Manitoba Pork Council says it’ll take a concerted effort on the part of pork industry stakeholders and government to come up with the solutions necessary to address the economic crisis facing Canada’s swine industry.
Manitoba Pork Council has slated a pork industry meeting for Monday in Morris to allow producers, industry stakeholders and Manitoba and federal government representatives to discuss the economic situation facing pork producers and possible solutions.
Council Chair Karl Kynoch says the price of meat is so low that producers are losing about 40 dollars on every hog they raise.
The pork industry right now here is basically on the brink of collapse.
Some of the producers in the industry, they’re about to lose everything here right now going forward as prices have really bottomed out.
We’re going to see a lot of job losses and in turn this is going to affect a lot of small communities.
On top of that there’s going to be a huge effect with the feed companies, with the trucking industry and with the veterinarians.
All of these industries are going to suffer just due to the crisis that the hog industry is going through.
So we need to make sure that we have government involved and we need to have producers involved.
This has to be a very united front between both industry and government to try to see what we can do to make this industry viable again.
We’ve approached government with a short term plan and some long term but government is really looking to us for some long term plans and that’s what we’re always trying to put together.
How can we show them where we’ll be in a year from now?
That’s a real challenge when you’re dealing with a live commodity, it’s a perishable commodity that’s being sold on the world market.
Hopefully at this meeting government can bring us some ideas, maybe producers can bring us some ideas but we really have to work together as both industry and government to get out of this mess.
The rally will begin with a pork barbecue at the Southern Manitoba Convention Centre in Morris Monday at 5:30 p.m. and the meeting will begin at 7:00 p.m..
Kynoch encourages everyone that makes a living from the pork industry, whether it’s barn operators, employees or industry partners, to attend.
Source: Farmscape.Ca
