Differences in Production Costs Across Compliance Scenarios for Canadian Cow-Calf Producers Accessing the EU Market

Abstract

Using the 2016 Canada EU Trade Agreement as context, we develop a systems dynamics model to assess changes in the cost of production from a production system oriented toward the North American market where growth enhancing products are allowed, to a European market where these production practices are banned. We outline four different compliance scenarios and use data from western Canadian institutions to estimate how the cost of production for cow-calf producers changes in the different compliance scenarios. We find that compliance costs ranged from $2.13 per head for those firms who already had forgone growth enhancing products and were maintaining detailed records to $34.78 per head for farms who were least compliant with EU standards.