A market brand name for corn-fed beef is one of the few money makers for Ontario beef producers and it’s so attractive that Alberta beef producers now have their eye on it.

Started in 2001, about 35 western Ontario beef producers got together to promote their own brand and started the Ontario Corn Fed Beef Program. In the first year it certified about 25 cattle per week.

That grew steadily each year. Last year saw a bonanza. The year began with 800-head per week but the last three months of 2008, saw as many as 1,700 cattle sourced per week from Ontario farms and the program could still use more cattle.

There are now 350 Ontario farms in the program, including 18 east of Toronto. "It’s big time," said promoter and executive director of the Ontario Cattle Feeders Association Jim Clark, noting that their producers marketed 1.1 million lbs of processed beef in its first year and last year were very close to reaching their target of 66.5 million lbs.

"But there just aren’t enough cow-calf operators in Ontario right now," he said. "In 2008, we shipped 5,000 ear tags into eastern Ontario, so we’re starting to gain some steam down there."

The main change for producers in the program is increased record keeping and at the sale end, they’re seeing a premium price of $15 to $25 a head, Clark said, noting cattle are usually sold at live weights of 1,300 lbs. to 1,450 lbs.

The brand can now be found in 120 Value-Marts and Your Independent grocery stores, as well as 75 gourmet butcher shops and independent retailers across the province. Last year they also reached an agreement to supply a chain of five grocery stores in Pennsylvania and Cargill’s Meat Solutions (formerly known as Better Beef) plant in Guelph. The plant agreed to take all the corn-fed brand of beef that that farmers in the program can send its way.

Prince Edward County’s John Baitley was the first farmer east of Highway 400 to join the program. He finishes 100 cattle each year and figures his cattle sell 2 cents to 4 cents more per pounds on average.

"Everybody asks where’s the premium in this. There isn’t a premium. But I still feel deep down these cattle sell 2 to 4 cents a pound more. There’s a demand and sometimes guys will bid a bit more for your cattle." He sells on the rail (carcass weight as opposed to live weight) to a packer and when he calls in and hears a bid of, say, $1.72 to 1.74 per lbs., he has "always gotten the highest end of the bid."

He started on the program in 2002 and says he would have expanded with a second barn by now but BSE kicked the guts out of his plans. He farms full time, growing cash crop on 2,000 acres, and still hopes to put up that new barn and increase his herd. The most consuming task to fit the corn-fed program criteria, he said, is developing an environmental farm plan. Cattle diet has to be 80 per cent corn and the last 100 days on feed they need to be supplemented with vitamin E. "That doesn’t amount to a hill of beans, really," he said, "and it keeps the meat a brighter red on the shelf a little bit longer."

The program needs more certified beef. Call Jin Clark at 519-539-6623.