Cover Story

Roger Harley and his family believe in humane, sustainable production. So they raise their pigs outside year-round, in small huts, on pasture, and feed them a ration with a high percentage of forage. It’s a recipe customers seem to like

by DON STONEMAN

In a collaborative research effort, a consortium of pig breeders is working to develop a credit-card-sized chip that will enable them to analyze DNA for health and disease-resistance traits and other desirable qualities tailored to their customers’ needs

by DON STONEMAN

While Canada’s troubled pork industry lurches from crisis to crisis, research dollars continue to be poured into it. Some projects will provide some cost or productivity relief soon, while others will take some time to have an effect for producers. Here’s a sampling of some of the research underway across Canada.

by DON STONEMAN

Some way, somehow, U.S. pork producers ‘are going to get these programs disciplined,’ says a spokesman for the National Pork Producers Council. But Canadian industry insiders challenge some of the NPPC’s conclusions

by DON STONEMAN

Canada’s pork producers are looking to governments to help stave off yet another financial crisis. Meanwhile, the pressure is on from their competitors south of the border to get rid of the safety nets that are already there.

Activist campaigning has already led to a move away from gestation stalls in the United States and now Ontario is beginning to feel the impact. But, here at least, change is mainly industry-led

by DON STONEMAN

As the pressure to get gestation stalls out of pork production systems across North America comes to bear in Ontario Dave Van Moorsel wonders whether his solution will work for larger scale producers.

Some insiders are suggesting forward contracting as a defense against falling prices and the Farm Credit Corporation considers it a useful tool. But not all lenders are comfortable with the idea

by DON STONEMAN                       

If the pork price downturn this spring slammed your operation’s income because you didn’t have pigs hedged to cover your costs, you are not alone.

The new marketing arrangements have brought sizeable changes at Ontario Pork, but for hog producers, the transition has been relatively smooth. Even those most committed to single desk marketing say that not a lot has changed

by MARY BAXTER

The Stam family of Jarvis signed on for a regional PRRS elimination and control pilot project in the hope that it would help them lick the disease. And, for a while, they thought they had succeeded

by Mary Baxter

Tony Stam first encountered Porcine Reproductive and Respiratory Syndrome in 1997 when he learned that a shipment of semen contained the virus.

Many pork producers are taking a welcome breather and enjoying reasonable returns after the string of crises that has hit the industry in the last decade. Most are carrying more debt than before and, for some, it is a millstone that will be hard to slough off. Debt is certainly a looming issue for the 400 hog producers who haven’t paid back their nearly four-year-old ACC loans.

Animal welfare groups have targeted the province and livestock experts are concerned that what happens there will set a precedent for the rest of the country

by DON STONEMAN

Before the National Farmers Union (NFU) held its national convention in London in late November, member Rock Geluk, a Kent County organic pork producer, looked over the Manitoba chapter’s resolution calling for the banning of dry sow stalls by 2017 and decided he could support it.