LETHBRIDGE, Alta. (Special) – Long-time Picture Butte farmer Walter Boras was almost too angry to talk March 20 after Yuan Yi announced it was leaving Lethbridge.
“It’s really true we are losing the hog plant,” said Boras. “We lost the (waxy) barley plant. We’ve lost a lot of industry in this agricultural-based community.
“And people wonder why our kids are leaving the community. It’s because the city simply won’t support industry like this plant. We have family here to carry on, and I am concerned for the long-term future they will have in this community.”
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Jack Braat of Coaldale had practical concerns.
“I had been expanding slowly,” he said. “I have had my barns at 110 percent capacity, really pushing this thing and waiting for the hog market to improve.
“Yuan Yi would have been a hell of a good thing, mostly because all the pork it processed was going to disappear from (this) market.” Yuan Yi planned to sell most of its production in Japan.
Foot in Japan’s door
Braat said Canada would have been the big winner from the plant because Yuan Yi provided access to the hard-to-penetrate Japanese pork market.
Coaldale hog producer Ken Dunsdon could only sigh.
“It is unfortunate 10 or 20 people can put the livestock industry in limbo, especially when most of their opposition is based on misconception,” said Dunsdon.
The pullout leaves Fletcher’s Fine Foods in Red Deer as the sole hog processor in the pro-vince. Fletcher’s spokesperson Greg Whalley said Yuan Yi’s decision won’t seriously affect the industry and noted Fletcher’s is in the midst of a major expansion.
Benefit the community
Lethbridge alderman Don LeBaron, chair of the city’s agriculture and water management committee pined the loss.
“It’s a hell of a day.
“Today, we lost up to 800 jobs. We have to let our feelings be known. It is a situation where we have a major need to be heard. We can’t let 15 or 20 people stop a project that was all approved when it is so badly needed by the city.”
Marc Sabourin, president of the Lethbridge Chamber of Commerce, was almost without words after the company announced its decision.
Sabourin wants to collect his thoughts and gather information from the business community, and then “get very vocal” about the small band of hog plant opponents he says drove Yuan Yi from the city.
“I am disappointed in the loss of this project development and what that development meant to the city, for jobs and economic activity in the city.”
He said there will be short-term pain and then a pulling together of the city’s economic community to find other vehicles for development.
But the long-term damage could be the city’s growing reputation as a bad place to invest, said Sabourin.
