Beleaguered Alberta pork producers are asking the provincial government to implement a survival plan that includes offsetting the high cost of feed grain brought on by government biofuel incentives.
Paul Hodgman, executive director with Alberta Pork, said producers want the offset program to pay them 50 percent of the change in the feed grain prices retroactive to Jan. 1, 2007.
Hodgman estimates a 50 percent refund in the price of barley would give $40 to $45 million a year back to pork producers.
“I think it’s critical. The industry is really in dire straits at the moment. There are people exiting the industry in large numbers, producers of all sizes,” said Hodgman.
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If governments want to increase biofuel production, then they need to look at how those policies affect the animal feeding industry, he said.
“There’s no doubt there will be a huge reduction if we don’t have some support.”
The proposed biofuel offset is based on a similar Alberta Crow Benefit offset program in the 1980s.
Feed represents 65 to 70 percent of the cost of raising pigs. Hog producers have also been hurt by high labour costs in the province and the high Canadian dollar, which makes exports noncompetitive.
The recovery plan presented to the government Sept. 28 also includes developing a new business relationship between producers and Alberta’s main pork processor, Olymel. An earlier presentation by the Western Hog Exchange to the Alberta government asking for a loan to buy part of the Quebec-based hog plant was rejected by the province.
If Alberta producers can hold on for a few more years, Hodgman believes there is a good opportunity for them to sell pork worldwide, but they need assistance to stay in business.
“Some of the factors that have hit us are not in our control.”
Linda Park, a public affairs officer with Alberta Agriculture, said it is too soon for the government to have an official position on the recovery plan.
“The department is taking everything into careful consideration and one of the things they’re doing is making sure their proposal fits and doesn’t conflict with anything that agriculture is already doing,” she said.
Pork officials said they wanted to work closely with government to create a solution to producers’ problems, she said.
“It’s that working together that will make something like this work.”
