Dennis Laycraft reflects on four decades in the industry

What does it take to lead a nation’s cattle industry through crisis, change, and global acclaim—without ever losing sight of the ranch?

Kara Mastel is joined by Dennis Laycraft—newly inducted into the Canadian Agricultural Hall of Fame—to reflect on his remarkable 40-year career championing Canada’s beef industry. 

From a childhood in the Porcupine Hills to national leadership roles, Laycraft recounts his navigation through watershed moments like BSE, international trade wars, and a global pandemic. 

He shares stories of resilience, innovation, and unity that helped elevate Canadian beef to world-class status and positioned the industry for a strong, sustainable future. 

Listen For:

6:16 The Decade Canada Became an Export Powerhouse

8:43 BSE Hits: The Industry’s Darkest Hour

13:27 Canada’s Retail Rebellion and Barbecue Boom

17:55 The Young Leaders Movement Begins

27:46 McDonald’s, Cargill & The World’s First Sustainable Beef Claim

34:56 Pandemic Adaptation & Drive-In Cattle Sales

42:07 Today’s Market: Record Prices & Future Growth

GUEST: Dennis Laycraft, CCA Vice President

CCA | LinkedIn 

CONNECT WITH HOST: KARA MASTEL 

 Email | Website | LinkedIn | Phone 

Have ideas for future shows? Drop us a note, on social media or via email.

ABP Daily | Twitter | Facebook | Instagram | Email

Chapters

• 6:16 The Decade Canada Became an Export Powerhouse
• 8:43 BSE Hits: The Industry’s Darkest Hour
• 13:27 Canada’s Retail Rebellion and Barbecue Boom
• 17:55 The Young Leaders Movement Begins
• 27:46 McDonald’s, Cargill & The World’s First Sustainable Beef Claim
• 34:56 Pandemic Adaptation & Drive-In Cattle Sales
• 42:07 Today’s Market: Record Prices & Future Growth

Transcript

Kara Mastel (00:10):

Hi. Hey, hello and welcome back to another episode of the Bovine Podcast, brought to you by Alberta Beef Producers. I'm your host, Kara Mastel, and as always, I'm happy to be here. The Canadian Agricultural Hall of Fame has announced his 2025 inductees honoring individuals who have made significant contributions to the agricultural industry. One of the six members inducted this year is none other than Dennis Laycraft, who is the executive vice President of the Canadian Cattle Association. Dennis has championed Canada's beef industry for over 40 years leading the Canadian Cattle Association in opening and defending markets and building critical capacity. He has played key roles in initiatives like the Canadian Roundtable for Sustainable Beef and Canada Beef. He's mentored many to ensure the industry's export capacity and competitiveness. Dennis is joining us on the bovine today from Calgary, Alberta. First of all, thanks for joining us and congratulations on being aducted to the Agricultural Hall of Fame. How does it feel?

Dennis Laycraft (01:16):

Yeah, it's obviously very gratifying when you see a number of the people that have first of all nominated me and then sent in letters and just all of the congratulations I've received. It really means a lot, and I've worked with a lot of really outstanding people, so it's been a very fortunate career choice for me.

Kara Mastel (01:41):

That's awesome, and I want to talk more about your reflections on that a little later, but I'd like to first start here on a little more about how you got here. So let's start. Where'd you grow up?

Dennis Laycraft (01:53):

I grew up, well until recently, a ranch southwest in Anton, Alberta, so up there in the Porcupine Hills. When I left, well, when I went to school, I went to old college actually and eventually ended up working for the Alberta Cattle Commission for nine years. I was their general manager for five of those years.

Kara Mastel (02:16):

So the area where the ranches, did you guys get any snow in that area? In the last little bit?

Dennis Laycraft (02:21):

They got five inches of rain, but the snow was further west,

Kara Mastel (02:24):

Five inches of rain. That's very welcome.

Dennis Laycraft (02:27):

Yeah, the springs everything. Were barely moving, so this made a huge difference and pretty much for everyone along the Western slopes there.

Kara Mastel (02:37):

That's awesome. So you went to old college. What did you take there?

Dennis Laycraft (02:41):

Low stock production.

Kara Mastel (02:42):

And that was always the plan or what kind of made you decide post-secondary, old college, that sort of thing?

Dennis Laycraft (02:48):

At the time, like anyone at that age, you're not quite sure of the career path. Obviously growing up in the cattle industry, I wanted to take some cattle production courses and olds had a great reputation and it was an ag program that interested me.

Kara Mastel (03:09):

So from there you went to the cattle commission?

Dennis Laycraft (03:11):

Well, I actually worked as a nutritionist and also a liquid fertilizer, but nutritionist and feed representative for hydro fertilizers for a couple of years. And then from there I saw the opportunity job posted with the Alberta Cattle Commission and I applied for that and that began my career in the cattle organizations.

