Canadian cattle inventories continue to drop.
On July 1, 2019, Statistics Canada reported Canadian farmers had 12.3 million cattle on their farms, down 1.3% from last year. Manitoba cattle inventories fell about 3.6 per cent.
Brian Perillat is a senior analyst with Canfax.
"Starting the year we had less cattle, a smaller breeding herd and through the first half of the year we've seen at least five or six per cent more cows being slaughtered and processed and culled," he said. "The herd basically, unfortunately, continues to decline."
Canadian cattle numbers are roughly 27 per cent lower than their peak level recorded back in 2005.
"That 2005 number was all inflated due to BSE and all of that sort of stuff, border closures and just the inability to move cattle so inventories backed up," commented Perillat. "Partly, I think still some relates to that economic shock and hardship with people just reacting and getting out of cattle or moving on and a big part of it was moving into the grain industry."
With the exception of a few small increases, Canadian cattle inventories have declined year over year since 2005.
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