The governments of Canada and Manitoba have announced a three year 26 million dollar program to help Manitoba pork producers prepare for new provincial environmental regulations due to take effect in November 2013.
In March 2008 the Manitoba government announced it would extend a ban on the winter spreading of livestock manure to all operations by 2013, ending the exemption for smaller operators and promised to provide transition assistance to help producers adapt, as part of its plan to clean up Lake Winnipeg.
Yesterday federal agriculture minister Gerry Ritz and provincial agriculture minister Stan Struthers announced 26.3 million dollars have been allocated to assist producers with the cost of building or repairing manure storage structures and adopting manure treatment systems that will help them protect water.
Stan Struthers says we all share responsibility for protecting our water and we recognize the challenges the pork industry has faced.
Some of these structures that need to be put in place are very expensive and we know that hog producers have been under the gun.
They’ve been dealing with trade sanctions such as the Country of Origin Labelling, their input costs keep going up, we have a dollar that is high and works against pork producers and of course the price.
Now there’s some optimism about pricing even on the hog side but still hog producers have been putting up with low prices for their product for a period of time now so we think that, if we’re going to be moving towards proper storage and proper handling of manure, then I think there’s a good case to be made for society to help out, especially since it will mean cleaner lakes and water protection and working towards the rehabilitation of Lake Winnipeg.
Struthers says while the creation of this program is good economics for the farmer, it’s also good for water protection, protection of Lake Winnipeg and other rivers, lakes and streams in Manitoba.
For Farmscape.Ca