Kara Mastel (03:33):

Talk about that process of growing on a ranch to going to work in nutrition and then eventually working for a commission. That's quite the change

Dennis Laycraft (03:44):

Almost with each of those steps. They were all in agriculture and with the liquid feed business, we were working with ranchers. Obviously once you moved to the Alberta Cattle Commission, we were there to represent farmers and ranchers and feeders. It was probably an easier transition than would be to jump completely into a different industry. Fortunately, I already knew some people and had a pretty strong background in the industry itself.

Kara Mastel (04:11):

Absolutely. So nine years there, you're Calgary based now, correct?

Dennis Laycraft (04:16):

Yes.

Kara Mastel (04:16):

And have been throughout your career?

Dennis Laycraft (04:18):

Yeah, the Alberta Cattle Commission, which became, of course the Alberta Beef Producer's office was always in Calgary. It's kind of moved around a bit. It was in the Stockman Center at that time, just off of 27th Avenue. And then from there we moved to the Deerfoot atrium later on in the eighties and the offices have been in one of the other towers ever since.

Kara Mastel (04:46):

Yep. And from there you moved on to the CCA or was there steps between there?

Dennis Laycraft (04:53):

No, I applied for the CCA job and got it in 1990. So I moved directly from the Alberta Cattle Commission to the CCA and at the same time the CCA office used to be in Toronto, but of course the industry had been shifting more and more with the considerable growth in the cattle feeding industry and processing. So when I took over, part of that process was the relocation of the office into Calgary. So CCA always had head a Calgary office. Chris Mills was their Western representative. He also was the person who hired me. He was the general manager of the Alberta Cattle Commission when I started, and then I succeeded him as the general manager. So ironically when I moved, it was about 200 feet as far as the office was concerned.

Kara Mastel (05:56):

Yeah, amazing. A big job change, but yet it's such a small industry in that way. Yeah,

Dennis Laycraft (06:03):

It is. Yeah.

Kara Mastel (06:04):

So I mean, like you said, you started in 1990, the feeder groups were just coming up and there was lots of growth there. Do you want to talk about how you've kind of seen the growth change since then?

Dennis Laycraft (06:16):

Yeah, people are interested in our 90th. I kind of walked through kind of the decades. We did go through some periods in our industry, the nineties, that's the decade we really became an export focused industry. Cargill. We had the Canada US Trade Agreement in effect, the Cargill plant had just opened. We had set up, I actually served as the first executive director of the Canada Beef Export Federation. A couple of us worked to get it established, which set up all of our offices in Japan, Korea, and other Asian markets and Mexico, and we were becoming a significant player in the world stage. We also at that time, recognized with the integration we have with the United States, the growing demand for well marbled, grain fed beef. We focused in on changing our grading system. If you go back almost 40 years, our grading system used to be an A one, A two, A three grade, which was heavily based on yield.

(07:26):

In the nineties, we changed it to the a AAA and prime grades, which organiz our marbling standards with the United States, and we still maintained our yield grade calculations. But the real focus at that time became on eating quality. I'm sure it's not a coincidence. As we changed the grading system and we also changed how we marketed beef in Canada and around the world, we added cooking our preparation instructions at retail and we'd seen a decline in beef demand really through the eighties and into the early nineties. And when those changes occurred, it just suddenly started to turn around and we saw demand really continue to strengthen from 95 on. And that got us through, I recall the year of growth. We saw the feeding industry continue to expand. We continued to grow our export share in markets, and that took us into the two thousands, which at the time everything was looking pretty strong until 2003.

Kara Mastel (08:43):

Yeah, absolutely. So that brings us into BSE. How did you manage the challenges it presented? You've been through all of that, that was a big part of our history.

Dennis Laycraft (08:55):

Yeah, fortunately, if you go back, we were monitoring what was going on in the United Kingdom and it had spread into the continent in Europe, BSE. And we in 1997 had put in place our original feed ban, seeing what was going on around the world. We also, during the nineties, brought two things forward. We brought forward the National Checkoff Legislation, which created the National checkoff. And to this day, we're the only group that is collecting a national checkoff and all marketing except pork has one, but it's just on imports. But we had the national ID system established and really started to come into effect around 2000. So we'd recognized it was important. We did have stronger trach SPAC capabilities, we had stronger import controls as well. All of those things, when we did find the first case of BSE, we had already taken measures to ensure that if it was, it was going to be very isolated, it wouldn't have really opportunity to amplify.

