Saskatchewan cattle producers feeling the pinch

Cattle prices have dropped 15 to 20 per cent in the last few months, due to an increase in supply.

The CEO of the Saskatchewan Cattlemen’s Association, Ryder Lee, is offering his thoughts on the volatile markets.

“Hard to imagine managing until you’re in it, and that’s what cattle producers have to do. It’s not just the hard work of raising them, you’ve got to sell them at a profit too.”

Lee said any producers who are selling are not having as good a time as they were last year.  As for what’s causing the prices to slide, Lee could not provide a definite answer.

“It’s such a complex market that if any one says ‘it’s that thing’, is lying to you,” he said, adding the supply of beef, poultry and pork all play in it.

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The news is not all bad.

The low Canadian dollar is helping to soften the blow.  A fair share of Canadian beef is sold to the U.S. and so producers are getting paid in American dollars.

Lee said the expansion of the western livestock price insurance program has also helped.

The insurance program is geared toward producers who may not be big enough to use the futures market.

‘You can’t always lock in a profit but you can protect yourself from really big wrecks,” Lee said.

Tim Oleksyn runs an operation west of Prince Albert, and he said he has felt some of the pinch from the price drop. Although, he said producers are seeing savings in other areas.

“What we are feeding these animals, those (prices) have gone down so it allows something a little different in the columns on the profit loss side,” he said.

Oleksyn said fuel prices and land values have also stabilized.

“We’re still trudging along and enjoying what we do, not gonna change that model,” he said.

nmaxwell@panow.com

On Twitter: @nigelamxwell