Saskatchewan agriculture minister Eric Upshall has always said it’s up to producers to decide how to market their hogs.
But last week, he introduced legislation allowing the government to change the structure of provincial marketing boards, including SPI, and have final say in such decisions.
Upshall told reporters the legislation takes care of both ends of the issue.
If a marketing agency comes to the government and says it no longer wants a single desk, the government has the ability to remove it, he explained.
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On the other hand, “if there was a situation where a large packing plant were to come into Saskatchewan and say, ‘We will locate here but we don’t want single desk,’ then the government will have to go to producers and say, ‘Here’s what’s being said, what do you think?’ and at the end of the day the government has to have the right to decide the economics of the province,” Upshall said.
However, he added he favors working with producers to make a decision.
“What I’m doing right now is listening to SPI,” he said. “It appears they’re very close to making some decisions on that. It appears to me that the sentiment would be sort of moving away from the single desk.
“The producers aren’t dumb. They know that legislated or not, they need to have a marketing body, a large group, to protect themselves against the packers picking them off one at a time and paying premiums to some and not others.”
He denied the amendments were being introduced to attract Maple Leaf Foods, which is searching for a new packing plant site.
Upshall said the province once had the powers the amendments will provide, but an amendment in 1990 inadvertently took them away.
“Every other province has it,” Upshall said. “Think of this. If there’s an opportunity, a company comes in that’s looking at Saskatchewan, Alberta and Manitoba, we don’t have the same powers of government. That puts our province at a big disadvantage.”
