LINDSAY— The first major export of Canadian breeding cattle, since the Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE) outbreak in 2003, included 2,000 cows that filled one entire ship. They arrived safely at a Russian port city on the Black Sea on May 21 after two weeks at sea.

A Lindsay farm assembled 1,000 Black Angus, mostly arriving from western Canada. Twenty-five 18-wheel transport trucks were needed to get theLindsay animals to a port near Montreal where it took two days to load them on a ship.

Calgary-based Alta Exports International Ltd., which had been dealing with the Russians since 2004, contacted a private Russian company to get this historic deal done. The entire deal was made with two Russian entrepreneurs and included:

• 1,000 purebred Holstein heifers, including 700 from Ontario and 300 from Quebec. The animals were assembled at three farms, two in western Ontario and one in Quebec;

• 1,000 purebred Black Angus cows, including 300 from Ontario and 700 from western Canada. They were all trucked to John Buckley’s Lindsay farm, where they were quarantined for 21 days and tested by two Russian veterinarians and a Russian farm manager.

Both groups of animals are still barred from entering the United States. Only cattle for slaughter is allowed in.

"This will put pressure on the U.S.," said Lindsay’s Ed McMorrow, of McMorrow Cattle Company, one of the brokers that got the deal done. "This is uplifting, to say the least. It took a lot of people to put this together. This is the first shipment of any significance since the border closed."

The first shipment of breeding stock from Canada was small. It included 80 dairy heifers exported to Barbados in March, McMorrow said. The deal was made from western Ontario.

The latest deal estimated at $7.5 million (Cdn) is a sign of changing times in the industry. "Purebred cattle is on the brink of its best years," believes McMorrow. "The demand is going to exceed the current supply and while this sale to the Russian contacts is just below pre-BSE average sales, the price will only increase in time."

How soon that price will increase depends on when the U.S will open their border to breeding cattle, he said. The current deal will renew confidence in the market, he added, explaining that it will help farmers who were on the fence, questioning whether to raise purebred cattle. The industry is now showing sings of stability, something not seen in five years.

Farmers Forum spoke with McMorrow several times, including on May 26, when he said: "I was just on the phone with Russia about another deal."

McMorrow sees the BSE crisis as the most overhyped disease that will pass like a dark cloud. "It became political and people didn’t understand it."

The current deal will simply encourage more trade, he said. "This is a most wonderful time for breeding animals. Canadian cattle are as recognized around the world as Cuban cigars are to Cuba."

McMorrow has been involved in overseas trading for 25 years. He laughed when he recalled that on his honeymoon in 1981 he wanted to see cows. His wife has learned to put up with his other passion. He was involved in a shipment of 1,000 pregnant dairy heifers shipped from Vancouver to China in December, 2002. A second shipment of 1,500 was planned for 2003 when borders around the world slammed closed due to BSE.

McMorrow said farmers with breeding stock can call him at 705-324-3085.