Manitoba’s Minister of Conservation, Bill Blaikie, will be seeking clarity on commitments being made by the province’s pork producers to improve the long term economic and environmental sustainability of their industry.
Last month Manitoba Pork Council released the plan “Embracing a Sustainable Future,” the vision of the province’s pork producers for the long term sustainability of pork production in Manitoba.
Bill Blaikie, the minister of conservation for Manitoba, says he hopes to meet with pork producers by the end of this month to further discuss the plan.
I think there’s a lot of language in the report that I would certainly find agreeable with respect to sustainability and goals that they have for themselves but of course there’s a need to know more about the details of just how those goals will be met, how things will be implemented.
There’s 82 commitments in the report.
Some of them are rather detailed so we’re still having a look at what some of them might actually mean and, of course, I hope to get more clarity on those things that I need more clarity on when I meet with the pork council.
It’s an extensive report and I’ve instructed my staff to look at these commitments.
There may be questions that we have for them in terms of greater clarity about what these recommendations might actually mean because a lot of language in the report about encouraging people to do things.
We might want to know what encouragement means.
Is that something that they’re all going to agree to do, is it just up to individual producers?
But, as I say, the meeting will be an opportunity for us to get clarity on what some of those commitments mean and it’ll also be an opportunity for them to highlight for us what recommendations and or commitments they want us to respond to most quickly.
Blaikie says the release of the plan in and of itself is not grounds for reconsideration of the moratorium on hog barn expansion in much of the province.
He notes there are provisions within the legislation related to exemptions but the report doesn’t change government policy.
Source: Farmscape.Ca
