Canadian hog industry reaches reduction goal early

Tuesday, March 30, 2010

by BETTER FARMING STAFF

A strategy for restructuring Canada’s pork industry released nearly a year ago called for reducing total national pork production to 25.5 million hogs by 2014 from 31 million in 2008. That target may well be reached in 2010, predicted the head of the Canadian Pork Council during this week’s Ontario Pork annual meeting in London.

The main challenge for the country’s pork industry will be “retaining what we have at this point in time,” Jurgen Preugschas, the council’s chair, told meeting delegates.

Preugschas said one of the strategy’s goals is to increase domestic consumption of Canadian-produced pork. Canada imports 200,000 tonnes annually, primarily from the United States. The strategy aims to increase the country’s annual consumption of domestic pork by 150,000 tonnes by 2014.

The council wants provincial associations to support the introduction of a national levy on pork imports to use for promotion and research in Canada. Preugschas said the idea comes from a similar levy the United States imposes on the hogs and pork products it imports.

“Canadian hog producers pay more for promotion and research in the United States than they do in Canada because of those levies,” he said, noting the initiative would not mean a higher levy for Canadian producers.

The council also wants to form a national promotional organization to generate greater consumer awareness of Canadian pork. Programs such as the on-farm food safety Canadian Quality Assurance program and an animal care assessment tool to be developed in partnership with the National Farm animal Care Council would become key tools to help with promotion, at home and abroad.

“We realize that we’ve been fairly fortunate in Canada not having huge pressure from some of the animal rights groups unlike Europe or the United States,” he said. However, the assessment tool is needed “so that when we have questions they can be addressed quickly and our customers can be comfortable that the animals we’re raising are raised under proper conditions.”

Exports remain a main focus for the Canadian’s long-term recovery strategy, with one million tonnes a year being the eventual goal.

The council is pushing the federal government to develop a trade agreement with the European Union; it would also like to see a trade agreement reached with Korea.

Preugschas fielded plenty of questions from delegates about problems to do with product labelling, Canadian Food Inspection Agency monitoring of imports, Canadian consumers’ lack of awareness about the origins of the pork they eat, and federal government programs intended to help the pork industry through the crisis.

But it was his recommendation that producers consider the development of a national investment fund to help the industry remain sustainable that drew the toughest objections from some meeting delegates.

“In Ontario, there is a strong movement for RMP (risk management plan) or cost of production across all non-supply managed commodities,” said one producer who did not give his name. “What we need in Ontario and quite likely a lot of the other provinces, is 60 per cent funding (from the federal government) for cost of production.”

Preugschas agreed it’s important to keep pushing governments on business risk programs. “But I think we need to look further and beyond that,” to be sustainable without government aid. BF