The prairie pig herd has changed dramatically in the past 15 years, with production shifting eastward.
While production in Alberta has increased slightly since 1986, and Saskatchewan’s has increased by more than 25 percent, Manitoba’s has more than doubled and is steaming ahead fast.
In 1986 Alberta had 170,000 sows, Manitoba had 118,000 and Saskatchewan had 72,000.
By 1999, Alberta had 187,800, Manitoba had 244,400 sows and Saskatchewan had 100,300.
But the growth over the years more clearly underlines the different paths each province has taken.
In that 14-year period Manitoba’s sow herd increased every year except two, revealing an industry in steady expansion. Alberta’s has expanded and sharply contracted twice. Presently the Alberta herd is far below its 1992 level of 213,000 sows. Saskatchewan’s herd has generally slowly expanded, though it did slump in the mid-1990s.
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Marilyn Jonas of Pork Central, the Saskatchewan hog barn promotion agency, said her province is trying to achieve steady growth but doubts it can soon match the phenomenal growth in Manitoba.
“We have a lot of potential, but we’re looking long term and for sustainability,” said Jonas.
“We’re expecting moderate growth, as opposed to a huge boom.”
Eventually, Saskatchewan would like to produce five million pigs per year, said Jerome Warick of Sask Pork.
Jonas said that number of pigs can support a world class packer such as the Schneider’s and Maple Leaf plants in Manitoba.
But for the next few years, Jonas expects growth to be 10 to 15 percent a year.
Alberta’s pig population mirrors the ups and downs of the provincial packers. In the last few years the old Gainer’s plant in Edmonton closed while the Fletcher’s Fine Foods plant in Red Deer expanded.
Manitoba has a much smaller land base than either Saskatchewan or Alberta and many more pigs per square kilometre of farmland.
But Jonas said even the most concentrated parts of the Prairies have far fewer pigs than in many parts of the world.
A couple of years ago, Manitoba had 46 pigs per sq. km of farmland.
Alberta had 14 and Saskatchewan had five.
Quebec, the biggest producer in Canada, had 241. But that is still small compared to world giants such as North Carolina, which had 386, the Netherlands 919 and Taiwan 1,506.
