Promoting and developing Saskatchewan’s agricultural business sector remains high on the provincial government’s agenda for 1997, says the deputy premier.
Dwain Lingenfelter, who is also minister of economic development, predicted growth in three areas this year: hog production, the ag biotech industry and machinery manufacturing.
“We set a target of increasing hog production by in excess of a million hogs by the turn of the century,” he said in a year-end interview.
“That’s only three years away. You will see a lot of jobs being created in rural Saskatchewan just on the production-of-feed side and trucking side, to say nothing of the processing increases that will have to occur here in the province in order to use up the extra million in hog production.”
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The minister said the government is working with the industry to create the environment for this to happen.
“We have an application, or a proposal, from the industry to remove the E and H (education and health) tax on building materials for hog barns,” he said. ” … This will be one of the areas that we will be seriously looking at as we go through the budget cycle.”
Lingenfelter said the province does not plan to invest heavily in large-scale hog operations, but he did not rule out some involvement. For example, if Saskatchewan Wheat Pool put in 50 percent of the money for a project and a local community fell five percent short of raising the rest, the government might make up the shortfall.
“But we would be very much a minor player,” he stressed. “This cannot be driven by the government.”
The government already has an investment in National Pig Development (Canada). Lingenfelter said all investments are regularly reviewed.
“Our view is you pick and choose very carefully because these are assets that we are managing on the behalf of the people of Saskatchewan.”
The government also has a major investment in Innovation Place in Saskatoon, which has become one of the top ag biotech centres in the world.
Originally planned in the 1970s as an information centre, Innovation Place boomed as an agricultural centre in 1992 after the arrival of several major international companies: Monsanto from St. Louis; Plant Genetic Systems from Belgium; Groupe Limagrain from France; and AgrEvo from Germany.
“We literally can’t build buildings fast enough to keep up with the demand. We’re now at 1,600 employees…and it just continues to grow. How long this will continue I don’t know, but for 1997 there’s no sign that the demand for space and increased research and development will slow at all.”
Attract companies
Lingenfelter said the province makes it attractive for companies to locate here by providing turnkey operations at commercial rates. The government borrows all the money to build the facilities and companies sign five-year rental agreements.
“We, I think, in the past couple years are basically breaking even,” he said. “We may actually subsidize it a small amount but our goal is, over the next while, to build this centre to a break-even.”
Lingenfelter also said Saskatchewan is “on the edge of becoming major world players” in machinery manufacturing.
“I think we’ve got a long way to go before we reach our potential in that area.”
