What the Alberta Cattle Feeders’ Association is focused on for the year ahead

(Kara Oosterhuis/RealAgriculture)

Pricing structure, insurance options, and cattle movement are all top of mind for Alberta’s cattle feeders.

Janice Tranberg, president of the Alberta Cattle Feeders’ Association (ACFA), sat down with RealAgriculture’s Kara Oosterhuis at the Alberta Beef Industry Conference last week to talk about what ACFA is focused on for 2023.

Tranberg says that the last few years ACFA has been “fighting fires” and that this is likely to continue in to the year ahead.

For example, the Alberta government is instilling new regulations around farming and livestock and ACFA will need to be involved with how they will be implemented.

Tranberg say ACFA is also involved in a feasibility study set to wrap up this summer around captive insurance. Alberta’s governments has placed legislation to allow for captive insurance and this may lower premiums. She says that a feasibility study will help the organization understand if this set up might lower premiums and provide insurance options in places where they are lacking.

Trucking and labour have been limiting factors for ACFA, and transport regulations limiting driving hours (tracked through e-logs) have caused frustration around the logistics of transporting livestock, as drivers need to consider the wellbeing of the animals they are transporting. Tranberg says ACFA has been leading the charge on getting regulations to reflect the concerns shared by the livestock sector.

Read more: New trucking e-log regulations don’t account for differences in cargo

In the audio below, Tranberg also explains work going in to the diversification of packers. The COVID-19 pandemic raised questions of resiliency on both large and small packer sides, she says, and these facilities are in need of support through the regulatory process and with labour access in rural areas.

Tranberg says that they are also studying mandatory cash pricing, similar to what is moving forward in the U.S. market.

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