Ottawa, Ontario, October 24, 2021 - Over the past several months, federal, provincial and territorial governments have been working closely with the Canadian Pork Council, producers, processors and others to carefully assess the challenges facing the hog sector in Canada. High feed costs coupled with low hog prices have resulted in increased pressure for hog producers in recent months.
Governments recognize the pork industry as an important driver of our economy. The Canadian pork industry generated close to four billion dollars in farm cash receipts in 2011; Canadian producers exported $3.6 billion worth of live hogs and pork.
"Supporting the industry's long-term viability benefits all Canadians," said federal Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz. "That's why, after meeting with industry leaders earlier this summer, we formed a government-industry task team to examine the state of the sector more closely and to monitor the industry going forward."
The Hog Industry Task Team, which includes leadership from the Canadian Pork Council (CPC) and the Canadian Meat Council, pork processors and producers, was formed to develop a common understanding of the challenges facing the sector and to look at possible solutions to address them, including working to ensure the sector makes full use of existing programs. Provinces and financial institutions have also been engaged in these ongoing discussions. There is broad consensus among industry and market analysts, both in Canada and abroad, that market conditions for hog producers will improve by the spring of 2013.
“We continue to work with our federal-provincial counterparts and our Saskatchewan industry representatives to address the issues facing the hog industry,” Saskatchewan Agriculture Minister Lyle Stewart said. “We are committed to exploring all options and fast tracking funding through existing programs to provide hog producers with the support they need to get through this current market downturn.”
Based on discussions of the task team and federal-provincial-territorial deliberations, government and industry officials have agreed on the following immediate actions to help the hog sector deal with short term financial pressures:
"These are the recommended programs that producers can currently access to address liquidity pressures", said Jean-Guy Vincent, Chair of the CPC. "Pork producers are also dealing with the accumulated impacts of the higher Canadian dollar and U.S. country-of-origin labelling (COOL) legislation, and we will continue to advance ideas through the task force on what additional actions may be required until stronger market conditions return."
The work of the Hog Industry Task Team will continue as it explores ways to increase sector competitiveness in the mid to long term. All agree that measures must respect international agreements, treat all commodities and regions fairly and must not mask market signals.
For more information, visit the program web sites:
www.agr.gc.ca/agristability
www.agr.gc.ca/agriinvest
www.agr.gc.ca/app
For more information:
Media Relations
Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada
Ottawa, Ontario
613-773-7972
1-866-345-7972
Jonathan Tremblay
Agriculture
Regina
306-787-5155
Cell: 306-529-4199
[email protected]
Jeff English
Press Secretary
The Office of the Honourable Gerry Ritz
613-773-1059
Gary Stordy
Canadian Pork Council
613-236-9239, Ext. 277
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