Farmers are raising a record number of pigs in Canada, although the number of hog producers working with those pigs is at an historic low.
And Canadians’ taste for pork continues to fall sharply.
That, says Statistics Canada analyst Robert Plourde, is why Canada’s hog industry has its eyes clearly on the world outside Canada’s borders.
“Our market now is outside the country,” he said April 24. “It is really an export commodity. Certainly the growth is all for export.”
According to Plourde’s numbers compiled for Statistics Canada and published April 24, the Canadian pig herd on April 1 was close to 12 million.
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Each of the past five quarters has posted a new record and during the past two years, the breeding herd has increased 7.7 percent.
Meanwhile, the number of hog producers has fallen below 20,000 for the first time since records were kept and the average number of hogs per farm has almost doubled in the past decade to 615.
On the consumer side, the federal agency reported that in the past year, per capita consumption of pork in Canada has fallen two percent to 25.2 kilograms.
It was part of a general Canadian trend to eat less red meat, said the Statistics Canada report.
In 1997, average meat consumption fell 1.1 kg to 59.1 kg.
Overall decline
“Ten years ago, Canadians consumed 8.1 kg more red meat than they did last year,” said the agency. It represents a 12 percent decline in consumption of meat products.
Still, Canadians ate more beef, pork and lamb combined than they did poultry, according to the federal agency.
Detailed poultry consumption data will be published in mid-May.
