The Canadian Cattlemen's Association (CCA), along with the Canadian Roundtable for Sustainable Beef, hosted a special media presentation discussing how COVID-19 impacts to the beef industry increase risk for Canada’s native grasslands.
After opening comments from CCA President Bob Lowe, Dr. Sylvain Charlebois from Dalhousie University discussed how Canada, on average, loses about 5-6 per cent of its farms each year, but that due to COVID-19, that number could double or more. Leading conservation experts Karla Guyn of Ducks Unlimited Canada, Kevin Teneckye of the Nature Conservancy of Canada and Steven Price from Birds Canada offered their thoughts on what the loss of beef producers would mean for the remaining 20 per cent of intact native grasslands. There was great participation from the media with both agricultural and mainstream publications attending.
The takeaway from this presentation was that previous hardships in the beef industry, such as BSE, resulted in 26,000 producers leaving the industry and 5 million acres of grasslands being converted for other purposes. A healthy beef industry is vital to the preservation of these iconic landscapes and the wildlife that depend on them. To view the presentation, click here.