Photo from the Peace Country Beef Congress Facebook page.

By Curtis Galbraith

Agriculture

Peace Country Beef Congress starts Friday

Jan 10, 2020 | 5:30 AM

More than 100 cattle will be on display at this year’s Peace Country Beef Congress.

The 22nd edition of the annual show gets going at 10 a.m. Friday at Dawson Creek’s Lakoda Agri-Plex.

President Keegan Scorgie says entries are down a bit this year after hitting a record 130 head last year.

“You know, we’ve had a really tough fall, a tough harvest, and people are still behind, so they’re still working on catching up from that tough fall. But, at 105 head, I think for the year, we have to be pretty happy. We’re pretty thankful for our producers. They will come out and showcase their cattle no matter what.”

Scorgie adds ranchers did get a lot of feed, although the quality was downgraded because of the poor conditions last year.

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He adds many exhibitors will also have cows calving at home, but they will be getting some help during this busy time, both from hired hands and neighbours.

“Neighbours step in and watch cattle. Not as many people I would say are calving in the January-February month anymore. (It’s) mainly just our purebred guys and the odd commercial producer. I think if they are going to be at the show, I know family steps up huge, maybe the younger generations bring the cattle to town and Mom and Dad staying at home and watching the cattle or the neighbours stepping in and taking their turns checking the cattle.”

Scorgie says the cattle business is great that way because someone is always willing to help. He adds the first two weeks of calving went well at his operation as the weather co-operated earlier on before the cold set in. As of Wednesday, his place had 40 calves on the ground.

Scorgie adds cattle markets have been good recently.

“The markets through the fall were actually pretty strong. I think we can’t complain about that. They definitely held their own. Coming into the new year, it’ll be nice to see what the cull cow market will do. I don’t think we’ll see a lot of cattle trade here in the first month or anything, but I think futures are decent and cattle markets are holding their own which is kind of nice to see. Hopefully, we see cull cows come up a bit.”

Day one at the Congress will be based around programs for youth, something Scorgie says is important as they need to get young people interested in working in agriculture. Saturday will be busy with purebred and commercial cattle shows.

Admission to the Peace Country Beef Congress is free. A complete schedule can be found here.