The Canadian flag flying from the porch of John and Donna Germs’ home near Saskatoon is as tattered as the hog industry they have worked in for 22 years.
Soon the only pigs likely to be found on the Germs’ farm will be two life-sized concrete ornaments that grace the flowerbeds of their 86-year-old brick schoolhouse home.
“They’re all that’s concrete about the Canadian pig business these days. Maybe they’re really all that ever has been concrete about it, and we just didn’t know,” said Donna Germs.
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John and Donna plan to end the weekly shipments of “75 beautiful market pigs” that have provided a livelihood for them and their sons.
The couple shot the boars in December. Their 250 sows will be culled from the herd as they farrow. The Germs plan to have quiet barns by November after what they hope will be a short profitable period this summer.
A combination of events is silencing pig barns across Canada, mainly on the Prairies. Over the past three years more than 85,000 sows have been removed from the Canadian system.
John Germs said profitability vanished from an industry built over 20 years on a low-valued Canadian currency, cheap feed grain and government and industry enthusiasm for livestock expansion.
Since 2006 there has been a 30 percent upward move of the Canadian dollar against the American greenback and a doubling of feed grain prices. In the United States, 150,000 sows were added, supported by huge corn crops and the marketing of spent grain products as animal feed . All have played a role in the decline of prairie pig farms.
A loss of packing capacity with the closure of the Maple Leaf Foods plant in Saskatoon was the last economic straw for the Germs.
That plant closure added a $10 to $13 cost per pig for trucking to Maple Leaf Foods’ newer facility in Brandon.
Last week the price being paid at the Brandon plant had fallen to $97.44 for each 250 pound hog shipped. Germs said that price barely covers the barley that feeds the animals.
Producers now estimate cost of production to be about $155 per pig.
“We’re losing $40 or better for each pig we sell. Sure there are short-term loans to cover losses. But that just means eroding more equity. And even if we do see the $2.40 (per kilogram) prices that some folks predict for May of 2009, we’ll need a heck of a lot more than that to pay back the losses between now and then,” he said.
Germs said the government-sponsored cull program to get sows out of the system for three years doesn’t cover the costs of shuttered barns.
“It may give some financial lending institutions the clout they need to shut some farms down, though,” said Germs.
“When I built the first barn there were about 4,000 producers in the province (Saskatchewan). Today, maybe 100. People delivered 75 kg pigs to local packers in half tons. Today it’s semi-loads of 95 kilo pigs.
“We little guys now have to assemble truckloads for Brandon eight hours away. There they slaughter and ship the meat back here for processing. I can’t blame Maple Leaf. They’ve been good to most of the little farms in this. But for most of us I think we know it’s time to go.”
Germs said he and many other smaller producers weathered the hog price crash of 1998 because of $2 per bushel wheat holding down feeding costs and a low Canadian dollar keeping pork exports competitive with American growers.
The latest crisis doesn’t have those advantages.
The couple was able to expand their business after 1998 with up to three full-time staff.
Today the Germs produce more pigs than ever without hired help, relying on their sons to work with them in the barns.
“We’ll cut our losses and move on with our lives,” said John.
Donna plans to find a job in Saskatoon.
John hopes to pick up his education where he left off and study agriculture at the University of Saskatchewan.
“When I was young I always envied those other guys who became agrologists and got shiny, new company trucks to drive. I think I’d like to find out what not working 24/7 might be like, too,” he said.
“We’ll raise our kids on the farm because it’s still the best place in the world to do that. I’ll miss the livestock. I’ll wish there was something we could have built on with that for the boys. But we’d never want them to have to work this hard for so little, or to put so much at risk. Over and over and over again,” he said.
The Germs plan to continue growing grain on their 1,500 acre farm and keep their options open to re-enter the livestock business someday.
