Manitoba farmer Tyler Fulton is the new President of the Canadian Cattle Association. The Birtle area cattle producer moved into the role during the organization's recent annual meeting in Ottawa.
"Well, I'm excited," shared Fulton. "I'm a little tentative just given the political environment and the geopolitical environment and the reliance on trade. Overall, I feel well prepared, well supported, and so in that sense I'm excited to take on the challenge, and do my best to just represent cattle producers across the country with all the sectors covered off."
As you can imagine, during the annual meeting, tariff threats and the implications of them played a significant role in the discussions of members in attendance.
"We're focused on the trade aspect of the 50% of production that's exported, either in live cattle or beef form," he explained. "Talking about contingencies, what other markets can we go to in this context."
Fulton noted, when dealing with an issue like tariffs, the industry needs to look at the business risk management tools available, and ensure they will work and how government could improve them to work better.
"I think the context of where we're at is so critical," Fulton added. "The cattle business, we're at the highest prices we've ever seen. We're at the tightest supplies we've been at in close to 50 years across North America. We're really optimistic about the potential of the industry, especially how it compares to the struggles across the rest of agriculture from a cyclical market standpoint. Cattle is really well positioned, but you just simply can't ignore the fact we export half of that product, and the predominant destination is the U.S., and we've got some really big challenges there."
Fulton readily admits, this is a complicated discussion, particularly when thinking about contingencies that may need to be developed and implemented.
- With files from Ryan Simpson -