A decline in the number of Alberta hog producers has forced the province’s pork organization to take a sharp pencil to its budget.
Alberta Pork officials hope to slash $626,000 from the 2010-11 budget, which will cut it to slightly more than $3 million.
The group’s two day annual meeting in December has been shortened to one day, the chair’s monthly honorarium has been halved and the vice-chair’s honorarium eliminated. It has also sold its vehicles, closed its consumer services office in Calgary and is keeping a close eye on expense accounts.
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“We need to recognize we’re on producers’ balance sheet as a cost,” said executive director Darcy Fitzgerald.
The number of producers has dropped to 380 this year from 1,300 in 2003, while sow numbers have dropped to 137,000 from 200,000 in 2007.
Alberta Pork was caught off guard last year when then agricultural minister George Groeneveld said Alberta Pork’s checkoff would change to voluntary from mandatory as part of an effort to ease infighting within the cattle industry.
The organization is unsure how many hog producers will ask for their checkoffs to be refunded and has proposed reducing it to 85 percent per slaughter hog from $1.
Fitzgerald said Alberta Pork hopes to send a message that it is willing to cut costs and doesn’t look to producers as just a funding source.
“We’re saying, ‘I’m willing to cut costs as well. We’re not here for the money,’ ” he said.
“Hopefully they will stick with us for the rest of the levy.”
