Canfax Research Services (CRS) is proud to present the Canadian Cow-calf Cost of Production Network (CDN COP Network), funded by the Beef Cattle Research Council (BCRC) and delivered in partnership with our provincial partners.

The CDN COP Network will host producer focus groups across Canada, consisting of 3-6 producers representing different eco-regions and production systems in each.

The objective is to develop baseline cost of production statistics in a way that minimizes the response burden on producers. Annual indexing means that producer data is collected every five years.

Scenarios will be developed considering what future farms could look like utilizing the 5% Rule approach to evaluate where incremental improvements could be made around productivity, input costs and output prices. This would be mindful of the fact that different farms have different limitations on land, labour and capital.

Producers within the focus groups will be encouraged to network in achieving the future farm results over the coming 3-5 years, supporting industry competitiveness and an attitude of continuous improvement that seeks out new innovations and management practices.

Participating producers will receive a $500 honorarium at the focus group session, one per operation. All individual results will be confidential and remain anonymous.

There will be sessions in every province from British Columbia to Prince Edward Island. Producers from all provinces (including Alberta) need to fill in the sign-up survey. Alberta producers must provide a data release form for the use of their AgriProfit$ data, as the AgriProfit$ program is feeding into the CDN COP Network. For all producers, if you are interested in participating:

1. Fill in the appropriate Sign-up Survey by November 30, 2022. These questions allow us to group 5-6 producers who operate in similar environments and have similar production systems. 

2. Come ready to share. The CDN COP Network Checklist for Producers provides a summary of the type of information that will be asked.

3. Come ready to learn. The focus group allows producers the opportunity to learn from each other.

The CDN COP Network will provide:

• Baseline data for different types of cow-calf operations across Canada to benchmark from
• Future Farm scenarios for each of these baseline farms to identify opportunities
• Collaborative research projects are being built to find:
  • Win-win solutions that both reduce cow-calf greenhouse gas emissions and make economic sense.
  • Baseline dairy-beef production in Atlantic Canada