Canadian livestock sector faces African cellphone problem

Our Canadian beef industry is a global leader in several ways, including management strategies and tools, genetic resources, research and regulatory frameworks that support the industry.

This has evolved over decades and generations.

When we look around the world, we see that Canada, with a relatively small cow herd, punches above its weight in terms of export of beef.

While the Canadian beef herd numbers have been trending downward for a long time, globally, beef production has been rising at roughly one per cent a year for the last several years.

The top five leading producers of beef in the world are Brazil, the United States, China, the European Union and India.

Canada is in the top 10 at 1.26 million tonnes, according to U.S. Department of Agriculture data for 2025-26.

Based on reporting from 2025, when we look at global beef trade, Brazil remains at the top, with Australia coming in second, followed by the United States, India and then Argentina.

In terms of value, Canada is also in the top 15 of beef exporters.

It is possible to be surprised at some of the countries that appear on the list.

For example, we may not think of India as a global beef exporting superpower, but in truth the beef leaving India is quite different than that exiting Canada (carabeef, or water buffalo).

There are also differences between Canadian and Australian or Brazilian product.

In Canada. we focus on primarily bos taurus genetics and grain finishing systems.

Many other countries in the export business have more grass-based growth and finishing programs with a larger percentage of bos indicus genetics involved.

What does any of this have to do with cellphones or Africa?

When I was a kid, we had a party line and a rotary phone. I remember getting a 20-foot cord for the handset and being able to talk in both the kitchen and the living room.

In the 1990s, we got a new phone line and a touch tone phone, still connected to the wall. This new phone line even let us access the internet from a slow dial-up connection.

From there we evolved over time to cellphones and eventually to the iPhone on which I rely heavily today.

Making calls is the least of what I use my phone for. Over time, our farm went from a shared line to having high speed internet in our pocket nearly anywhere on Earth.

During this same time period, much of the continent of Africa went from having little to no phone service to leapfrogging us and starting with 5G cell service.

They never went through the evolution with which we might be familiar. Instead, they started at the leading edge of the technology curve, which while carrying a large expense, was still a fraction of the investment in other parts of the world that were working around and supporting legacy infrastructure.

I think this is a good example of what I see happening in the beef industry.

Other countries are moving into the grain-finished export space and are not going through the same process as us.

Instead, our emerging global competitors can access genetics through artificial insemination and embryo transfer on the cattle side, build state of the art facilities with leading edge technologies, employ new techniques such as genomics and advanced management strategies, access elite cropping genetics and build data and information systems to support these efforts.

Also, importantly, they are somewhat unhindered by legacy infrastructure and industry “norms” that may limit their speed of development.

Many of these countries are also well-positioned in terms of regulations, support of trade and research capacity to rapidly improve and increase their market presence.

A lot of the historic disadvantages we think about are rapidly becoming non-existent.

What does this mean for Canada?

The pace of change globally in terms of development and evolving trade is an intimidating whirlwind. Despite advances, Canada is still in a first-mover position with well-developed infrastructure and a quality product.

At the national and provincial government levels, it is important not to take our eye off the ball. Instead, we need to push for:

Free and fair trade agreements.

Sensible, fast and tough regulatory frameworks.

Trade support and intelligent investment in research.

On a farm level, we need to continue to focus on quality and efficiency and adoption of technologies that make this easier and more cost effective.

Perhaps most importantly is personal education and development that increases our global awareness and on-farm management skills, and the adoption of a co-operative attitude, considering most of our legacy operations in Canada are not large enough to “go it alone” in a global context.

If we can avoid complacency as an industry, there is tremendous opportunity available, but it will take a concerted effort to retain a leadership position. The future is bright if we don’t let ourselves be held back by our phone cord.