(10:05):

We were already working to prevent the risk. And interestingly enough, in 2001 CFI had presented a risk assessment that they thought we were past the risk of BSE with the measures that were in place. That turned out that wasn't the case, but because we'd already taken all of those steps, we'd been working with the US and had very harmonized procedures, we had a very, very strong conversation between governments with the United States. And it was interesting, the Secretary of Agriculture, secretary of MI participated in the press conference when Lyle Van Cleef announced the fact that we had a case I was aware of a highly probable for almost three days ahead of that. So while you were hoping beyond hope that it didn't turn out to be a CEO when it's a 99% likelihood you were ready for it, Ben Thon and Neil Yanke and myself took part in the original press conference and then we handled the media.

(11:14):

I did thousands, and that may sound like an exaggeration, but it isn't. During those BSE years, thousands of media interviews where we were able to talk about the fact our industry had been proactive. We had put measures in place, it was very isolated. It had never entered the food supply. And what was fascinating besides the US saying they believed our product was safe, which was great to have another country saying that by Father's Day in 2003, a couple of things happened. There were some retailers or food service companies that were sort of balking at selling Canadian beef. And there was one chain that there was a forage club for Mortlock, Saskatchewan went and picketed it and that made national news. And shortly thereafter, there was not a single retail or food service chain that wasn't carrying Canadian beef. As the science clearly supported that it was safe.

(12:15):

And then we actually started to move into a beef shortage and we saw barbecues from one end of the country to the other form. As we were trying to work our way through, we were producing about 50% more beef than we could consume prior to BSE. So in order to process more cattle, we had to sell a lot more beef domestically, and Canadians really came to our rescue to some in no small way as they continued to buy. And we actually saw consumption between June and July go up 76% as Canadians stepped up to basically, which was really the case, their feeling was we were being completely on. We were being treated unfairly by our export customers that the border should open. In the meantime, we were going back and forth to Washington while we were still managing the crisis and trying to get disaster relief in place for the industry meeting with the US and our US counterparts who we had very strong relationship.

(13:27):

And I always stress how important that is. I've often said it's a lot easier to look to your friends than to look for friends in a crisis. Certainly having that strong relationship we had with our counterparts in the us, Australia, New Zealand and Mexico really was another important part of that. On August 10th, the US announced that they were going to open up to under 30 month homeless beef from Canada and Mexico followed shortly, and that was a huge thing back to the, we just couldn't consume all the beef we were producing, having access to the US market and sales resumed in September, it always takes a little time to get the certification and the new veterinary certificates. But as soon as we got to September, that was the first time another country to open up that quickly to a country that had found BSE, and it's kind of a turning point for the world on BSE.

(14:29):

And that had, again, back to what I started with, when we put all of those measures in place previously, we were already a controlled risk country even before the controlled risk actually came in that at that time you either had BSE or you didn't. Interestingly enough, Australia bring forward a proposal to the OIE, which is now whoa, the World Organization for Animal Health, which created a new BSE code, which has undetermined controlled or negligible risk, and we were quickly pulled, accepted into the controlled risk. The next country to open was Japan. Now it was under 21 months. They had had BSE in 2001. So they were also more cautious around it. But at the same time, we saw a dramatic increase in our processing capacity, and it wasn't until 2005 that we got the US open for slaughter cattle, but in the meantime, we'd saw our processing capacity to get up where we were actually able to process a hundred thousand head a week.

(15:48):

Unfortunately, we built a huge backlog up. In the meantime, if you look at our inventory numbers, you'll see this abnormally high inventory at 2003, 2004 into 2005. There were times there were mature animals weren't worth very much money. They just remained in the herd for a period of time until we were able to get the borders open. I call it the dark decade. As we finally got back to a pretty strong footing with market access. We still worked on many markets for another 15 years, but when you have your top three markets open, and of course Canadians continuing to support our industry, we're past the survival mode. We were starting to try and get back onto recovery. Then the currency, Canadian dollar actually hit a dollar 10 US in that 2006, 2007 period, and we were used to around a 70 cent dollar and our prices were based off of the US market. So the prices went down in relationship to currency oil and was at record prices. It hit all the way up to $147. So we went into that kind of hyper period, and then the Great Recession hit in 2008. Oil fell from 147 to $35 between July and December and 2007, there was a whole bunch of things collapsed in the us then we were right into a full recession, which again, we survived through and got finally out of the 2000, the 2010 decade, and that was 10 years. We're glad to see behind us.

Kara Mastel (17:37):

Oh, absolutely. That shows some serious resilience because man, you keep getting kicked down over and over like that. It's sometimes hard to keep going, and I think a lot of people weren't to,

Dennis Laycraft (17:49):

Unfortunately, when you go through that, it's especially the young producers that were most vulnerable.

