The Canadian Pork Council is urging Canadians to eat an extra meal or two per week with pork to help producers cope with the economic impact of the H1N1 Influenza outbreak.
Hog prices have dropped an estimated 20 cents per kilogram because of the H1N1 flu at a time of year when prices should be increasing.
Yesterday, to display to the world that pork is safe, representatives of the Canadian Pork Council and the federal government served a pork barbecue to about 500 guests on Parliament Hill.
CPC Chair Jurgen Preugschas says the Canadian, American and Mexican governments have been extremely active in working together to get borders re-opened to North American pork.
What’s happening at the present time is that out government is concentrating on re-opening the borders of those countries who have chosen to close the borders at the present time.
Today the Philippines are going to announce that their borders will be open again.
They will say that the reason that they close the border was to err on the side of caution.
Now that they have more information, they’re very comfortable that the pork from Canada is safe and they will resume imports immediately.
We do hope that that will happen with other countries, that they will start following suit.
On the domestic side we need the help of Canadians in general.
Canadians need to come to the aid of the family farm right now.
You need to eat an extra meal or two of pork a week and, when you go to the grocery store, ask your grocer that it is Canadian pork that you’re buying to ensure that we can continue to supply this safe and wholesome product in years to come.
Preugschas says Canadians are generally well informed however the hype is driving the issue.
Source: Farmscape.Ca
