COWESSESS FIRST NATION — Cowessess chief Cadmus Delorme says Saskatchewan First Nations want to build partnerships with cattle producers to help strengthen the province’s beef industry.
Delorme told the Saskatchewan Beef Industry Conference that the Cowessess herd of 133 Black Angus cows and three bulls began in 2008 as a food sovereignty project but the plan is to take it to the next level.
“Moving forward, our goal is to turn it into more of a business,” he said during a panel discussion. “We do have our hiccups, our growing pains.”
Cowessess has 105,000 acres in total and about two-thirds of that is agricultural.
Delorme said his ancestors transitioned from a nomadic way of life to agriculture around 1880. By 1890, they were winning grain and cattle competitions. But as the government put up barriers, the First Nation members were pushed out of the industry through the 1950s, he said.
Losing the generations who had farming knowledge means First Nations are starting from scratch.
Delorme said finding labour is a problem for them, like it is for other agricultural operations.
“We’ve got baby boomers looking after our cattle right now and baby boomers are on the verge of retiring. My generation behind them, I hate to say it so directly, they would prefer the nine-to-five job or the city job than to come work in pretty much a lifestyle of ranching. So, we have some growing pains in the next five to 10 years.”
Cowessess has joined organizations to learn more, built relationships with veterinarians and wants to operate as a corporation.
“Our confidence is building,” Delorme said. “We’re just excited that we’re First Nation owned but we just want to be looked at as a progressive beef company that is contributing to the overall market.”
He said many First Nations would like to partner with other cattle producers in their areas to develop their operations.
Many don’t understand that while First Nations have land it’s complicated to get their money from it.
“We normally lease out that land between $40 and $60 an acre, or sometimes if it’s grazing it’s a different cost,” he said. “That money goes to Ottawa; it doesn’t come to Cowessess.
“I tell you that because there are outdated laws when it comes to First Nations trying to progress in an area where many are on fee simple land,” Delorme explained. “To Indigenous, it is very complicated and that’s why you don’t see Indigenous people in agriculture as much as we want to be.”
Financing is another problem because although their land is registered to them it is actually owned by the federal government.
“When we’re trying to be business-like and work with (lenders) … we are lacking our assets to back up to our liabilities,” he explained. “The Indian Act supersedes the Bank Act of Canada. That’s why it makes First Nation land almost next to no value.”
Cowessess started grain farming on 5,000 acres two years ago and that is even a bigger challenge than cattle because of the machinery needed and the fact there are technically no land assets, Delorme said.
Ryan Beierbach, who runs a cow-calf operation not far away near Whitewood, said he has seen first-hand the issues that First Nations have getting capital.
“There’s definitely some synergies there where I think we could work together,” he said. “There’s a lot of really good cattle land on reserves. I think we do need to work together going into the future.”
He said that goes for grain farmers, too, both on and off reserves. While the true mixed farm is a rarity now, Beierbach said more integration is needed.
“We need to integrate back, maybe not by going to mixed farms, but by having the cattle farmers and the grain farmers work together and kind of use up some of the waste that maybe comes out of annual cropping and keeps the nutrient cycling,” he said.
Beierbach said it’s also important for beef producers to keep talking about the environmental benefits of having cattle on the landscape.
He said since he moved to the area from southwestern Saskatchewan about 20 years ago, he has seen producers move away from owning almost all of their land to renting more.
That increases risk for those who want to be in business a long time. Land prices are higher than they were when he started, but the profit margins are probably less, he said.
Chad Ross, who typically runs about 1,000 cows and a 2,500-head feedlot but has cut those numbers in half due to the 2021 drought, has been in business for nearly 25 years and profit margins have always been an issue.
“It was small margins when we started and small margins now,” he said. “But it’s a way of life. It’s a way to raise a family.”
He and his wife learned early on about adversity. They had been back full-time on the family operation near Estevan for about five years when BSE hit.
“Boy, that sure taught us efficiencies,” Ross said. “When we lost our income, it just taught us that the cows had to work for us if we were going to stay in this business.”
The feedlot was full of heifer calves they intended to finish but instead they ended up breeding them because there was no market. Suddenly, they were in the cow business.
Ross, who is chair of the Canadian Beef Check-off Agency, said much has changed in the feedlot, with improved vaccination protocols and better overall animal health measures.
“People have upped their vaccination programs I think throughout the industry and that’s helped us in the feedlot business as well. And for the cattle themselves it’s just so much better.”
He said the industry has consolidated quite a bit and technological advances such as genetic testing present opportunities for the future.
Ross said they have gone from handwritten feed sheets to Excel spreadsheets, to now a cloud-based feeding program that tracks feed inventories, animal units and other data.
“My, that’s changed my life,” he said. “I used to come in at night after a long day’s work and work on feed sheets for the next two hours.”
Drones, robots and virtual fencing are all coming, he added.
Ross urged more communication and relationships throughout the value chain.
Delorme added many First Nations are looking for strategic alliances as they seek to grow.
“Indigenous people have the will, they’ve got the people, they’ve got the land, but the human capital, the knowledge, the investment, is where it’s challenging,” he said.
Cowessess has hired an agrologist to help them build its farm businesses.