(17:55):

There's some talk that we almost lost a generation as we were getting towards that 2008, 2009 period. You probably know Jill Harvey, but Jill had under workforce and she sat down and talking about we should create a young leaders program because we need to get young people really getting back and excited about our industry. The CYL program started in 2010, and I give just absolute full credit to Joe Harvey for getting that up and going to Cargill for willing to step up and help be a sponsor. And we also had support from Alma, the Alberta Livestock Marketing, our market agency and that program. We've had hundreds of young leaders go through that and many have become, well, Brody's a good example. He was one of our early young leaders, Ryan Wire back, they become chair of their provincial organizations, chairs of our beef cattle research council, but at the same time, many of 'em are very active producers.

(19:10):

So 10 to 2020 became the recovery decade. We got an negligible risk or were in controlled risk status. We continued to get other markets opening and we saw a pretty good market rally in 2014, 2015. We were turning the corner as an industry to get back, but we saw a lot of, when I say consolidation, there was two things happening. There were some producers when the market did get high in 1415, it was their chance to step out and we saw a lot of really large operations begin to form. If you went back to 19 87, 19 98, that was one thing I did mention. But we did have the anti dumping and counter bill cases that a number of us were tasked to lead our defense against and we won that case and both the countervail and the anti-dumping case, which were huge victories for CA, but we only had about a handful of producers that were over 500 cows.

(20:20):

Well, by 2014, there was growing number of those, and if you look around today, I'm not sure anyone knows how many are over that, but you're into dozens that are into those much larger operations. Some cases the smaller operations tended to get absorbed into larger operations, and canola was very lucrative and there was for a bit of pasture land that got broke up to raise canola as well. Canola and wheat and barley, we'll talk about more when we get into the current market situation. But all of those things tended to lead to some more consolidation. But the producers that survive that were truly amongst the most efficient in the world. Survival necessity is a powerful teacher. You just look today, we produce more pounds of beef per cow in a shorter period of time than anyone else in the world except the United States, and we're pretty much equal. What it drove was the best genetics, the most efficient producers, the best practices that are out there and all those things are why we have one of the most sustainable cattle herds in the world now,

Kara Mastel (21:36):

Which is a pretty incredible story to tell. And like you said, just we've learned so much, and I hate to say any positives, but there were some silver linings there. And would you say one of the silver linings was processing capacity? We did really increase our processing capacity because of the strength and demand in the early two thousands.

Dennis Laycraft (21:57):

Yeah, certainly it was. That was important to get that capacity up and that's all expansions. Unfortunately we lost some of that. There was the Xcel, the Nielsen brothers had bought the plant. They had a plant in Moose Jaw and there was another Xcel plant in Calgary. They ended up buying the Brooks plant and then you may recall, but in 2012 they had any coli,

(22:25):

There was a major recall, and they ended up selling the plant to JBS with our feed ban. We had a much more costly specified risk material removal requirement in Canada, and it really hurt the small packing plants. We're actually hopeful this year that we're on, now that we've completed a risk assessment, we're going to be able to harmonize hopefully as early as next year with the United States on a shortlist, and that may help get some of the small plants, but the increased capacity as soon as the US got bidding on the market did contract back.

Kara Mastel (23:00):

So how do you learn from history? Do you find yourself looking back as we look at disease preparation now, maybe something like FMD or situations like that?

Dennis Laycraft (23:12):

Yeah, I always tell everybody luck favors the prepared. We have been working and we've had some really strong animal health staff and currently Dr. Rozen, Lee Rozen and Gabriela Guru, we have two on working on that. We are worked very hard. You've got people like Miles woke and others who really help champion getting the FMD vaccine bank in place. We work with the US and sometimes US and Mexico on simulations so that if it ever happened, whatever you're able to get done in the first 24 hours is really important in a infectious contagious disease event. So preparation, preparation, preparation. At the same time we've been, as part of our verified b plus program, there's a biosecurity module in there. We continue to share with people travel advice, prevention is always your number one goal and biosecurity is really, really important for that. We work to get the federal government to get more beagles in place. And you think with all the technology that we have today, Kara, that there would be technology to pick up things, but the beagle is still by far the most effective way to pick up something that people are smuggling in.

(24:46):

And when you see 'em at the airport and walking around, we've worked hard to try and keep that going. But at the same time, there is both a livestock market interruption strategy that is ready to put in place with the Livestock Canadian Cattle Identification Agency working with the Livestock Inspection Services. Cease movement needs to occur very rapidly and there's a lot more conversations between those groups and each year, the ID agency with the CLTS and we continue to improve technology, we will see further enhancements in our traceability requirements over the next year to two years. Exports are so important to our industry that A, you want to prevent an event if it happens because it's usually beyond, it's not a producer. That would be likely the source of an exposure, be able to get it contained and get back to export status as rapidly as you can. So I think it was Winston Churchill who said, should never waste a good crisis. You need to learn from it. We've documented a lot and it does get trickier as those of us that manage the way through those main events. We're getting past our best before dates, so it is important to keep some corporate memory around all of that.

