Pork groups worried about the siphoning of hogs into the United States have established a working group to stop the southbound flow of hogs.
The Canadian Pork Council, the Canadian Meat Council and Agriculture Canada will be joining to promote industry-wide understanding of conditions necessary to create a competitive hog industry.
Industry representatives will be asked to participate in the working group to help increase pork production and process more hogs in Canada, the groups said in a news release.
With increasing demand for pork worldwide, the group wants to help Canadian producers capture a larger share of the market.
“Exporting hogs for processing south of the border has an enormous impact on the Canadian pork industry. Canada is losing out on the benefits of producing value-added products and it costs Canadian jobs,” said Robert Weaver, general manager of the Canadian Meat Council.
“For every 846 hogs exported to the United States, we lose one job in the processing sector. Last year, we exported nearly three million hogs and 3,500 jobs.”
