WINNIPEG – If there’s one thing that bugs Bill McLean about the hog industry, it’s when farmers say they deliver pigs on Mondays.
The general manager of the J.M. Schneider plant in Winnipeg says the glut of hogs early in the week creates logistical problems for processors.
McLean was part of a panel at the recent Hog and Poultry Days that told farmers to make some changes to the way they work if they want to help double hog production in the province.
Increasing production won’t be easy, he said: “It’s not going to be like falling off a log.”
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McLean said there’s a good chance Canada will lose the U.S. as a market as Americans become more self-sufficient in pork. Also there are more competitors for pork export markets.
McLean said international trade agreements will keep Canada’s borders open to U.S. pork if it becomes cheaper than what farmers can produce here.
“We won’t even have a domestic market if we don’t grow and if we don’t do it efficiently.”
The former Soviet Union is becoming a bigger customer. But he noted that country, like Canada, has the space and feed grains to one day become a rival.
“At some point in time, they could be our competitor, and they’re a lot closer to Asian markets than we are,” McLean said.
He encouraged farmers to imagine cutting up their animals with a knife and fork and eating them to understand what customers want.
The first consideration is safety. He said his plant has to X-ray each piece of meat going to one Japanese customer to check for needle tips that sometimes break off when farmers are injecting antibiotics.
He said only one carcass out of 20,000 may contain a needle that slipped by workers’ attention. But he said if producers always marked the spot where a needle broke, the X-rays might not be needed.
Dave Wasylyshen, a market development officer with Agriculture Canada, said food safety programs are more like a rash that won’t go away than a fly that is easily swatted: “Don’t fight it, people, it’s here to stay.”
Gerry Friesen, chair of Manitoba Pork, said the group is starting a pilot project for quality assurance early in the new year.
A director of the largest integrated company in Manitoba said the province faces a dearth of people who know how to work with swine.
Clarence Froese of Puratone said he thinks most hog expansion will take place in southeastern Manitoba where the industry is already well established because there are more potential good employees there.
About 2,200 people will be needed to work in hog barns if production doubles, Froese said. A third of those will need academic training.
He said excellent barn managers are worth their weight in gold. According to a national database, there is a $200,000 difference in annual profits between an average 1,000-sow operation and one in the top 10 percent.
He said support workers for barns, including vets, will also be in short supply.
