Hog producers can see the other side of the chasm but don’t know if the road will run out before they get there, the Canadian Swine Health Forum heard.
“Is there anything to build a bridge, to get them over,” wondered Manitoba Pork Council vice-chair Rick Bergmann in an interview.
Dozens of producers attended the highly technical veterinary conference, something that delighted organizers of the yearly, four-year-old event.
It also suggested to some that Canada’s core hog producers not only plan to survive the crisis, but play to the national industry’s strengths once the financial crisis has ended.
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“I’m pretty enthused,” said board chair Florian Possberg.
“I think that what we’re seeing here is producers and industry recognizing that health is really important for our Canadian advantage.”
However, Possberg acknowledged that the Canadian industry is under incredible strain, with high feed costs causing massive losses only shortly after the H1N1 outbreak, the commodity price collapse of 2008-09 and the large appreciation of the Canadian dollar.
Some sow liquidation is occurring in the United States, but most Canadian hog industry officials think Western Canada is shrinking the herd faster and more profoundly.
Possberg said he believes 40,000 sows have been taken out of production since late summer, including some from relatively new facilities.
“For most of those, it’s unlikely they’ll return soon or at all,” he said. “A number of established producers have decided to exit.”
Claude Vielfaure, whose company HyLife operates one of North America’s largest hog production companies and one of two significant Manitoba slaughter plants, said the specialized, stand-alone nature of many prairie hog farms has made this crisis hit harder than in other places.
“There seem to be more problems in Western Canada, and maybe that’s because of people being more diversified in Ontario and the U.S.,” said Vielfaure in an interview.
“Maybe some of these companies had better advantages, better profitability for the past two or three years, so they may have had more money in their pockets to get through these lows.”
Bergmann said the farmers he has talked to want to stay in the business but have a short-term cash squeeze. It is almost universally accepted that the herd liquidation now occurring will lead to greater profitability for the next few years, but simple survival until next spring is the problem.
“It appears there’s some challenge with government understanding the urgency of the situation,” said Bergmann.
Possberg, who founded Big Sky Farms but is not involved with that company now, was upbeat about the industry regardless of the present crisis.
