Alberta Pork won’t know until May how many producers will request check-off refunds.
That’s when eligible hog producers will be able to ask for a refund of the $1 per hog or 25 cents per export weaner collected from Sept. 1, 2010 to March 31, 2011.
Alberta Pork executive director Darcy Fitzgerald said the number of refund requests will probably depend on the state of the industry next spring.
He said some producers may need their refund to pay a feed bill.
He added it would be unrealistic not to expect some refund requests from the province’s 380 hog producers, but there also hasn’t been a groundswell of demand for the checkoff to be made refundable.
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Pork, potato and lamb producers were caught up in the same net when the Alberta government took steps to ease fighting within the cattle industry over the Alberta Beef Producer checkoff. As a result, the mandatory checkoffs for all four commodities were changed from non-refundable to refundable.
“No one has approached us and said we want our money back,” Fitzgerald said.
Alberta’s hog producers have been hit hard by rising grain prices, a high Canadian dollar and the discovery of the H1N1 virus on an Alberta hog farm more than a year ago.
As a result, many producers have left the industry.
The tough times in the hog industry have also affected Alberta Pork. In August, it closed its Calgary office as a cost-cutting measure.
The organization collects $2.5 million a year through the checkoff.
Edzo Kok, executive director of the Potato Growers of Alberta, said only two of its 125 members have asked for a check-off refund.
“We’re happy to say that,” he said.
Under the potato group’s rules, producers must give notice ahead of time if they plan to ask for a refund.
Noreen Moore of Alberta Lamb said its refundable checkoff came into effect Sept. 1.Producers must make a refund claim by the 25th day of the month following the month in which they bought tags.
Alberta Lamb will make refunds once a year.
Moore said the organization doesn’t know how many refund requests it will receive.
