LEDUC, Alta. – Alberta pork producers are seeking short-term aid to pull them through an unprecedented economic crisis where returns on market hogs are well below their cost of production.
A meeting is set for Dec. 17 to discuss a support fund for producers until a hog price insurance scheme is ready this spring or markets improve.
Alberta Pork, the Western Hog Exchange, Alberta Agriculture, Alberta Financial Services Corp. and possibly federal and provincial packers that buy pigs from Alberta farmers, will discuss emergency assistance, as well as figure out a new payment model for producers.
Read Also

Agriculture ministers agree to AgriStability changes
federal government proposed several months ago to increase the compensation rate from 80 to 90 per cent and double the maximum payment from $3 million to $6 million
“It is in the early stage of development. There are no guarantees,” Alberta Pork chair Jim Haggins said at the organization’s annual meeting in Leduc Dec. 9.
“We want packers to work with us on this support fund,” he said.
The program needs to be retroactive to Nov. 1 and Alberta Pork is willing to provide funds from its own reserves, Haggins told the delegates.
Deputy agriculture minister John Knapp told producers they are eligible to apply for an advance for 2010 through the Agri-Stability program, but years of successive losses have cancelled out further payments because there are no positive margins left to calculate.
“There is not going to be the domestic support and there is no way our market is going to work,” said Alberta Pork director Rocky Morrill.
A new payment structure is needed because getting paid off the U.S. Midwest price does not work anymore, he said.
Packers and consumers must understand the industry is stretched to the limit.
“We have lost so many producers and we will lose so many more this winter, even if we come up with a model change, I don’t know how many are going to survive, but we still have to try something,” Morrill said.