HALDIMAND—What does $2,425 buy you these days at the Hagersville Auction Centre? As of August 17, 2026, that is the price of a single beef-dairy cross bull calf.
The price marks a dramatic increase in the value of cattle, and ultimately beef products in the meat section at your local grocery store, driven by tight cattle supplies, strong consumer demand, and rising costs across the beef industry.
There are fewer beef cattle and beef farmers in Haldimand than there were 20 years ago, according to father-and-son farmers Bruce and Elliott Armstrong. They believe this is caused by the expected return on investment.
“It’s the profitability of row crops,” Elliott said. “When you drive around the countryside, you see a lot of corn, soybeans, and wheat. On a per-acre analysis, those crops are easier to grow. You only have to grow them through the summertime. You don’t have to care for them through the winter. They’re less labour-intensive and they net more profit per unit of land.”
That has steadily changed the agricultural landscape, he said, adding, “Until cows make more money than soybeans, there’s going to be more soybeans than cows.”
At the same time, demand for beef remains strong, helping drive cattle prices upward.
Elliott, a member of Haldimand Cattlemen’s Association and an advisory councillor with Beef Farmers of Ontario, said the Ontario beef market is part of the larger North American market.
He said farmers are seeing some of that profit through the increased price of cattle, but it’s not a fully equal share.
“You’ve got to remember that the farmer is the last guy to be making profit,” Bruce said. “He’s the first guy to sell, but the last guy to make profit in the chain.”
While farmers may be receiving more dollars for their cattle than in previous years, Bruce said higher operational costs have eaten into those gains. Fuel, fertilizer, machinery, and land have all become more expensive, adding pressure to farms already operating in a volatile market.
Some producers have turned to the private freezer market, selling quarters, halves, or whole animals directly to consumers, but Bruce said that remains a limited niche.
Another pressure facing Ontario’s beef industry is limited processing capacity, Elliott said.
“As a province, we make more cattle than there are butcher shops to process them,” he said. This leaves farmers dependent on a relatively small number of large processors and, in some cases, increasingly long transportation routes.
While Elliott clarified that Haldimand is a little better positioned than other regions, thanks to several smaller butcher shops locally, he said larger processors, such as Cargill in Guelph, still handle a significant share of Ontario’s finished cattle. Much of that beef is shipped to the US.
Plant closures in the Great Lakes region of the United States have added further pressure, according to Elliott.
“It’s kind of always a fine line,” he said. “Everything’s good in terms of producing these cattle until you can’t process them, and then all of a sudden it kind of comes to a screeching halt.”
Selling live cattle has its own considerations. Local farmers can access an auction facility in Hagersville, but larger markets elsewhere may attract more buyers to drive up bidding. However, getting cattle to markets farther afield drives up transportation costs.
“It seems every time you ship cattle, the cost is higher than it was the last time,” Bruce said.
When it comes time to sell, the farmer has little control.
“We, as farmers in general, are not price makers,” Elliott said. “The price of cattle isn’t necessarily set by the farmer…. It’s mostly set by the processor buying.”
That leaves farmers vulnerable to changes elsewhere in the supply chain, including international trade policy.
Ontario beef farmers have not been specifically targeted by US tariffs, Elliott said, but he warned that potential tariffs on finished cattle entering the United States could be particularly damaging to Ontario producers because of the province’s reliance on American processing capacity.
“It’s a big mess,” Bruce said.
Ultimately, both farmers say consumers may not see the full picture when they encounter a high price for beef at the grocery store.
“The best message that needs to come across to the consumer is that the farmer buys everything retail,” Bruce said. “Every litre of diesel, every seed we plant, fertilizer – we all pay retail price for that.”
Farmers then sell their cattle into a supply chain that includes processors and retailers before the product ever reaches the consumer.
“It’s easy to be mad at the farmer, but there’s a lot of other people with their fingers in making money between when it walks onto a truck on the farm and then arrives as cellophane-packed patties in the store,” Bruce said.
With roughly two years passing between the birth of a calf and when it hits the market, predicting market changes and vulnerabilities is next to impossible for cattle farmers.
Elliott encouraged consumers to support Canadian beef farmers by looking for their products at the grocery store. More information can be found on the Beef Farmers of Ontario website, including a store locator for sourcing locally grown products, at ontbeef.ca.
