The U.S. based National Pork Producers Council is denouncing a request by Canadian pork producers for a government backed Canadian Hog Industry Strategic Transition Plan.
The Canadian Pork Council has asked Ottawa to back a combination of loan programs to help Canada’s pork producers deal with a range of economic challenges and payments to those producers who agree to cull sows and exit the industry.
National Pork Producers Council vice president and council for international trade policy Nick Giordano points out U.S. producers are also suffering and in fact are facing the worst financial situation ever in the U.S. hog industry.
U.S. producers are uncomfortable with the Canadian government bailing out Canadian producers.
It’s not so much as our friends north of the border are getting help from our government and we’re not going to get that sort of help.
It’s more based on, if our friends north of the border get that sort of help what’s the impact going to be on us.
That’s where the rub is for U.S. producers and unfortunately the impact would be very significant.
If this 800 million dollar bailout package were approved and implemented by the Canadian government, the analysis that we have suggests that U.S. live hog prices will fall by seven percent.
Of course in this environment where we’ve already got the worst financial situation we’ve ever had in the industry I don’t think it should be too difficult for people to understand why U.S. producers are uncomfortable with this huge bailout package.
Giordano says the bottom line is, if Canadian producers receive a big bailout package from their government that’s going to transfer the suffering from Canada to the U.S. and that would be a bitter pill for U.S. producers to swallow.
Source: Farmscape.Ca
