The General Manager of Manitoba Pork says ensuring an open flow of North American pork products into the international market helps secure better prices for pork producers in both Canada and the United States.
International trade will be among the topics discussed as pork producers from around the world gather for World Pork Expo Wednesday, Thursday and Friday in Des Moines.
Manitoba Pork General Manager Andrew Dickson, who will be on hand for the event, says how things will work with regards to the North American Free Trade Agreement is foremost on the minds of pork producers on both sides of the Canada U.S. border.
Both countries have been very satisfied with how that’s been working out and essentially the basic response is leave this well alone. It’s working well and we hear that repeatedly from our counterparts in the United States. We don’t want to see unintended consequences happening in this sector. Both countries are very much focused on international agreements in terms of trying to get product out of the North American market. That will help raise the price for all producers in the United States and in Canada and it’s particularly important to us because there’s no such thing as a Canadian market price.
Everything’s based on U.S. formulas and if the American producer is getting a good price then Canadian producers will automatically get a better price for their product. It’s important to keep up those discussions with producers so we’re aware of anything that might be coming down the pipeline and we’ll make sure it gets dealt with in Ottawa if need be.
~ Andrew Dickson, Manitoba Pork
Dickson acknowledges we know there are issues in other sectors, including the supply managed commodities and the automotive industry as well as regulatory issues in terms of intellectual rights, government contracts and those sorts of things but we don’t want to see something that would affect the current healthy relationship we have on trade in pork.
