Cattlemen want federal plan to transfer community pastures to Prairies delayed

The Canadian Cattlemen's Association is calling on Ottawa to delay its plan to transfer control of 900,000 hectares of community pasture to the Prairie provinces. The federal government wants to shift responsibility for these pastures to the provinces over six years starting in 2013. Cattlemen's president Martin Unrau says the association wants a one-year delay to give producers who graze their cattle on these pastures more time to plan for the transition. Ranchers are also worried about the environmental consequences of the switch. "They have built their whole operations around being able to take cattle to these places so people's livelihoods are at stake," Unrau said Wednesday from his farm near MacGregor, Man. The association supports the transfer but wants assurances the pastures, which could be sold off by the provinces, are maintained as designated agricultural land for cattle grazing...more

If only we could get our feds to do this...