Beef production is declining in Ontario, and this decline has a direct impact on jobs and income for the province as well as industry infrastructure such as processing plants and auction markets.
While the current inventory of land being farmed in all of Ontario is just under 13 million acres, there are 16 million underutilized acres that could support beef cow-calf production in the Great Clay Belt alone.
Having sustainable beef farming operations on just one million of these acres will reduce the threat of processing plants closing, and the increased production can be used to access new and growing markets in Ontario and around the globe.
To fulfill production needs, 100,000 beef cows will only take a small slice of land representing 5% or less of the 16 million acres identified as the Great Clay Belt.