New farmer leaves paper trail

ATHENS — New legislation and information gathering techniques will shake-up some beef farmers but it all sits well with cow-calf operator Kim Sytsma.

Bill 81 and electronic ear tagging will persuade some operators to cash in their cows and move on to something else, she said. "The demographics of cow-calving will change. Those who find it too expensive will get out of the industry."

She adds that stubborn non-vaccinating operators will "go by the way side. I don’t think that’s a bad thing. They give the rest of us a really bad name."

How bad? "There is out there a perception there are no good calves in eastern Ontario and that’s not true," she said. "Feedlot guys tell me that."

The cow-calf operators forging ahead will get bigger, she predicts.

But the belly-aching in the industry persists. "We were talking about it at the kitchen table this morning," she said. The complainers "just like to hear themselves moan.

"There’s always the gloom and doomsday sayers. I’m optimistic. My son is looking to buy 30 more cows. That’s pretty optimistic."

Her 21-year-old son, Will, graduated this year from Kemptville College and wants to add to the present family herd of 95 Red Angus cross.

"The good thing is more and more feedlots are going to demand vaccinated calves" Sytsma said.

"Consumption of beef is up in Canada and cattle numbers are down. That’s a win-win for the feedlot guy and the cow-calf guys."

The outspoken Sytsma, who is the granddaughter of Walter Smith, the first ag-rep for Leeds County, is also excited about the future because of two new programs. First, the Canadian Cow Identification Agency will begin electronic tagging in a few years. The information of each cow will be read by a bar code in the same way the food you buy is scanned and appears on a computer screen.

The second, the Source Qualified Ontario Calf Program, ear tags each animal and provides the sale barn with a written guarantee that the animal came through the program. The program spearheaded by Beef Improvement Ontario, records genetic history, guarantees castration and a protocol for vaccinations, de-horning at least two weeks prior to sale and guarantees the animal was introduced to dry feed at least six weeks prior to sale. The program now under experimentation tagged its first animal in eastern Ontario on Sept. 25 at the farm of Alec MacGregor, near Jasper, south of Smiths Falls.

"The biggest thing is the genetic follow through," MacGregor said, because the cow-calf operator gets back the carcass information.

"That’s been a big void in the industry. We sell our calves in the fall and don’t know how they finish."

The paper trail is important because as it stands "the industry still requires honesty and relies on a handshake," Sytsma said. And that will change.