Red,
Seeing that we live 30 miles from the US border, almost directly north of the ND/ Montana state line, the border closure crimpled our business big time at first.Prior to the border closing, we were selling about 1/4 to 1/3 of our breeding stock to the US, so it was a big whammy when it closed. When it stayed closed, for a few months and showed no signs about reopening, it became a real concern as our US sales probably made up close to 40% of our income.
I decided that I had two choices.. 1. to sit here and feel sorry for myself and watch my operation wither up and slowly die, or 2.) start to develop new markets and look at ways to continue to access the US market. I did that by starting to do much more ET work as washed embryos are sterile, and therefore can be sent to many countries. Looking back, the US / Canadian border closure may have actually been a good thing for me, as it forced me to start to really get serious about marketing, and to really work at building sales in my own area. I increased my advertising and actually doubled my US advertising despite the fact that live cattle could not go south. I also offered any American who wished to purchase cattle the option of paying 50% down and the balance when the border opened. I have never charged any of my US buyers anything for keeping these cattle here for over 4 years now. We have flushed some of these better females and sent embryos to the American owner. One breeder, has received over 50 embryos from a cow he has never seen or never fed.
I just grabbed my year end statements from my files, as I was not even sure as to how close we were to selling as many $ of cattle now as we did when the last year the border was open. I have just got my 2006 year end numbers from my accountant and looking back to pre BSE years, we sold almost 35% more dollars of breeding stock last year than we did in any of the 3 years prior to the border closing.
Do I want the border open? Of course I do, as I have always felt that the North American beef industry is very unique in that it is truly a North American marketplace. I hear lots of complaints from friends in the US about the numbers of Canadian cattle going south to be sluaghtered. That is very true, but it makes perfect sense when you look at all the facts. Most of the feeding industry in Canada is in Western Canada and the large packers in the midwest are reasonably close. Most of the Canadian population is in the eastern part of the country, and there are thousands of tons of boxed beef from the US that go to eastern Canada to supply thebeef demand there. It is simply not a one way street. Our big packers are also your big packers and they have forced this to occur. It just didn't happen. We used to have numerous packers here, but they have almost entirely been forced out of business by the huge US packers.
When you look at this in geographic trms, I live 1560 miles from Toronto. I am only 780 to Omaha, 800 to Denver, and 1000 miles to Chicago and Kansas City. I am 50 miles closer to Louisville than I am to Toronto.
I am still hopeful this border issue will be resolved soon. In the meantime, I now know that I can survive until it does as this has forced me to find new ways to sell my cattle.