It hit like an attack on prairie hog producer pride.
Last month, Ontario Pork chair Carl Moore told a roomful of Toronto bankers not to invest too much time or money in the prairie hog industry.
The region, he said, has a long history of being an unreliable hog producer, using pigs as a substitute when grain prices are low, but then going back to grain when prices increase.
Moore’s comments, for which he later apologized, drew an almost unanimous rebuttal from the Prairies.
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The message flowing from the West to eastern bankers, investors and hog industry people is that the prairie hog industry has changed. It no longer is a temporary substitute for anything.
“Every year that goes by, there is less and less of that,” said Alberta hog producer Jim Smith, a former president of the Canadian Pork Council.
“I think that mentality has been changing for years and the fact that the banks are putting up money for bigger hog barns tells me they see us as a serious long-term business.”
Gerry Moore of the Manitoba government’s economic development board said the proof of the change is the size and scope of investment.
“We’re talking about multi-million dollar barns being built and very large processing plants,” he said. “With that kind of capital involved, it is not conditional investment.”
He said the Maple Leaf Foods announcement of a $112 million plant in Brandon, Man. is the latest example of investor confidence in the sector.
In the recent past, the industry has evolved from being dominated by grain farmers holding small pig herds to large, concentrated operations with 650 sows or more.
When Ontario’s Moore, who is also vice-chair of the Canadian Pork Council, realized the force of the prairie storm that blew up after his criticism, he sent a letter to prairie newspapers apologizing.
“Our Canadian industry is in a period of robust growth and I look forward to giving my best efforts on behalf of the total Canadian hog industry,” he wrote.
Yet in a later interview, he said there will continue to be production fluctuations.
“The hog industry historically has been a cyclical industry and I believe the hog cycle still is alive and well,” he said. “When feed prices are low, production can expand on a farm by between 10 and 20 percent. The reverse is true when prices are high.”
Gerry Friesen, chair of Manitoba Pork, disagreed. Hog plants are being built with the expectation that production will be predictable, he said.
“I just don’t believe there will be that kind of fluctuation, or at least we haven’t seen it in Manitoba,” he said. “In 1996, we had $4 barley and we still saw an expansion of the industry.”
