The president of Canada’s largest farm lobby is complaining that lack of federal government action on the hog industry crisis is causing irreparable harm.
Laurent Pellerin of the Canadian Federation of Agriculture noted that agriculture minister Gerry Ritz has been promising a response for weeks. Meanwhile, producers are left in the dark, losses mount and credit is being shut down.
“We have no information that there is anything in the pipeline, anything imminent despite the minister’s words,” he said in an Aug. 10 interview from his Quebec hog and crop farm. “Why the delay and lack of information? Is it because it is difficult to pass with cabinet? Is it because they don’t have approval for money? Is it because of trade? We don’t know. Why the silence and delay?”
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In late July, the CFA meeting in Kelowna, B.C., said it fully supports the Canadian Pork Council proposal.
In early July, shortly after the council presented a proposal to Ritz that called for government-backed loans and a sow buy-out program for producers looking to leave or get smaller, president Jurgen Preugschas said a delay of a month or more in government response would be devastating.
“We are losing people every day,” he said then. “Every day they wait, the meltdown will go deeper. If we don’t have a decision before late August, they are better off doing nothing because it will be too late.”
On Aug. 10, Preugschas said he is frustrated by the five-week delay, although he still expects a government response soon, “but I have been saying that for weeks.”
The industry erosion that he predicted is happening, the CPC president said from his Alberta farm.
“Suppliers are starting to cut off credit, producers are leaving, I am getting reports of producers hospitalized with nervous breakdowns,” he said.
Liberal agriculture critic Wayne Easter accused the government of negligence for its delay. He said fears of trade action should not deter the government “because the Americans will challenge no matter what we do. Stand up for the industry because right now, a lot of producers are turning out the lights without any fanfare.”
In the United States, the National Pork Producers’ Council has said it would consider challenging any Canadian aid program, based largely on a study by Iowa State University agricultural economist Dermot Hayes that concluded a Canadian program would “artificially prop up Canadian pork production” at a cost of a seven percent cut in U.S. live hog prices below what they would otherwise be.
In an Aug. 10 interview from Ames, Iowa, Hayes said the pressure on U.S. hog prices would come because aid would keep some breeding sow producers in business who would otherwise quit.
That would create more surplus hogs to ship south “and hog prices are very sensitive to surplus hogs.”
However, he said he regretted that the NPPC used his private analysis to present a negative view of Canada’s dilemma.
