While the number of head sold was up by more than 25 percent over last year, the prices farmers received for their yearlings Saturday at the Stratton sales barn were, for the most part, below their costs.
Some 1,040 head were sold, with good yearlings fetching between 85-87¢/pounds and poor ones going for a lot lower than that. Last year, the same good yearlings were netting about $1.17/pound.
Sales barn manager Russell Richards said even at 86¢/pound, “farmers are working for less than nothing.”
With the “mad cow” crisis now 16 months old, district farmers are at their wits’ end. Many are losing money hand over fist. One producer, who did not want to be identified, said he lost $50,000 last year alone.
Richards said the federal government’s announcement on Friday to help the farmers out was the wrong type of help.
“They are paying us to keep eight percent of the herd at home and feed them,” he noted. “They should have dug a hole and buried that eight percent.”
Overall, the prices at the Stratton barn were comparable to Winnipeg and being that it is local, there is less shrinkage and no shipping costs to sell the animals.
One buyer told Richards that he was in Manitoulin the previous day and quality cattle there got about 5¢/pound less than those up for bid at Stratton.
Compared to two years ago, the same quality animals were fetching around $1.30/pound. That was before the discovery in May, 2003 of the lone animal in Canada with BSE.
Richards said the situation is bleak here, but is worse out west, where many farmers do not have off-farm jobs like they do in Rainy River District.
In related news, the Rainy River Cattlemen’s Association met with newly-elected Thunder Bay-Rainy River MP Ken Boshcoff on Monday night in Alberton to discuss the urgency of getting the BSE crisis resolved, as well as building an abattoir in the district.
The next sale at Stratton will be the annual calf one slated for Saturday, Oct. 2.
Fort Frances Times
Local News from Across the Rainy River District
