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Rick Hobbes, 51, has weathered the recession selling beef directly to consumers.<\/p>\nRick Hobbes\u2019 cattle farm southwest of Ottawa has been in the family for four generations. He is used to seeing tough times come and go, but bouncing back from the recession is forcing cattlemen like him to change the way they do business.<\/p>\n
The recession couldn\u2019t have come at a worse time for Ontario\u2019s beef producers. The 2003 outbreak of BSE, better known as mad cow disease, cut cattle prices in half. Seven years later, prices still haven\u2019t recovered.<\/p>\n
\u201cCattle has a cycle, but every time the cycle gets to the peak where prices should be good, there\u2019s always something else. It\u2019s should have been good during the BSE years, but BSE hit,\u201d Hobbes says, slicing trough the twine around a hay bale. \u201cAnd now it should be coming this spring or early fall – the peak- but because of the dollar, it\u2019s not going to.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rick Hobbes, 51, has weathered the recession selling beef directly to consumers.<\/p>\n
A strong loonie means fewer American customers for Canadian beef. It\u2019s just one of the many hurdles standing in the way of Ontario\u2019s cattlemen in their road to recession recovery. High feed costs, an abundance of beef on the market and with many shoppers opting for less expensive pork, many beef producers are going bust.<\/p>\n
However, Hobbes is staying profitable. The 51-year-old sells most of his beef directly to consumers out of his back door. He calls it \u2018freezer trade,\u2019 and thanks to the popularity of Ontario\u2019s buy local movement, Hobbes is staying in business.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople today want to know where their meat comes from or their food comes from,\u201d Hobbes explains. \u201cIf you go to Loblaws, it could come from anywhere.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cattle farmers usually sell their cows to auction houses or slaughterhouses, which in turn sell it to supermarkets. They in turn sell it to shoppers.<\/p>\n
Half of us will go broke<\/span><\/p>\n Hobbes says cattle prices are 18 cents per pound cheaper than last year. He stands to make $200 less on each cow than he did last year. On his herd of 150, that\u2019s a $30,000 drop in income.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s not the fault of the farmer, it\u2019s just the way things are,\u201d Hobbes says. \u201cI don\u2019t like to say it, but half of us are going to have to go broke.\u201d<\/p>\n By selling directly to individual buyers, Hobbes says he\u2019s cut out the cost of the middlemen standing between his farm and the kitchen table.<\/p>\n Each year, he sells about 100 black and brown Angus cows this way. It accounts for two-thirds of his annual sales.<\/p>\n His family has been selling beef this way for a few years now. This year\u2019s been so successful he\u2019s erecting a store at the entrance to his property in Ashton, 30 minutes outside Ottawa.<\/p>\n
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<\/a> It’s winter but also calving season.<\/p>\n