Provincial livestock bailout criticized as spread too thin
Government package to be shared among producers, processors, packers
Last Updated: Friday, June 6, 2008 | 1:28 PM ET
CBC News
Some ranchers say the Alberta government's $356-million aid package announced this week will do little to help them.
The province unveiled the funding bailout Thursday to help offset rising fuel and feed costs, a high Canadian dollar and what it called mismanagement in the livestock industry.
The first half of the money is available immediately with no strings attached, while the second instalment requires producers to verify the age and country of origin of their stock.
'I don't think it will be significant. It will catch me up on a few bills, that's about all.'—Rod Blades, cattle rancher
The money will be split between beef, pork, bison, sheep, elk and deer producers, as well as packers and processors.
Rod Blades, a third-generation cattle rancher near Nanton, says the money should go just to producers because the funding will be too diluted by the time it reaches his operation.
"It's a big industry, from packing plants back to the producers back to the auction markets, back to everybody. I don't think it will be significant. It will catch me up on a few bills, that's about all," he told CBC News.
Blades said all of his operating costs have risen dramatically in the past few years and the price he gets for his cows has dropped to lower than it was during the crisis caused by bovine spongiform encephalopathy, commonly known as mad cow disease.
Despite that, he said it's not easy taking government handouts: "I would rather see the prices on our product go up and not have a subsidy."
The province also said in its announcement it is creating a new agency to revamp the way the industry is managed. And it said this will be the last provincial bailout of its kind.
"We have to make the necessary changes, and the producers that choose not to get engaged with the new strategy, the new developments, and what's happening globally, then they can do something else," said Dr. Kee Jim, chairman of the Canada Beef Export Federation, and a bovine veterinarian.
But Blades said the industry already has enough agencies.
