‘Very welcome news,’ cattlemen’s association says on Japan lifting beef restriction

After 20 years, Canadian beef producers will have full access to the Japanese market.

This will come as excellent news for Saskatchewan producers, according to Saskatchewan Cattlemen’s Association CEO Grant McLellan — especially since Japan is the third-biggest beef importer in the world.

“We feel very good about it. I mean, this is 20 years in the making that we finally get to see the final vestiges of some of those restrictions and trade blockages from Canada to Japan removed,” he said.

“We’ve seen even in the face of those challenges that Japan is our second-largest export market for Canadian beef. I know that we exported — I think in 2022 — $52 million in beef products, which even that was an 18 per cent increase over the previous year in 2021. So it’s definitely huge news, very welcome news.”

Japan first restricted Canadian beef in 2003 after cattle on an Alberta farm tested positive for mad cow disease.

“Saskatchewan is the second-largest meat producer in Canada,” McLellan said. “So the implications on the Canadian beef sector can just be kind of extrapolated out that they are damaging in any case when we lose market access for a product that we produce here in Saskatchewan.

“And so the implications are significant. When you talk about an industry that certainly is facing its challenges, access to more markets — and in particular — high-value markets like Japan can only be beneficial to our producers here in Saskatchewan.”

Cattle theft

“Cattle theft is a bit of an interesting situation that we deal with here,” McLellan said. “We know that numbers of missing cattle are reported higher typically around the fall when animals are coming back from pasture and to get a real grasp on the count as they move animals back to the home yard and things like that.”

McLellan said cattle theft isn’t necessarily a major issue in the province. It comes and goes following the general ebbs and flows of the economy.

“Obviously, when things are tough, you see missing cattle numbers reported going up,” he said. “And when things are good, you don’t see it as much and that kind of comes down to crimes of opportunity, crimes of need. People might be looking to put some meat in their freezer. But is this an issue that is pervasive all the time? I wouldn’t say so.”

Speaking on the recent cattle theft in which a 48-year-old man was arrested, McLellan said things like that were an anomaly.

“We don’t really see those kinds of large-scale numbers, at least here in Saskatchewan,” he said.

McLellan said that good branding of animals, fencing and infrastructure are solid ways to prevent cattle from wandering off or getting stolen.

EDITOR’S NOTE: This is an amended version of this story, correcting some quoted numbers and phrasing