The Ranchers Choice Beef Cooperative has asked the province to dramatically increase its financial contribution to the proposed cattle slaughtering facility, and the province has said no.
Manitoba Agriculture Minister Rosann Wowchuk met with Ranchers Choice board members Thursday morning and told them the province’s commitment to invest $4.5 million in equity and make another $10 million loan available is still on the table.
But Ranchers Choice is now looking for $18.5 million in equity and needs the province to guarantee $17 million in loans.
The province’s refusal to up the ante throws the project into even more uncertainty than had been the case.
“There are no other partners at the table,” Wowchuk said. “This would mean this would be a government plant and producers have said all along that’s not what they wanted.”
The initiative started when the U.S. border closed to Canadian cattle because of a detected case of BSE disease in 2003. Manitoba ranchers were left with only one option — moving their cattle about 800 kilometres to get to a slaughter facility.
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