DES MOINES, Iowa – Under blue skies and sunshine, many Canadian hog producers were happily wandering the Iowa State Fairgrounds, checking out everything the World Pork Expo tradeshow has to offer.”The future looks very bright and we’re very excited,” said Dawn Oude Voschaar, a purchaser with Hytek, the giant Manitoba hog production and processing company.Andre-Michel Audette, a fellow purchaser at Hytek, was as enthusiastic and said neither producers nor suppliers are dwelling on the recent years of losses and the disruption due to H1N1.”There’s been a turn,” said Audette.”People are looking forward rather than worrying about what happened in the past.”Last year’s World Pork Expo was marred by poor morale caused by more than two years of losses and H1N1. The Expo’s tours were cancelled because hundreds of foreign visitors were not able to get visas or permission to travel due to heightened H1N1 restrictions.During the week of the show in 2009, the pork market sharply slumped as H1N1 fears attached themselves to “swine flu,” dashing hopes that a spring/summer rally would end the price trough that was ravaging many producers.American producers had been losing money for a year, but the situation was worse for Canadians, with the surging loonie causing losses to appear a year before they hit the U.S.That loss of hope this time last year sent the Canadian industry into a tailspin, causing many farmers to quit the business and provoking emergency aid and an industry attempt to shrink for a survivable future.But through the winter, the market began recovering, with a powerful rally taking off in February. Profitable prices finally reappeared and farmers began thinking beyond the crisis.Prices have fallen back, but are still in profitable territory, and many Canadian farmers at the World Pork Expo seem to have left crisis thinking behind.”Pork producers are a very vigilant bunch of people who will fight through things,” said Claude Vielfaure, the head of Hytek.”If we still have a kick left in us, we’ll keep going. The ones that are here are the ones who are staying in the industry and want to continue farming.”
Mood upbeat at World Pork Expo
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