Canada’s hog industry lobby wants prime minister Stephen Harper to pick up the telephone, call American president Barack Obama and warn him about the misguided policies of his agriculture secretary.
In particular, leaders of the Canadian Pork Council said Obama should be told that U.S. agriculture secretary Tom Vilsack’s decision to encourage packers to voluntarily go further than country-of-origin labelling rules, with the threat of mandatory new rules if they don’t comply, is a body blow to trade and to the livestock industries of Canada and the United States.
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“Our point of view is we need our government, our prime minister, to take this straight to the White House immediately and do it in a non-adversarial fashion but take it directly to the White House,” pork council president Jurgen Preugschas told MPs on the House of Commons agriculture committee March 5.
The council first made the request in a letter to trade minister Stockwell Day and agriculture minister Gerry Ritz Feb. 23. By March 5, there had been no response.
The letter said that if pursued, the Vilsack policy would violate U.S. international trade obligations.
“Further, we urge the Canadian government to remind the White House of the potential devastating impact of the agriculture department’s course of action on American and Canadian jobs and trade at this extremely difficult time for both of our economies.”
During their appearance before the agriculture committee, pork council officials outlined those potential consequences on both sides of the border.
In 2008, hog and pork exports to the U.S. exceeded 300,000 tonnes with a value of $2.75 billion. As the threat of COOL drew closer, export of live slaughter hogs had fallen 67 percent compared to last year and feeder pig exports by one-third.
Council executive director Martin Rice told MPs that he has seen a copy of a letter from a major U.S. processor that has handled as many as two million Canadian hogs a year.
“They have sent a letter to their producer suppliers saying, ‘we will not be taking any more Canadian-born animals after March of 2009.’ “
Meanwhile, on the American side of the border, Canadian stock represented 10 percent of American processor supply.
“If you take away 10 percent of U.S. processors’ raw material, they are not going to be able to continue in business as they are.”
Preugschas said the reduction in Canadian weanling pigs sent to the U.S. for finishing means that as many as one-third of farmers who depended on those imports have closed their barns.
“So those young farmers that invested to build barns to take Canadian hogs are now going broke in the U.S.”
Rice said especially worrying is that Vilsack’s suggestions for “voluntary” actions beyond the COOL regulations include processed product labels for the first time.
“This is even more challenging for a processor, to have all the different labels that would accommodate every potential situation such as a pig born in Denmark, raised in the U.S. and processed in Canada,” he said.
“That’s all a possibility.”
Rice ended with a plea.
“The White House really has to be alerted to this grim situation.”
