'You've got to live with the down price': Beef future worries farmer

Beef prices are projected to go up this summer, but a P.E.I. cattle farmer says he is hearing different news about what he can expect at the farm gate.

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Low inventories will increase beef prices this year, according to Canada's annual Food Price Report.

Sterling Mitchell has between 400 and 500 head of cattle at his farm in Village Green.

Despite the consumer price forecast, Mitchell said the price he gets dropped more than five per cent this week to $6.01/kg and he expects it will go down again next week.

"You've got to live with the down price, but what bothers the beef farmer, everybody you talk to [says] 'Oh, I heard on the radio beef is going up. That's good for you,'" said Mitchell.

A representative with P.E.I. Cattle Producers says the Island's beef prices are based on prices in Ontario and the Chicago Board of Trade, so cattle farmers across the country are seeing the same drop.

Statistics Canada's farm product price index shows that beef prices were rising from October to March, but are still well below where they were last year.

In the first quarter of last the price index averaged 220.1 but this year it was 184.5, down 16 per cent.

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