Manitoba’s hog industry has been blindsided with the release of the long-awaited Clean Environment Commission’s report, hog officials say.
In its interpretation of the commission’s 48 recommendations, the Manitoba government has determined that growth in the industry is not sustainable in the province’s southeast, the Red River Valley and the Interlake.
The province’s decision to slap a permanent moratorium on expansion affecting roughly two-thirds of the province’s producers came as a shock to Karl Kynoch, chair of the Manitoba Pork Council.
“It really caught us off guard,” he said, adding that the permanent ban would devalue many properties and buildings in the affected regions.
Read Also
How Saskatchewan’s satellite forage insurance program is going to work
Saskatchewan Crop Insurance Corp.’s Satellite Forage Insurance Program is officially underway, having replaced the Forage Rainfall Insurance Program.
“The permanent moratorium was not a recommendation coming out of the report. The government has done that on their own,” he said, adding that the group was still trying to digest other parts of the 180-page CEC report, which was released March 3.
“They are singling out one commodity group and putting on them the blame for the problems of Lake Winnipeg when we’re responsible for only 1.5 percent of the phosphorus runoff.”
While the ban will not kill the industry, said Kynoch, it will result in significant lost opportunities.