Kara Mastel (26:21):

Yeah, absolutely. And like you said, though, growth and adaptation are so important, but we don't always have to reinvent the wheel either.

Dennis Laycraft (26:31):

No. Now sometimes you need to invent the wheel, but sometimes you need to be the most efficient using it. And that's one of the things I didn't mention, but when we created the National Checkoff, that was the goal with the beef cattle research, if we're going to be the best in the world, you have to support that with a strong investment in research. And there's been such a remarkable team of producers and staff involved there, and we truly have done some of the best work. And during that decade of recovery, sustainability became kind of, there was growing questions about the role of the cattle industry and climate change, and particularly coming out of Europe, there were all kinds of groups that were trying to really promote a plant-based agenda because we'd done all of that work. McDonald's who we have worked with very closely for decades and Cargill, we sat down and said, they said they would like to launch the first sustainable beef claim in the world, and they felt Canada was the most prepared to be able to do that because they buy a hundred percent Canadian beef.

(27:46):

All of their patties come through Cargill operation up by Edmonton. And we had done all of this research and it had verified b plus, and so we started sitting down together. That was a great thing with McDonald's and Cargill and this group of producers and NGOs. We had Nature Conservancy, ducks and others that led the table. We actually worked it down to where we could actually come up with a protocol that was practical but still credible. And we were the first country in the world to have a verified sustainable beef claim. And during that, especially the latter half of the 20 10, 20 20 decade, that sustainability, you saw lots of retailers pushing on suppliers to be making more commitments. We were the best prepared in the world for that, and we got to see what the rest were doing. I served as the president of the Global Roundtable for Sustainable Beef for the two year term 16 to 18.

(28:59):

And as we were setting up round tables and I looked at what others were doing around the world, I was proud that Canada was really the leader in this. And Fawn Jackson helped get that going and deserves an enormous amount of credit. Monica has been doing a fantastic job managing it, just like Andrea Brockel Bank has been with the Beef Cattle Research Council. So all of that worked, especially when 2017 we elected a climate change government and it took some work for them to recognize how sustainable Canadian agriculture and how sustainable the Canadian cattle industry was. And we had great materials and we're working with companies like McDonald's who were helping us tell the story. Ducks Unlimited were helping us tell the story, and that kind of got us into the next chapter, which happened to begin with the pandemic, but there were some fascinating things came out of that. Before I jump past that decade, I should stop. I've been talking a lot.

Kara Mastel (30:13):

No, that's great. So being ahead on that sustainability claim, how has that helped with consumer demand Today?

Dennis Laycraft (30:20):

All of the beef we raise is amongst the most sustainable in the world. We were able to with CRSB, we did our first sustainability assessment and what that first sustainability assessment showed is that our carbon footprint was less than half what the world average was. Again, that's how efficient we are in Canada. Others takes a lot longer. They have lower weaning rates, lower rates of gain. You go down the whole list, but we're able to show that we really had a great story to tell, and that was at the same time we worked with Ducks and Nature Conservancy, and again, Jill Harvey got this started, but we released Guardians of the Grasslands. That was quite a remarkable success. It suddenly changed. There's this big conversation around the world driven out of Europe about deforestation and cattle were getting implicated is the main cause, which suddenly we were able to show that working with our conservation partners in Canada and certainly in Canada and the US preserving the native grasslands was really what was most important.

(31:51):

Now, there are far more efficient ways of storing carbon trees stored above ground. Native grass lines have very deep roots. It's stored very deep into the ground. And when trees burn, all that carbon is released though suddenly we were able to show that if you didn't have cattle, those lands were probably going to get farmed or they just degraded over a period of time without grazing. So having cattle on there was incredibly important to a preventing conversion of those grasslands. And then secondly, to maintaining the health of those grasslands. So suddenly there was a shift in actually the government of Canada eventually brought out a commercial talking about how important grasslands are. So we're able to shift to things the idea that A, we were this huge source of the carbon footprint, but more importantly we were a very strong contributor to not only preserving the grasslands, but with that to biodiversity, which of course farmers and ranchers always knew, but it was getting that out to the general public that was important. And once we did that, we had the same time created public and stakeholder engagement. Amy Peck is running that, but Jill was tasked to get that up and running and we started to see a shift in more positive attitudes towards candidates, beef cattle producers and towards Canadian beef as more of that story was told. And that's carried forward into, it's gotten stronger as we move through the pandemic.

Kara Mastel (33:43):

Absolutely. It's one thing to do everything right on our operations, but it's a whole nother to actually communicate to the consumer what's being done.

