The Chairman of Manitoba Pork Council says the common concerns related to the impact of U.S. Mandatory Country of Origin Labelling have helped unite pork producers on both sides of the Canada U.S. border.
Pork producers from Canada and the U.S. met yesterday in Minneapolis to discuss the impact U.S. Mandatory Country of Origin Labelling is having is having on producers on both sides of the border.
Manitoba Pork Council Chairman Karl Kynoch says the new Labelling regulations have slowed the movement of Canadian pigs into the U.S. resulting in barns on both sides of the border going empty resulting in reduced production and threatening to disrupt U.S. exports and potentially resulting in the closure of U.S. packing plants.
They’re concerned that they’re going to lose some of their processing industry.
If we go back when the BSE hit and the border got closed to cattle and they didn’t have as many cattle coming south it didn’t take very long and there was three of their major plants closed down and they never did re-open so it’s a huge concern.
Maybe the short term gain, you’ll see a little bit of pressure looking for pigs but long term the producers we were talking to, they know that eventually if the processing plants aren’t running to full capacity and they lose one or two of them, they’re going to be right back to where they’re pressured again for shackle space so a very huge concern about their processing industry not running efficiently without the pigs and actually losing that capacity.
For example Morrell’s has come out and they’ve stated that, after the end of this month, they’re not going to buy any more Canadian pigs and they used to be a large buyer of Canadian pigs.
There’s speculation in the U.S., they’re wondering if Morrell’s doesn’t keep those plants running full with Canadian pigs, where are they going to get them?
If they can’t get U.S. pigs are they going to close a plant?
There’s always concern that somebody somewhere is going to shut down a plant.
Kynoch says the hurt resulting from Mandatory COOL has been similar for Canadian and American producers and the common concerns have actually strengthened relations between the two industries.
He says the longer the issue drags out the more producers that will be lost on both sides of the border.
Source: Farmscape.Ca
