Border Opening Comments Saturday, July 16, 2005
My comments sent out recently:
Here is the latest news on the Canadian Border issue. I expect USDA to take some time opening the border
so that it is an orderly marketing event. It is not clear to me what the other court case to be heard in late
July will do to all of this. We will have to wait for more info.
Harlan Hughes
A response from a Canadian Beef Producer:
ON your comments about an "orderly marketing event" that should not be a problem. Feeder cattle have to
be branded and cleared by federal vets. Federal vets are in short supply up here. They can only cross at
certain border points, the exporter has to certified for bioterrorism rules, I am not sure if NCBA's requests
were put into law but they wanted the females to be spayed on top of all this our cattle trucking industry is
gone to the booming oil patch and the truckers are not likely to leave a secure hi paying job to truck cattle. I
heard a business analyst on the radio the other day and when asked how fast the trucking industry would
grow to truck cattle he said think about this for a minute, Most in the business have not trucked cattle for
long enough they are trucking something else or not trucking, next he said anyone starting up would have to
think twice with fuel prices hitting all time records and there is a major shortage of truck drivers. Besides
that are fed cattle supplies are current to the point for the first time since 2003 feedlots were holding off
sales speculating on the border opening. They have not done that with fat cattle since the worst glut got
cleaned up in 2004. In my opinion it will not be possible for a flood of cattle to cross the border as it won't be
physically possible.
posted by Dr. Harlan Hughes 1:12 PM[edit]