Dennis Laycraft (33:52):

It really helped to have Nature Conservancy, WWF were involved. Ducks Unlimited being spokespeople saying how important the cattle industry is. People do trust farmers and ranchers, but when you hear it from the actual environmental groups, those other activist groups that will never change their tune, it's pretty hard for them to just come out and try and discredit those major conservation groups. In fact, it's impossible for them to do that. So having strong partners to help us tell that message, I think was incredibly important.

Kara Mastel (34:35):

So let's talk about the last five years. I mean, it's been a bit of a wild ride there as well, a global pandemic and now more recently tariffs and difficulties with our largest trading partner. Do you want to kind of talk about how we've navigated some of these challenges in the last half decade?

Dennis Laycraft (34:56):

Let's start with the pandemic, but this is Trump too. So we had worked through, I didn't get into the mandatory country of origin labeling and all of the impact that created, and that was another big battle that we fought and won, which cost him about $40 a head on every animal that we produced. So that's another one of those. And I mentioned that because starting to raise its ugly head again, but we were having our annual meeting and Bob Low, ironically was just elected president. As we flew home from our annual meeting, global lockdown occurred about four months earlier. We decided that we were going to upgrade our systems and we were all trained to use Microsoft Teams and weren't sure how much use we'd get out of it, but we were prepared. Well, from the time we flew on Friday till Monday morning, we had advised everyone we would be working from home that we would start to have regular Microsoft Teams meetings and we actually had our first leaders meeting as part of our National Beef Strategy, which also came out of that 2014 15 period.

(36:12):

It kind of brought all of the national groups together. As soon as the pandemic started that first Monday, we had a teams meeting of all of them. We did that every week through the pandemic. So when I say all of them, there was the National Cattle Feeders, the Canadian Beef Breeds Council, we had the Canadian Meat Council, then of course CCA. And then we had our marketing groups, Canada Beef and the Beef Cattle Research Council and Public Stakeholder. And we were probably as well coordinated as I've ever seen in the industry. The first thing we needed to make sure was that we could continue to get cattle processed. That was making sure that the personal safety equipment was available for packing plants. We had to get the industry designated as an critical infrastructure and an essential service though all of that in that first week, there was a huge effort there.

(37:14):

And then we worked with the Food Inspection Agency to look at a range of options to make sure that they would have staff that would be at the packing plants doing the meat inspection every day. And in Alberta, there was actually an agreement reached where there were illnesses. During that period of time, the provincial meat inspectors went through some training with the CFI and they were accredited to do federal meat inspections. And then part B that was to be able to keep the border open so we could move cattle and beef into the US and to other markets around the world that would be starting to get short of supply. So keeping the industry operating was the number one priority. And then we were able to share very strong information about safety. But a really interesting thing started as people were staying home, suddenly everybody started to cook again.

(38:17):

And one of the first things that sold out was yeast in stores. We were able to keep the supermarket counters full of beef, but for those that didn't want to go through supermarkets or have home delivery, which was growing rapidly during that, we saw a lot of these smaller private brands flourish during that where farmers and ranchers and feeders get their cattle processed and were selling it where people would actually drive out and pick it up. And we were able to do all of that. I think one of the most innovative things that I saw during that and give credit to our great friends at the Livestock Markets Association, but we needed to get cattle sold to and Manitoba, they had a one sale there where it looked like a drive-in theater. Everybody stayed in their vehicles, were able to watch the cattle and they bid by turning their lights on and off again, find practical ways to work your way through that. And one thing that became clearer is people cook more at home. They obviously favored beef. There are all kinds of pictures where some of the Beyond beef and other counters were full and they're just about picked clean all of the beef, chicken and pork in the retail stores. Long-term, it's actually been quite good for beef demand. And I'm sure the other commodities would likely say the same thing, but people started to bring the product home and prepare it more. And that's a skill that lasts.

Kara Mastel (40:01):

Yeah, they realize that tasty steak can still be made at home.

Dennis Laycraft (40:05):

Well, particularly as prices have gone up. Restaurant, they didn't have the option, but when restaurant experiences did come back, well, beef has gone up in price. You can still prepare it at home for pretty good value. And in the US in particular, it's just been remarkable how strong beef demand has remained as we continue forward here.

Kara Mastel (40:28):

And how long would you say it took for processing capacity to come back? We were backlogged for quite some time.

Dennis Laycraft (40:35):

Yeah. The problem was there wasn't another outlet. The US plants were slowed down like ours. That was most significant in the latter second half of 2020 into 2021. So to bring capacity back into the line, you could almost track the cattle price. So we're just really probably into 2023 that we started to see that turnaround occur somewhere in somewhere in 2022. We had worked to get set aside, some set aside assistance, but it really came down to getting as many cattle processed as we can. And you did see some of the plants expand. Harmony expanded some of their capacity. You saw both Cargill and JBS processing more days a week and automating some of their handling facilities. That's one of those other lessons is do what we can to avoid getting this wall of cattle that backed up. But sometimes just circumstances, you can't have a whole bunch of idle capacity waiting for that moment. There's no business model where that works. So never a simple solution to that.

