and there are four or five others who have expressed interest,” said Jeff Fitzpatrick-Stilwell, senior manager of sustainability at McDonald’s Canada and member of the CRSB.

Program verifiers were in Alberta last week meeting with some of the 100 Alberta ranchers who have expressed interest in participating in the program. So far, 19 of these have completed the process.

McDonald’s has partnered with the Canadian Roundtable for Sustainable Beef (CRSB) to initiate the pilot project, aimed at establishing an independent verification process in partnership with multiple stakeholders.

The pilot project began verifying cattle operations in May of 2015 and will carry forward until March of 2016, when the company has said it plans to start purchasing at least some of its beef from suppliers verified as sustainable operators.

The process involves evaluating operations with regionally specific indicators that have been developed in line with the Global Roundtable for Sustainable Beef (GRSB) principles, including the areas of animal health and welfare, management of prairie grasslands, natural resources, conservation, efficiency and innovation.

“This is a verification, not a certification. Verification really gives the producer the ability to tell their story,” said Fitzpatrick-Stilwell. “We are really focused on outcomes and how producers are achieving the outcomes they are.”

“We’re committed to being more progressive around our social purpose and what matters most to consumers. We’ve made great strides, charting a new course for the entire global beef industry and with the help of our partners, we’re changing the way we source and serve food in our restaurants around the world,” said Steve Easterbrook, president and CEO, McDonald’s Corporation in a statement.

Producers participating in the verification process must first express interest, speak with a consultant, perform a self-evaluation and finally, schedule an on-farm verification where a certified verifier will visit the operation and review all of the indicators.

“We are not developing a McDonald’s standard for sustainable beef, we are going to use the pilot to make global decisions on how much sustainable beef is likely possible for us to purchase in a certain time frame,“ said Fitzpatrick-Stilwell. “This project will also be used as a learning opportunity for the CRSB.”

Information gathered throughout the verification process will be transitioned to the CRSB to aid in the process of moving towards implementing a program for sustainable beef verification across Canada.

“The more producers we have taking part in this project, the more lessons we will learn and the wider range of operations we can verify, from 40 head to 4,000 head, will really set the CRSB up for success.”

The project is looking for cow-calf operations with calves born on or after January 1, 2013 and/or backgrounder operations that supply cattle to feedlots, as well as feedlots that deliver fed cattle for harvest during 2015, prior to March 2016.

“No one will be excluded from the project. The only real limitation is the time. The on-site third-party verification process is taking about four to six hours so we are limited on how quickly we can move through these operations,” said Fitzpatrick-Stilwell.

Producers who participate in the project will receive the on-farm verification evaluation free of charge and will be provided with a report containing an unbiased, professional view of their operation. The report will also benchmark their performance to that of their peers.

The company has developed a set of 40 ‘indicators’ to assess sustainability, creating a scoring system to grade ranches, feedlots and others in the beef value chain. An American verification company is overseeing the process.

“We didn’t know what to expect, as far as the reception we were going to receive from the producer community, as we aren’t paying producers to go through the verification. But the response has been in excess of our expectations,” said Fitzpatrick-Stilwell.

Fitzpatrick-Stilwell says that Canada was selected to host the pilot project over other countries because of its existing leadership in the areas of sustainability, development of information exchange systems and McDonald’s Canada’s commitment to sourcing only Canadian beef.

“Canada was selected for this program because McDonald’s sources 100 per cent of our beef from Canadian producers and we have an ironclad commitment to them,” said Fitzpatrick-Stilwell. “Also, in Canada we only source from two processing plants, the Cargill facility in High River and JBS facility in Brooks. This project is not only looking at what our producers are doing but evaluates all aspects of this supply chain.”

Members of McDonald’s global leadership as well as Cargill and CRSB members took part in a few ranch tours in Alberta last week to get a first-hand look at the project’s progress.

“Having the global leadership take part in these ranch tours was really an opportunity for us to demonstrate to them on the ground what is happening with the pilot,” said Fitzpatrick-Stilwell. “This gave them a chance to see everything and talk with the producers to see what they’ve got out of the verification process, what was useful to them and what they were able to learn from it.”

Phase 2 of the verification process will begin this fall where information will be transitioned to the CRSB and conclusions will be drawn on how this data can be utilized to move forward in implementing a program for sustainable beef verification across Canada.

For more information or to express interest in participating visit, www.vsbpilot.ca.

The post McDonald’s makes progress with sustainable beef pilot project appeared first on Manitoba Co-operator.