CLAMOURING FOR CATTLE
Surging demand for Canada’s bull genetics is breeding higher prices for bovine sperm
Talk about a bullish market.
Canada’s 221,000 studly cattle are proving an increasingly potent product around the globe, with nearly100 countries clamouring for a piece of the action. The country’s well-regarded cattle genetics, combined with surging demand from emerging markets, have helped boost sales of bovine mojo to all-time highs, one vial at a time.
Annual exports of cattle semen shot up to $125 million in the past five years, rising 68 per cent between 2010 and 2014, according to figures from Statistics Canada.
Paul Larmer, CEO of Semex, said his company’s bull semen vials (“like a little cocktail straw”) as well as embryos, shipped by air in cryogenic containers filled with liquid nitrogen, touched down for purchase in 85 countries last year.
“Canada is one of the most respected countries for its genetics, both dairy and beef,” said Larmer, also the chair of Royal Agricultural Winter Fair, which wraps up this weekend at the Canadian National Exhibition.
Semex, the largest livestock genetics organization in Canada with more than1,800 employees, broke its own sales record in 2014, doling out 12 million pencil-sized vials courtesy of its 1,400 bulls. Those sires reside at its three production centres across the country, the largest sitting a few kilometres north of Guelph, Ont., at the hub of the company’s international distribution network.
“Canada has always been sought after as a very elite genetic offering,” said Roger Turner, head sales manager at Illinois’ Jetstream Genetics and show-runner at the Royal Winter Fair cow auction Thursday night.
That’s increasingly true for emerging markets from China to Brazil, which continue to fuel rising demand for bull semen.
Exports of the liquid semen to China hit $11 million in 2014, more than four times the amount from just three years earlier. China leapt from seventh- to third- largest importer of Canadian dairy genetics between 2010 and 2014, and the top importer of beef cattle semen.
China imports about 100,000 live cattle a year, primarily from Australia. That number cannot sufficiently supply the large dairies or reassure Chinese consumers of their milk’s quality, said Amber Craswell, a PEI dairy farmer who helps organize the auction.
Hence the high exports of semen and embryos. China is the numbertwo buyer of cattle embryo purchases, behind Australia, out of Canada’s $12.6 million in sales abroad.
The U.S. remains Canada’s number-one buyer of bull semen, shipping in $40 million of the stuff last year: nearly double the 2010 figure and a 34 per cent uptick from 2013 alone.
Brazil ranked fourth, after the Netherlands.