CCA Dealing With Growing Cattle Inventory

Apr 21, 2020

Cargill has decided to temporarily idle it's High River, Alberta processing plant.

The facility handles about 20,000 animals a week

Dennis Laycraft, the Executive Vice President of the Canadian Cattlemen's Association (CCA), says they're working on how to deal with the growing inventory, noting it will be impacted by the duration of the closure.

"We're looking at structuring an industry/government committee similar to what we did with BSE that will be trying to look at what is a realistic weekly, monthly, and quarterly processing capacity or harvesting capacity. Then that determines how many animals would be put on a maintenance ration."

He notes the industry is looking at slowing down feeder cattle placements, moving heifers back into the herd and reducing the number of cattle entering into the feeder system.

They'll also look at other federal or provincial processing facilities to see where they can increase capacity.

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Video: Evolution of Beef Cattle Farming

The Clear Conversations podcast took to the road for a special episode recorded in Nashville during CattleCon, bringing listeners straight into the heart of the cattle industry. Host Tracy Sellers welcomed rancher Steve Wooten of Beatty Canyon Ranch in Colorado for a wide-ranging discussion that blended family history and sustainability, particularly as it relates to the future of beef production.

Sustainability emerged as a central theme of the conversation, a word that Wooten acknowledges can mean very different things depending on who you ask. For him, sustainability starts with the soil. Healthy soil produces healthy grass, which supports efficient cattle capable of producing year after year with minimal external inputs. It’s an approach that equally considers vegetation, animal efficiency, and long-term profitability.

That philosophy aligned naturally with Wooten’s involvement in the U.S. Roundtable for Sustainable Beef, where he served as a representative for the Colorado Cattlemen’s Association. The roundtable brings together the entire beef supply chain—from producers to retailers—along with universities, NGOs, and allied industries. Its goal is not regulation, Wooten emphasized, but collaboration, shared learning, and continuous improvement.