Curiosity

I would really be curious to know the whole story <a href="http://www.cbc.ca/canada/edmonton/story/2007/08/17/beef-closure.html">here</a>. We cattlemen were being told a couple of years ago that packing plants in Canada would hurt US packing plants and start a trend which would require us to ship fats to Canada to be butchered there. I personally thought it was a stretch and not likely to happen, but there were dire warnings out there.<br />n<br />nNone of that has really happened and now seeing this packing plant closing made me think of it. There are cattlemen here in the US that think Canada is the big bad bogeyman when it comes to cattle. They are out to destroy US beef production and take it all over for themselves. I've never bought in to that argument myself. Mostly because the further north you go the higher your winter feed costs are so Canada producers have some disadvantages to deal with as compared to the more temperate US on the whole. Also if you look at the total numbers of cattle, there are not that many cattle raised in Canada as compared to the US so they will never be able to take over the whole industry like some people think.<br />n<br />nI'm sure some group will make political hay out of this and I will get to hear more about all those Canadian cattle coming into the US to slaughter. I get tired of it after a while. If the demand is there and the economics of trucking the cattle all the way down here work out, I don't see a problem. Maybe I don't worry enough about this stuff but life is to short to worry about the small shit. <br />n<br />n<strong>Every man is his own chief enemy. Anacharsis </strong><br />n<br />nUPDATE: I have a little more information <a href="http://www.canada.com/calgaryherald/news/calgarybusiness/story.html?id=52481e06-e955-4404-986c-112da9255c9a&k=45088">here</a> about the closing of this plant. It doesn't answer any of my underlying questions any better but does point out something troubling that I didn't notice before. This plant was financed by cattle producers and a lot of them lost big money now that is is folding. That hurts. Also oldtimer in the comments points out another Canadian plant that might be closing down. It's real interesting that's for sure.<br />n<br />nThere is a group of ranchers over in the Big Hole country that is looking at opening there own packing plant to slaughter cattle. I hope they take a close look at this situation up in Canada so they can learn from what happened to the plant up there. Opening a packing plant and making it a going concern is not an easy thing and I would be real concerned if I were involved in this endeavor. I have no pretensions on thinking about raising cattle to slaughter weight. I do a very profitable and good business raising calves and selling them to the highest bidder and I don't see a reason to change that now. Anybody that wants to open a slaughter plant so they can raise cattle for slaughter needs to look into these closings closely so they can hopefully avoid the pitfalls these plants are running into. Unless you are doing something very specialized and have the market for it, beef is a commodity business and numbers make a difference. That's the facts whether you like it or not.