Kara Mastel (41:53):

No, no. It's not as black and white as we'd like to make or we'd like to think it is sometimes. So let's shift ahead to the current market landscape opportunities, challenges.

Dennis Laycraft (42:07):

Well, obviously the tariff threat is still there. We're going to start renegotiation. I know they call it a review, but it'll be a renegotiation of the Canada US Mexico agreement. The challenge there is the agreement works very well. We have strong support from producers in the US despite what you hear from a couple isolated smaller groups, strong support down there and Mexico, and recognize how important the integrated market is. So the first thing is to make sure we're able to protect that tariff free environment because there will still be efforts from STU actions in the US to push for even a 10% tariff line to harmonize with what they're doing in the rest of the world. So that threat still exists. But what's exciting, obviously we've got record prices right now, but the demand for high quality grain fed beef continues to grow in Asia.

(43:08):

There's more demand than we have beef right now in Asia. I was just over there meeting with them and all of their questions are about supply. When are we going to start to grow the herd? And that's not an easy one dancer. We are starting to see signs that both heifer and cows slaughter down. Obviously the price of replacement animals have really gone up. So every signal is that we're starting to not only retain, but keep more heifers back in the system in Canada and the US and right now, cattle are probably the most profitable part of any or the beef cattle, beef calf operation, maybe the most profitable on any operation right now where that hasn't been the case for probably 15, 20 years. So hopefully we're starting to grow, but I think it's going to be like everything, and it's probably better if it's a slow growth.

(44:18):

In 1415, we saw a rapid increase in this 1617 in the market, trend it down fairly quickly. The general feeling is this market's going to have legs under it for a few here as we grow. And each time you go up, you tend to create a new area in which your prices range your low and your highs work their way up. We've got great conditions. Hopefully this rain continues because weather's going to be probably the most significant factor that will affect the extent that we retain. And if we do have good growing conditions like we did last year, there are parts of the US still have droughts, so they're not going to grow very quickly. That's why this market feels pretty good moving forward, but never a dull moment in the business. I can tell you

Kara Mastel (45:16):

That. No, absolutely not. And it's too bad we can't lobby to mother nature sometimes. Hey,

Dennis Laycraft (45:22):

Well, if we could. Yeah.

Kara Mastel (45:26):

So looking, reflecting on the last, I guess, how long have you been in the industry? 35 years.

Dennis Laycraft (45:32):

Yeah, 40 years.

Kara Mastel (45:34):

Okay. So what would you consider to be some of your most significant contributions to the industry during your time? Or maybe positive? I mean we've talked about a lot of the struggles, but what are some of your fond memories of the time too?

Dennis Laycraft (45:50):

I think there's a lot of things, and a lot of great people worked on this. It's never one person that carries these things over the finish line. I've worked with some of the most amazing people who have been our presidents of CCA over the years. They're typically leaders who came up, were chairs of provincial organizations and just absolutely remarkable leaders. I think seeing Canada become one of the most respected world-class producers of high quality, grain fed beef is probably one of the most gratifying things. As we were in Japan, one retail store, they were the consumer reviews. Were giving our beef the highest marks right next to Wagyu, but that's Japan. You're never going to get a higher review than Wagyu. No. And just seeing all of that work that went into the research on quality, on palatability, on our grading system, at the end of the day, it's people who buy beef that allow us to do what we do and being able to be considered one of the premium products in the world doesn't just happen.

(47:15):

That took putting in place the right grading systems. It's having all of the research that we've done. And I can say what makes me maybe feel best is I'm as excited about the future today as I was when I started, we turned that corner where there was all this negativity being sort of cast towards cattle industries around the world to be producers. We're seeing that pendulum shift where the industry is being recognized for most of what we cata eat is not usable by humans. And we actually contribute to regenerative agriculture. We're the biodiversity. We're one of by far the most important factors around that. And even reducing food waste, we become a leader in doing all of that. So we're going from what was being a negative light being cast on our industry to where I believe we have the momentum to be getting that positive recognition that our industry truly warns. So I think it's feeling good about where we're at today. Maybe as gratifying as anything. There's lots of good victories. I have to say. Winning the countervail anti-dumping case was a pretty special moment. Getting the US border reopened again was a pretty special moment. Winning the WTO case on country of origin labeling was also an incredible moment. But at the end of the day, we did this to make sure the industry had a strong future and being in a position where I really do believe the future is strong.

