The hog industry had better build a strong surfboard.
Another wave of concern for the environment is building, according to Environics International Ltd., a global market research company.
Unless the hog industry develops better community relations and accountability to ride the wave, it may be drowned in the surf when the wave crests in the next three years.
Agriculture Canada commissioned Environics to gather the opinions of rural and urban Canadians on the hog industry this spring.
Angus McAllister, research director for the company in Toronto, said polls from 30 countries are starting to reveal people perceive their health is affected by the environment.
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People say industry and government aren’t working as hard as they ought to, he said.
“There’s a sense of a breach in trust that people are starting to feel,” he said.
The last “greenwave,” as Environics coins it, happened between 1989 to 1992, when Canadians and people in other industrialized countries listed the environment at the top of their concerns.
Government paid attention, McAllister said, by holding a global summit and implementing programs like the Green Plan. Industry started to market “green” products. Recycling became common.
Then people shifted their concerns to issues like the economy, employment and crime.
But Environics predicts a backlash against government and industry because people perceive they haven’t kept their promises on the environment.
“They’re starting to feel that there’s a lot of words but not a lot of action, and they’re starting to get angry again,” said McAllister.
Environics’ research on what Canadians think about the hog industry shows the industry needs to develop “industry-community accountability mechanisms” and open the lines of communication. Otherwise, the industry may get targeted during the greenwave because it’s visible.
“In those communities, they’re going to become the symbols of bad stuff in the environment,” said McAllister.
The hog industry has one advantage. People don’t expect hog barns to be squeaky clean.
“Unlike apples and mothers’ milk, pigs are supposed to be dirty,” he said. “You don’t give a piece of pork to your teacher, you don’t give bacon to your babies.”
