Much more comfortable working with his cattle than working in marketing, Surrey natural-beef producer Ron Tamis welcomes new federal-provincial investment in consumer education and market information.
“Any kind of tool that promotes B.C. beef or something that makes people aware of the product that you have is valuable,” said Tamis, who runs Rondriso Farms on 172nd Street at 84th Avenue with his wife, Pam.
Announced February 24, the nearly $900,000 from the Canada-British Columbia Ranching Task Force Funding Initiative will help the British Columbia Cattlemen’s Association (BCCA) to:
•develop education programs for the public to learn about beef;
•profile the industry, giving producers timely market information to assess their growth potential and become more profitable; and
•implement a research project to develop a beef value-chain marketing strategy.
“I have cattle, produce and a pumpkin patch,” said Tamis, who is not a member of the BCCA. “The toughest part for me is the marketing. I prefer to be out in the field rather than being an advertiser or anything like that.”
Dating back to 1958, Rondriso is a small family farm on about 100 owned and leased acres where they run 40 to 50 head of cattle a year, all born there and raised on their pastures with no hormones or steroids.
“I’ve been fortunate with my herd since I took it over from my dad in 2001. Shortly after that [the beef industry] got hit by the mad cow disease,” said Tamis, referring to the 2003 discovery in Alberta of one cow stricken with the disease, which led to herd culls, plunging prices and closed borders that devastated beef producers.
But Tamis said he survived by establishing himself as a farm-direct marketer right from the beginning.
“All my beef is sold privately in B.C. None of my animals go to auction. I have a regular clientele that purchases from me every single year. As I expand my herd, I’m also picking up new clientele.”
He may be growing but as Surrey urbanizes, beef producers in the city are dwindling. The BCCA, which represents nearly 1,200 ranchers with about 72% of B.C.’s beef cattle, counts only two members in Surrey with a total of 174 head.
One is Painted River Farm on Barnston Island, where Donna Gilmore said she and husband Wes run about 75 naturally raised cattle.
Both Painted River and Rondriso gain customers from being BC SPCA certified, a farm-certification and food-labelling program for improving animal welfare standards.
Both are dwarfed by the larger cattle operations in the Interior. The biggest is the Douglas Lake Ranch with about 20,000 cattle.
The president of the BCCA, Judy Guichon, runs about 1,400–1,500 head at her Gerald Guichon Ranch Ltd., in the Nicola Valley.
She said the association has trained about 18 educators to go into B.C. supermarkets over the next three years for the consumer- education program called Behind the Beef.
“The retailers are very excited,” Guichon said. “We thought we’d do maybe 200 stores this year, but we’ve got requests for thousands. That program is really taking off.”
She said the market- analysis project aims to examine the chain of activities that gives products more value by gaining insight into who today’s consumers are and what they want.
“For example, we’re looking at the Asian market in Vancouver and we’re finding that they do eat more beef,” Guichon said.
B.C. Agriculture Minister Don McRae told Business in Vancouver he sees the new initiatives as opportunities for the industry to recover from climate challenges and the mad cow slump that shrank the provincial herd from 400,000 head 10 years ago to fewer than 200,000.
“Right now the cattlemen are very optimistic about the future for their industry, the commodity prices, the growth potential,” he said, “and this is a perfect announcement that allows them to build on that success.”
McRae said the provincial government in 2010 committed $2 million for B.C.’s beef industry, and Ottawa added $3 million from the Agricultural Flexibility Fund.
He said beef producers are struggling in other parts of the world, such as in Texas where drought-stricken ranchers have sold cattle at huge losses.
“We want to make sure that our cattlemen are basically able to meet the demand both domestically and also internationally.” •
