MITCHELL, Ont. – If Ontario hog farmers were to become solely responsible for supplying the Ontario market with pork, the province’s current sow herd wouldn’t be able to meet the demand.
Ontario has nearly 40 percent of Canada’s population but slightly more than 25 percent of the country’s pork production capacity.
The numbers weren’t lost on 120 farmers who gathered in Mitchell in mid-September to attend a meeting organized by about a dozen producers looking for answers to the industry’s financial crisis.
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A provincial supply-management system is one of the options they are considering.
“A provincial system would be operational for Ontario with our population and location,” said producer JoAnne Caughill, who helped organize the meeting.
However, such a system might be tough to sell to hog producers.
According to preliminary findings from a report developed by Ontario Pork, Canada’s sow herd would need to decrease by 67 percent if Canadian demand for pork was to be met only by Canadian producers.
Such a supply-managed system would require a legislative commitment from government.
Alan Margerison, secretary of Grey-Bruce Pork Producers and an immigrant from Northern Ireland, proposed that instead of fighting over diminishing returns, producers should consider a system he said led to the recovery of the United Kingdom’s pork industry.
“We need to unite for a base price for our products. That’s what you’ve got to scream for or you’ll get nowhere,” Margerison said.
Fundamental to the proposal is the legislated implementation of a “cost-of-production-plus” floor price for hogs. Imports would be priced at the same level imposed by anti-dumping legislation.
Margerison proposed making labelling of Ontario product mandatory, tying production from Ontario sows to a processing plant, providing producers with a “no-value” licence through Ontario Pork and allowing farmers to exit the industry tax free.
He said an export market could be maintained for live animals and Ontario-processed pork with certain herds designated for the export market.
If domestic plants were to close, government could take them over and lease them to farmer co-operatives or other interests.
He said the idea would not require government money, only the will to act.
However, government money is what many Ontario pork producers are demanding, as seen at a meeting sponsored by the Perth, Oxford and Huron producer associations in Stratford in early September.
Earlier this year, the Canadian Pork Council asked the federal government for a cash payment of about $30 a hog, roughly $800 million in total.
Ottawa has proposed $800 million in loan guarantees and a $75 million program to close barns for a minimum of three years.
It appeared that a large per-centage of producers at the Strat-ford meeting are not interested in further loans.
Near the end of the meeting, as Ontario Pork director Steve Illick explained why industry leaders have failed to secure cash support from the federal or provincial governments, close to half the 600 producers began to leave the auditorium.
Afterward, when asked if governments should be approached again for a short-term cash payout, Illick said, “I think it’s something we need to revisit at the board level.”
Elbert Van Donkersgoed, a food industry consultant and former policy adviser to the Christian Farmers Federation of Ontario, told the Mitchell meeting that a short-term cash fix is needed.
He would also like to see a moratorium on new production, a strategy that will allow pro-ducers to exit the industry with dignity, the promotion of energy self-sufficient farms and an orderly marketing system that unhooks Ontario production from the North American price.
Ken Strawbridge of Alpha Strategic Consulting urged producers to find better ways to connect to consumers and cited ways the pork industry has changed over the past 50 years.
In 1960, he said, producers captured 62 percent of the value of pork production, while packers captured 22 percent and retailers 16 percent.
Today, the numbers are 30 percent for producers, 57 per-cent for retailers and 13 percent for packers. Meanwhile, the pork price cycle has essentially been transformed into a downward price spiral.
Representatives of Ontario’s county pork association, together with Ontario Pork directors, met in Guelph Sept. 22 to consider the options.
