Lambton Cattlemen’s Dinner draws 1,300 people

About 1,300 people lined up for a heaping helping of beef in Alvinston Wednesday, perhaps a bit of a treat considering the cost of the red meat in grocery stores today.

Every year, the Lambton Cattlemen’s Association cooks up hundreds of pounds of meat – 900 pounds this year – and pairs with with fresh corn on the cob, brown beans and buns and feeds a huge crowd which fills the arena floor at the Brooke-Alvinston-Inwood Community Centre. For some families, whether they raise cattle or not, the dinner is a yearly tradition.

But for others, the cost of a beef dinner for a weeknight meal is getting out of reach. Take a trip to the grocery store and you can find a package of two or three steaks which range in price from $23 to $35, depending on the cut.

Chad Anderson, the president of the Lambton Cattlemen’s Association, says the cost of beef is mostly due to a “general decline” in the size of herds as farmers turn pastures into corn and soybean fields – where the profits can be larger.

While science allows beef producers to produce a larger animal for meat, Anderson says Ontario’s cattle producers have never been able to meet the full demand of the province; there simply are not enough beef producers in Ontario. There are 138 beef producers in Lambton, 19,000 across the province with 918,000 head of cattle. Statistics show consumption of beef per capita was 24.5 kilograms in Canada.

“Ontario is a really unique market in that we have the population, so the demand is here, but…we still import into Ontario roughly half the beef we eat,” says Anderson.

“Most of the beef that is raised to be harvested in material there are from cows that are in Western Canada, or lately, in Kentucky.”

While the number of beef producers in Ontario is lower than in past decades Anderson says, young people are entering the industry. “But it’s like every other sector of agriculture, it’s hard to get established because it’s a high cost and then it’s a thin margin business.”

Anderson, who is one of the larger beef producers in Lambton County, says farmers either have a small herd which they sell direct to consumers from their farm – “There is much more of that today than 10 years ago,” – or they’re large producers with hundreds of animals.

“But the 50 to 100 (head) guys – producers – are the ones that have disappeared.”

Anderson adds without a larger number of producers, the cost of red meat will remain at its current price if demand remains the same.