The industry talks with MLAs to make sure its issues are heard as the province prepares to go to the polls in the next year
Manitoba hog farmers want politicians to understand the importance of their industry before they’re on the hustings.
“We need to be working with all parties in the legislature today. This doesn’t just start in the election cycle or after the election,” Manitoba Pork Council general manager Cam Dahl told hog producers in Niverville Nov. 1.
“The next provincial election is at most a year away and could be two months away.”
The organization represents one of Manitoba’s largest industries, but the sector has often been attacked by animal welfare and environmental activists. It has been talking with MLAs and recently approached them with its Report to the Legislature, which details hog farmers’ issues:
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- environmental stewardship
- manure management
- animal care
- disaster avoidance
- economic and jobs impact
- collaboration with governments and municipalities
- research and development
“We need to be working with all parties so that they understand the importance of our industry, they understand the contribution you make to the provincial economy, to the growth in jobs and what you are doing on animal welfare, what you are doing on the environment,” said Dahl.
Manitoba’s hog industry has begun rebuilding its barn base after years of stagnation. Over the past two decades the industry has been transformed from one dominated by hundreds of mid-sized farms to a few dozen major players operating high-tech, sophisticated networks of barns with significant workforces.
Those barns support major packing and processing plants, including those in Winnipeg, Brandon, and Neepawa. The industry exports millions of hogs to the United States and overseas, bringing much income to the province.
However, it became a political football in the late 1990s and 2000s, with a Progressive Conservative government that celebrated its expansion being replaced with an NDP government that looked at it with a more skeptical eye.
Farmers coped with tougher manure management and environmental regulations as a number of market shocks and disease outbreaks hammered the North American industry. Environmental activists claimed the hog industry’s manure was a major cause of water quality problems in Lake Winnipeg. Animal welfare activists claimed large barns were cruel to pigs. Small farm activists said big barns pushed small farms out of business. Some municipalities rejected hog barn proposals over worries about the smell of hog manure.
In 2008 the provincial government imposed a moratorium on new hog barn construction or expansion in the main hog producing regions of the province. Right before the call of the 2011 election, premier Greg Selinger pointed to the hog industry as a particular cause of Lake Winnipeg’s problems, despite much contrary evidence and analysis.
Production suffered as facilities aged and some were shut down, without new construction to offset those losses. Slaughter plants ran short of pigs and scaled back production and working hours.
The election of a PC government in 2016 saw the eventual end of the moratorium, but new construction did not immediately surge. Many farmers were reluctant to invest for the future after years of financial stress, but the industry focused on setting up a protocol for producers to follow to get barn projects underway.
About 40 projects have been built or are in the process of construction since the ending of the moratorium, including both new barns and barn expansions.
The hog industry has not been a subject of much controversy in recent years, although it has continued to face criticism from animal rights, climate change and environmental activists.
Beyond working with the three main parties in the legislature, the hog industry has been talking with municipal councils.
“They’re ultimately the ones who approve new barns,” said Dahl.
And the industry runs continuing campaigns of public awareness with a multi-pronged approach including city bus signs focusing on individuals working in the hog industry, other advertising and barbecues.
