It’s a 20 year success story.
The Ontario Feeder Cattle Co-Operative Program recently celebrated its 20 anniversary of helping members purchase cattle.
Cheryl Russwurm is the Program Supervisor and says they modeled the Ontario Program after similar co ops in Saskatchewan and Alberta.
She says the Co op offers farmers a much better lending deal than other financial institutions and they only have to put up a five per cent assurance deposit for their purchases.
Russwurm says the cattle are bought and sold in the name of the co op and at the end of the day, the co op takes what it needs to cover any principal and interest payments, and the remaining proceeds are forwarded to the member.
She says if the cattle have done well and the markets have been positive, the farmers could see a substantial return on their investment.
Russwurm says since the inception of the program back in 1990, more than 1.25 million cattle have been purchased by more than 3000 members.
Last year alone, 103 thousand head were purchased through the Feeder Cattle Program.
Russwurm says at the moment they have an 80 million dollar loan limit from the Ministry of Agriculture, but they are hoping to increase that limit to help some co ops grow to be larger.
Currently there are 19 of the co-ops across Ontario — including the six original ones located in Grey, Bruce, Huron, Perth and Simcoe Counties.
