Larry Friesen’s death has shocked Manitoba hog farmers.”This is going to leave a hole in the hog industry,” said Manitoba Pork Council chair Karl Kynoch about Friesen’s April 28 death after he fell from a barn roof on his farm near Rivers.”He was very involved and people knew him all across the country.”The 58-year-old represented fellow weanling producers on the pork council board for years and was involved in many trade issues.”He was always passionate about free trade and trying to keep a free flow of pigs across the (U.S.) border,” said Kynoch.Friesen was a fixture at pork council meetings but seldom sought the limelight. His delight in helping build a bustling cross-border trade in piglets was soured in recent years by the ongoing problems with U.S. trade barriers and country-of-origin labeling regulations in the United States, which disrupted trade and brought financial suffering to Friesen and other weanling producers.Those problems came on top of the overall hog industry crisis, in which a surging Canadian dollar and an unusually long cyclical low in North American hog prices conspired to drive many from the business.But Friesen survived, and with profitable prices coming back into the hog industry, the future looked much brighter for those who remained.Unfortunately, Kynoch said, Friesen didn’t have long to enjoy the relief from the crisis.”We just came through the worst three years that the hog industry has ever seen and here’s a guy who rode that through and survived and was ready to (enjoy) better times, and he didn’t get to see it,” said Kynoch.
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