Canadian livestock producers are stepping up their complaints about what they see as unfair government support for biofuel producers that are competitors for available feed grain, undermining livestock production.
North American hog industry leaders issued a joint statement last week after a meeting in Merida, Mexico, warning about a potential looming crisis in availability and price of feed grains this year.
“The sense of anxiety over the availability of feed grain for the hog industry was only heightened with the release of the United States department of agriculture’s grain supply and production reports that indicated that the crop planting this coming spring and normal yields would provide only a modest easing of tight feed supplies,” industry leaders from Canada, the U.S. and Mexico said in the joint statement.
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Earlier during their annual general meeting, the Canadian Cattlemen’s Association had the same message.
President Travis Toews said he will make the cattle industry’s complaint about unfair competition one of the top three issues this year when he is lobbying government.
He said cattle producers do not oppose development of a viable commercial biofuel industry and do not begrudge feed producers the higher prices that expanded markets have produced.
“We now have a competitor that has a clear subsidy advantage over us,” he told a meeting of the CCA committee on domestic agricultural policies.
During a debate that had delegates calling for a more forceful lobby against government favouritism toward biofuel producers, Ontario farmer John Gillespie said cattle interests had been outworked in the corridors of power in Ottawa. “We are being out-lobbied by the renewable fuels industry.”
One of the sparks for the CCA was a vow by the Canadian Renewable Fuels Association to begin lobbying this year for the government to increase the mandate from five to 10 percent.
“That would absolutely affect our industry,” Toews said in an interview. “We really have to make it clear to the government that our interests should not be sacrificed in the support of another industry.”
Jurgen Preugschas, president of the Canadian Pork Council, said in a March 16 interview after returning from Mexico that the USDA report predicted a grain reserve of only 2.9 weeks of supply by the end of the production year.
“That is absolutely scary,” he said. “If we have a blip in production, a drought in Iowa or some other event, we will have hogs and chickens that are starving, creating a huge animal welfare issue, as well as an economic issue for producers.”
He said producers from the three countries were united that artificial demand for grain feed stocks by a protected or subsidized biofuel industry is unfair competition.
But he said having a legislated five percent ethanol content requirement in gasoline is a form of subsidy to the industry. As well, restrictions on imports of foreign biofuel to meet the mandate mean more of it will have to be produced using North