Kara Mastel (49:06):

And speaking of a strong future, if anyone's listening to this that might be in, they might be in your shoes at Old College right now. Any advice for them going into the cattle industry?

Dennis Laycraft (49:21):

I remember when I was young mom, we knew the cattle industry, cyclical. It's a long-term industry, and she always said, hold onto the cow's tail and she'll pull you through. It is one of the best places to raise a family and to one of the best communities to be part of. I do believe that the future is there, and it's not just cattle. We've got many mixed operations. It's having all of that together. But if you look at the Canadian economy, agriculture has actually been one of the strongest performing parts of Canadian economy over the last 10 years. So agriculture is a great place to be and I believe it's going to be a great place to be in the future. And whether it's getting involved in an association or whether it's the cattle operation itself or it's a service to the industry, it's a great opportunity.

Kara Mastel (50:29):

And what do you see in your future? What's next for you?

Dennis Laycraft (50:32):

Well, I'm going to be available to make sure we get through this review of the cosma U-S-M-C-A and be available for those trade challenges. I am not much good at doing nothing, I can tell you that. So I'll be doing a little more fishing than I have been, but I'll be keeping busy at something or another.

Kara Mastel (50:53):

Absolutely. Okay. Maybe we could go a bit more into this agricultural Hall of fame first, who nominated you and talk about what the process of finding that out was like?

Dennis Laycraft (51:03):

Well, to be honest, know, CCA nominated me, so I am assuming Ryder and Jennifer did a lot of the work there, but I actually found out before I was supposed to find out because they were supposed to let me know Monday, but the fishing lodge were at, they wouldn't have been able to reach me. So I had no idea that it was even happening. So obviously it was a great surprise to hear that. And I'll probably find out more about who all sent in letters, but just one of those things. There's a few other people I know who are in the hall, like Charlie Gracie and Stan Eby, who was the past president, and others that Jerry Ritz, minister Ritz just be in their companies quite an honor. And anytime you get in the nice notes afterwards from people, people that you have a very high respect for, and when they share their appreciation of the work you do, it means a lot.

Kara Mastel (52:09):

Absolutely. And what legacy do you hope to, I guess, leave with this as well with being named into the Hall of Fame?

Dennis Laycraft (52:18):

I always think the legacy is having strong producer associations is when you walk through all of the events we went through. If we hadn't had strong producer organizations, we would not have been able to have managed through those nearly as effectively as the industry did. You've got to have good, strong, capable people. You have to be ready to hit the ground the minute something happens. It's a lot more important to be in front of these issues than if you don't have strong organizations. You just become reactive and proactive. It is important to participate in these international processes like the Woa and where all these international rules are made. Canada has an important voice to be heard, and we are champion for science-based rules and for rules-based trade in the absence of people willing to step up and say that other people are going to be filling that vacuum.

(53:22):

So the appreciation that we have with our checkoff systems, and it's not one person, it's a great team that's needed on these things that, whether it's the Alberta Beach Producers or the Saskatchewan Cattle Association or Beef Farmers of Ontario, or you could go down the list or it's CCA. We're a big industry. We're now the largest source of Farm Cash receipts. Again, for the past two years, it's going to be around $17 billion. That incredibly small investment that's made in checkoff may have been one of the best investments producers have ever made. I certainly believe it's certainly made Canada and Beef a much better and more credible product than it would've been without it. And you always want the legacy to be a strong platform moving forward for whoever takes on the range.

Kara Mastel (54:20):

Absolutely. And like you said, luck favors the prepared. Okay, well thank you very much for your time here today, and I know on behalf of the Canadian Agricultural Industry, congratulations and thank you for all that you've done over the past 40 years.

Dennis Laycraft (54:36):

No, it's been a ride. I'm not sure it ever, well, some days it felt more like work than others, but more often than not, it didn't feel like work most days. It was something that I look forward to doing.

Kara Mastel (54:48):

Very cool.

Dennis Laycraft (54:49):

Alright, Kara,

Kara Mastel (54:49):

Thank you very much, Dennis. Okay. Thanks for listening to that conversation. I always find it so fascinating to learn about history through others who have firsthand experienced it. I also always have a notepad in front of me while I'm talking to guests for the podcast to pull out things that stick out for me for this conversation. It was two quotes from Dennis. The first one being, luck Favors the Prepared. I really like that one, and I think I might get it pinned to my bulletin board in my office to remember. The other one comes from Dennis's mom. Hold onto the Calves Tale and she'll pull you through. Definitely some fun quotes there. As always, if you have any questions or feedback, don't hesitate to reach out either through a ABP social channels or you can reach me on by email karam@albertabeef.org. Until next time, drink lots of water and really listen the next time someone experienced at the coffee shop tells you a story of their past. Yes, I know it takes time and we're all busy, but you may just learn something new. Bye for now.