Several southern Alberta cattle producers expressed their concerns with potential U.S. tariffs that could come into effect April 2 during the Medicine Hat Spring Show and Bull Sale that wraps up today at the Medicine Hat Exhibition & Stampede.--NEWS PHOTO BRENDAN MILLER
bmiller@medicinehatnews.com
Representatives with the Alberta Beef Producers and Alberta Cattle Feeders Association say a 25 per cent tariff imposed on provincial beef products would be devastating for local cow and calf producers who would feel the financial strain this fall.
Although it remains uncertain if the U.S. President Donald Trump will follow through with on-again, off-again tariffs on Canada on April 2, beef producers and others in the province’s ag sector say are bracing to weather a “tariff storm.”
“The tariff thing is definitely going to be challenging, top of mind of all beef producers, especially us in the cattle feeding sector, we have an awful lot at stake,” said Chad Meunier, director Alberta Cattle Feeders’ Association, during a Tuesday press conference in Calgary.
Meunier says throughout decades of trade, both countries have established an integrated system for all livestock crossing the border that worked “extremely well” to this point.
“A large volume of our beef goes to the U.S., in return there’s a bunch of trade that comes back from the U.S. into Canada as well, in the form of live animals … It’s a system that’s worked extremely well for decades and we’re just hoping that we can weather this tariff storm and have a positive outcome.”
Meunier told reporters there are several packing plants located in the northern states that rely on live Canadian animals for harvest that would also be heavily impacted by tariffs.
“It’s very much an integrated system, it’s worked very well in the past.”
The association estimates the province exports between 5,000 and 10,000 head of cattle to the U.S each week. On average a grown adult cattle is worth $4,500, meaning a 25 per cent tariff would raise the cost to an average of more than $5,600 per cattle.
“It definitely has a very big impact on the price that we’re receiving in our farm game for that cattle,” says Meunier.
The long-term impact could force local cattle producers to look to other export markets including Mexico, Japan and Korea.
“If tariffs were long term, the industry would have to pivot, and some of those long-term strategies and things that have worked in the past will have to revisit and find alternative markets.
If imposed the feedlot sector would be the first to feel the impacts of the 25 per cent tariffs, and those implications will trickle down to producers this fall because they would not have as much money to refill their pen.
“If these tariffs continue into the fall, calf run in 2025, then that’s when we’re going to see the big effect on the cow and calf producer,” said Kent Holowath, vice chair of Alberta Beef Producers.
Local producers say they are worried about the ongoing threats seeing the markets slump earlier this month when Trump implemented tariffs for a brief period.
“The first week, for two days it really hit the markets, grain and cattle,” said Merle Wyatt of Wyatt Farms near Arrowwood. “I don’t know about other agricultural products, but the first two days it really messed the heck out of everything, and they’re slowly coming back.”
Wyatt was among several local producers attending the Medicine Hat Spring Show and Bull Sale that shared their displeasure with the tariffs Tuesday night.
Currently, Alberta cattle prices have rebounded sharply after the announcement that tariffs would be paused until April 2. Alberta-fed cattle prices are averaging in the mid $270s per hundredweight.
