Manitoba Pork Council is calling on the province’s pork producers to write personal letters to government and on the public to support producers by understanding the situation and by buying pork.
Canadian pork producers continue to lose an estimated 30 to 50 dollars on every hog they raise.
Between 500 and 600 producers and industry stakeholders turned out for a public meeting Monday night in Morris to discuss the crisis and to interact with provincial MLAs and federal MPs.
Manitoba Pork Council chair Karl Kynoch says the goal was to examine possible options and to get producers’ message back to government.
In the past we’ve went forward with asks to both our provincial governments and federal governments.
Our provincial government, we had actually put an ask in that they come forward and that they match the Saskatchewan program of 20 dollars a hog and about ten dollars per weanling.
We had asked that our government match that as our government is the only one that hasn’t actually helped out the producers across Canada and we’ve been straight out refused that ask.
We also went to the federal government as everybody knows and we’ve asked for about a 30 dollar cash injection into the hog industry for a certain period and it was very obvious last week when minister Ritz had actually came out publicly and said that there would be no cash injection into the hog industry.
So basically we’re sitting last week with nothing on the table anymore.
All of our asks have been refused both provincially and federally.
So we really felt we needed to bring all the producers together and bring government together with the producers to allow them to be able to hear first hand from the producers what’s really going on at the grassroots and allow government the opportunity to explain their situation and see if we can come up with some ideas to work together and move forward.
Kynoch encourages producers to send personally written letters and emails and make telephone calls to their MLAs and MPs outlining what they’re experiencing and on the public to understand the situation and to demonstrate their support by buying pork.
Source: Farmscape.Ca
