John Middel recently sold a three-year-old, 625 pound Duroc cross boar. He received a cheque for $5.25.
The price offered by Quintain, the Red Deer marketing company, was $6.25, less $1 for Alberta Pork’s marketing levy, for the grand total of $5.25.
“It was a beautiful looking boar. He was in good shape,” said Middel, who farms near Rocky Mountain House, Alta.
Earlier Middel wanted to sell a 425 lb. sow. The price offered was zero. He could give his sow away or pay four cents a pound to have Northern Alberta Processors, a rendering company, take the carcass.
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“Zero cents is bad, to pay four cents a pound is worse.”
Middel kept his sows back hoping for a better price, but prices for boars are not forecast to improve in the near future.
The Western Hog Exchange, Alberta’s hog marketing agency, discontinued boar sales at the beginning of February because of the low prices. It plans to restart boar sales soon, but prices are not expected to be much higher.
In Saskatchewan, SPI, the province’s hog marketing agency, has also discontinued boar sales.
“They’re not worth it. We tell producers either euthanize them or hang on to them,” said Don Hrapiuk, general manager.
“The costs of getting them there are greater than the value of the animal,” said Hrapiuk.
Almost all Western Canada’s sows and boars are shipped to the United States for slaughter. The combination of a high Canadian dollar, trucking costs and shrink on the long trip south makes the older animals almost worthless.
SPI is still taking sows, but prices are so bad they’re not posted as part of the daily prices.
On Middel’s farm, cull sows are an important part of his 650 sow, farrow-to-weaning hog farm budget. He ships 250 to 300 sows each year from his operation.
At today’s roughly 15 cents a lb., Middel can expect about $75 for each 500 lb. sow. It is not a great price, but better than the two cents a lb., or $10 a head offered earlier.
“That is a ridiculously poor price,” said Nick Santangelo, Western Hog Exchange’s procurement manager.
The few Canadian plants that take sows and the main American packing plants have run out of shackle space and have no more room for sows. The lack of demand is reflected in the prices offered.
“Packers are killing sows to capacity,” said Santangelo.
Western Hog Exchange ships 700 to 900 sows a week, down from a steady 900 a week before Christmas.
Middel said pork producers need to let consumers know how little hog producers are being paid for their animals.
“They’re going into the store and complaining about high prices. They should be aware of that high price, in some cases producers are getting zero,” said Middel.
Even with a targeted publicity campaign, Middel doesn’t know if consumers will fill their freezers with pork like they did with beef after the BSE crisis.
“There’s not same romantic ideals to hog production as there is to cattle,” he said.
A more effective campaign may be an adoption of British pig farmers singing “Stand by your ham,” a takeoff on country singer Tammy Wynette’s Stand by your Man.
“The public needs to know what’s going on. If we expect public support, it’s important the public be aware. We have heard the urban MLAs and MPs don’t like the idea of farm programs. We need to do a better job of convincing them it’s necessary.”
Middel doesn’t know how the recent federal government program to cull 150,000 sows from the national breeding herd will affect prices. While details of the program are still sketchy, pigs culled under the program cannot be used for human consumption so they will not trigger a U.S. trade challenge.
