Good afternoon, and thank you for inviting me to this committee.
My speech is going to be more of an overlook of what we do here in Nova Scotia, and then I'll take some questions regarding what I've said.
My name is Anthony Eikelenboom and I'm from Shubenacadie, Nova Scotia. I own and operate Scotian Cattle, which has been in operation for approximately 10 years. We are a buyer throughout Nova Scotia. I'm also a partner in Cowtown Cattle Company, which has been in operation for four years and is a buyer Maritimes-wide. Cowtown also accepts animals from other buyers within the maritime provinces, and some in Quebec and Ontario.
For Scotian, we travel around the province twice weekly doing business with roughly 160 of the 200 dairy farms in Nova Scotia. When I started Scotian Cattle Company, we were only buying replacement heifers. Over the past 10 years, we've grown and now we buy a large percentage of the cull cows and bob calves here in Nova Scotia.
Historically, there were markets for Holstein bull calves and replacement heifers. However, now with the markets drying up for those replacement heifers, and with the new transport regulations, it is presently near impossible—and starting in February 2022 it will be absolutely impossible—to ship Holstein calves into the veal market in Quebec.
New regulations have been put into effect where the maximum amount of time a calf can be on a truck is 12 hours. Calves must then be offloaded, fed and rested. We all know where Nova Scotia stands logistically. What this means is that we are no longer able to ship those Holstein calves to Quebec into that veal market.
What we're doing to fix that problem here is encouraging the farmers to breed their cows to beef bulls. The result is a cross-bred calf that is 50% Holstein and 50% beef. This specific type of calf gives the farmer and us the opportunity to sell the calves to local feedlots.
In order for dairy farmers to operate, it's necessary for the cows to be bred and calved yearly. Because we are unable to ship the Holstein calves, we're encouraging farmers to breed the top one-third of their herd to the female sexed semen to ensure heifer replacements for the farm, and then we are promoting that with the bottom two-thirds of their herd they breed those animals to the sexed male beef semen, and that will hopefully ensure that we can sell their calves.
By doing all that, folks, this will hopefully fix the transportation issue in regard to transporting the baby calves. However, once those cross-bred calves have matured to an ideal market weight, we're not going to be able to process them here in Nova Scotia. Therefore, we will need to sell them out of province at increased costs and, as you all know, trucking is very high nowadays.
In addition to these calves, because of the new transport regulations we're also now limited in the number of cull cows that we're able to ship on trucks, and also in the different classes of cows. We have to pay more attention to the age and condition of the animals. This leads us to processing more cows in the province, and the provincial plants are also running at near full capacity. Most of them are at full capacity.
I think all this goes back to why we're here today, processing capacity and capability. If we were able to have a federally inspected plant here in the province, which we do not at the present time, it would drastically change the entire picture. Farmers will then have the luxury of selling their animals to the federal plant, which will in turn give them more money for their animals as the federal plant can sell outside of the province. It allows us cattle dealers to sell more animals and put more money into the farmers' pockets. It also lowers my costs of transportation.
In closing, a federal processing plant in the province is necessary. To do it through the private sector would be difficult, given the economics and the scale and the small margins. However, with government funding, we should be able to change the current state and make it a viable business for all parties involved, from the farmer to the table.
There's no doubt that the provincial governments need to play a leadership role. However, the federal government could be a conveyor or provide support through ACOA or through the Canadian agricultural partnership.
I guess that's it for my speech. Thank you very much for listening. I can take questions whenever questions are allowed.