Manitoba will spend $500,000 to help process 5,000 surplus sows under the federal sow cull program so the meat can be distributed to provincial food banks.
The carcasses will be ground into hamburger and given away by Winnipeg Harvest, Manitoba’s largest food bank.
Manitoba agriculture minister Rosann Wowchuk said in a news release that a similar program was used to distribute excess beef during the BSE crisis.
The program could make more than 150,000 kilograms of pork available to food banks.
“Many Manitoba families continue to struggle with low incomes and access to food,” said David Northcott, executive co-ordinator of Winnipeg Harvest, which along with the Manitoba Association of Food Banks would distribute the meat through the province’s 38 food banks.
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Northcott said Winnipeg soup kitchens offer 2,400 hot meals a day and 5,000 food hampers a week.
Winnipeg Harvest could distribute about 15 tonnes of pork sausage per month, he added.
The organization has also pledged to attempt to match some of the provincial funding, which could increase the amount of meat available.
The sow cull program is designed to alleviate the hog industry’s income crisis by reducing the national herd by 10 percent but stipulates that the meat cannot be marketed through regular channels.
As a result, most of it will be turned into pet food.
Manitoba Pork Council chair Karl Kynoch applauded the government’s move, noting that hog producers have long supported food banks by donating sausages and roasts.
Each December, the council gives away the roughly 65 carcasses entered in the annual Pork Quality Competition held during Hog & Poultry Days.
“We are very pleased that the provincial government has put forward the funds to help turn some of this meat into food for hungry Manitobans, instead of it going to rendering plants,” Kynoch said.
Cara Dary, manager of quality assurance and technical services with Alberta Pork, said the industry in that province is with Alberta Agriculture and the provincial food banks on how to pay for the further processing of the cull sows to allow the animals to be used through the food bank program.
“We’re trying to figure out the amount that will be processed and who will cover the costs,” said Dary.
The program only pays for killing and rendering the animals. Alberta Pork is looking to the provincial government and the food banks to pay the extra costs of processing the meat for food bank donations.
“Ideally all of them would be going for food bank donations,” she said.
Dary said the cull sows would likely be funneled to two plants in Alberta capable of processing sows.
