The President of Beef Farmers of Ontario sees light at the end of the tunnel related to processing capacity.
For several years producers have dealt with a lack of processing that's kept cattle on the farm too long and cost them money.
But Rob Lipsett says the temporary closure of some processing plants during the pandemic has open government officials' eyes.
"One silver lining of the pandemic was, we spent two years trying to address this with governments and they either didn't acknowledge the problem or didn't understand the problem but as soon as there was a global crisis the problem seemed to make sense to them," said Lipsett.
The Canadian and Ontario governments have invested funds so beef farmers can apply for funding to cover the increased costs feeding market-ready cattle during delays brought on by the pandemic.
Lipsett would like to see more plans for the future.
"They're starting to understand the problem and I would suggest our next step is to really push on them to build some kind of a fund for actual plant expansion so that we could increase our capacity," added Lipsett.
He was a speaker at Beef Day at Grey Bruce Farmers' Week on Wednesday.
