By Will Verboven Contributing Editor
When your writer began writing for this illustrious publication almost 20 years ago, I highlighted the historical connection between the cattle and beef business of Canada and the United States. I thought that history deserved some more reflection as our two countries undergo a period of uneasy trade-related political tensions. Most readers understand that little of that trade tension involves agriculture – specifically the cattle and beef business – at least not yet. I note that President Trump frequently references a Canadian dairy marketing system known as supply management. It’s a convoluted national milk production scheme designed to keep 8,000 small-time dairy producers in the eastern province of Quebec in business. Ironically, if President Trump were successful in forcing Canada to reduce the power of the Canadian dairy supply management lobby, he would be doing the western provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan a very great favour. It’s a long story, but in this instance, many of us hope your president is successful. But I digress.
The Canada-U.S. beef cattle business has a history dating back almost 200 years. Back in those days, it was concentrated in eastern Canada and had minimal trade. It took off in the 1880s, when American ranchers and cowboys moved countless thousands of U.S. cattle from the ranges of Montana, Wyoming and even Texas to the northern, wide-open ranges of what is now southern Alberta and southern Saskatchewan. Much of the financing for that movement came from British, Scottish and eastern Canadian investors, but the cattle and husbandry expertise were American. There are still ranching families in this area that can trace their ancestry back to those early American rancher immigrants and cowboys.
Until about the 1920s, one of the main markets for 5-year-old slaughter steers from those western Canadian ranges was in Chicago, sent there by countless trainloads. However, in the 1930s, the United States imposed tariffs on all Canadian imports – cattle and beef were caught in the crossfire.
It took 30 years for cross-border cattle trade to return to a semblance of normalcy. By then, the flow was more east-west than north-south. Eventually it shifted back to more U.S. trade with the establishment of two world-class beef packing plants in Alberta. During that time, U.S. beef exports increased significantly into eastern Canada, which has seen the U.S. and Canada being each other’s biggest cattle and beef trading partners in most years.
That’s a condensed version of what occurred, but as you might expect, the cattle and beef business between Canada and the United States has become intensely integrated at every level. That has resulted in a stable North American business for decades, benefiting all our producers, feedlots and processors. What occasionally upsets that stability is usually some sort of border trade mischief by our federal governments in faraway Washington, D.C., and Ottawa. Sometimes it takes years and millions of producer dollars to resolve what, at times, seems dubious border disputes.
So, what does all this have to do with the International Livestock Congress, held jointly between the Calgary Stampede and Exhibition in July and the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo in March? Both are world-class venues and major showcases of the finest of livestock in North America. The congress is indicative of the long-standing collaboration between various aspects of the cattle and beef business, carried out by both American and Canadian livestock and meat interests. The annual congresses in both countries feature high-end seminars and speakers that cover marketing, production, trade, food and consumer trends from a North American perspective. The expertise and sophistication of the topics and folks involved are impressive indeed. But it’s not the only connection between the industries of our two countries.
The braintrust of almost all American and Canadian cattle producers and meat industry organizations has long understood that a stable, harmonious North American cattle and beef industry economically benefits all sectors. That’s why the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, the Canadian Cattle Association, their state and provincial groups and their allies in the processing sector have long collaborated and supported each other against the trials and tribulations of government-initiated schemes, countervailing duties, tariffs and other restrictions that hamper and frustrate the cattle and beef trade between our two countries.
Another area where U.S. and Canadian producer organizations cooperated at a high level was the Five-Nation Beef Alliance. It was an annual meeting of leaders from national cattle producer organizations in Canada, the United State , Australia, New Zealand and Mexico. It later became the International Beef Alliance with representation from Uruguay, Argentina and Brazil. They would meet annually to discuss areas of mutual international concern – I suspect much of the discussion was aimed at thwarting government challenges to the free trade in beef. That alliance was replaced by the Global Roundtable on Sustainable Beef Production, which is a much larger and broader international industry group.
For decades, Canadian and American cattle producer groups at the national, state and provincial levels have attended each other’s conventions. They also collaborate through meetings on trade and health policy. It demonstrates that the North American cattle industry recognizes the importance of unity in maintaining market stability, despite the uncertain intentions of governments on both sides of the border.
