The Manager of Sustainable Development Programs with Manitoba Pork reports there’s interest in building new hog barns coming in from right across the province.
To restore the province’s hog production to levels that would allow Manitoba’s pork processors to move closer to capacity Manitoba Pork is coordinating efforts to encourage investment in new production infrastructure.
Mike Teillet, the Manager of Sustainable Development Programs with Manitoba Pork, reports there are approximately five hog barn applications in the pipeline at this point and eight or ten are expected by spring.
Most of them are feeder operations but we are seeing some interest in, we think at least one sow barn. In order to have a feeder operation you need to be able to get the little pigs so concurrently with raising our capacity to have more pigs for the processing plant we also need to have more sow barns.
We’re getting interest from all over, literally from eastern Manitoba right across to the western side of the province. Right now it’s, right now, slightly more on the expansion side but we’re also getting interest from new producers as well. Some of these are producers who were in hog production some years ago and then got out and are looking to get back in again.
We also have been trying to get some interest among non traditional farm people that aren’t necessarily in hog production or haven’t been like grain farmers and so on. We did meet with some in fact a couple of weeks ago and there is interest out there.
~ Mike Teillet, Manitoba Pork
Teillet estimates at least another million hogs per year are needed to bring the plants to full capacity.
