The recently elected chair of the Canadian Pork Council says that after years of industry losses, there are reasons for hope, optimism and new young entrants.
Jean-Guy Vincent’s 35-year-old son, David, is a symbol of that hope.
He is part of his family hog operation near Drummondville, Que., east of Montreal and sees a future in the business.
“I think young people considering the industry should be optimistic,” Vincent said.
“My son has lived through the problems of the past few years and he still thinks the future is good.”
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Vincent said there are reasons to hope that the devastation of the past four years is behind the industry.
Producers were rocked by years of losses caused by high feed costs, herd health issues, ill-placed consumer fears about swine flu being connected to pork, a strong Canadian dollar that reduced the value of exports and a government assistance program that offered little support because reference margins had been wiped out.
The industry lost thousands of producers and significant production, in part through a government buy-out program.
“They were very rough years and I hope it is over, but I understand the hog industry is always a challenge,” Vincent said.
“Agriculture in Canada is a challenge. We have a higher cost of production because of weather and with a small inside (domestic) market, we depend on exports.”
Those challenges are why Vincent, former head of the Quebec hog producers’ marketing board, said he wants the priority of his time as CPC chair to be lobbying for the tools the industry needs to survive.
Even with the prospect of lower feed costs because of falling grain prices, the notoriously cyclical industry needs help “to get over the downs.”
The tools include industry and government investment, closer co-operation with processors and retailers, emphasis on expanding export markets and improvements in farm business risk management programs such as AgriStability.
It also includes a pork council demand that governments renew funding for the Canadian Swine Health Board, which has worked on biosecurity issues, disease risk management strategies and research into emerging hog diseases.
The four-year, $37.3 million government funding commitment to the health board expires March 31, 2013, when the current Growing Forward programs expire. The hog industry wants a renewal of that funding to be part of federal-provincial negotiations over details of the next five-year set of programs.
“It is one of the tools we need. It helps producers to achieve biosecurity on the farm and that is a very important part of our future. We need that organization to keep going,” he said.
Vincent has been in the Quebec farm sector for 41 years after he joined his father on his dairy and hog operation in Sainte-Séraphine, Que. Since 1985, it has been primarily a hog operation with a 40-sow operation on one farm and a second farm that finishes 1,800 hogs.
The Vincents market 25,000 hogs annually. They also plant 2,000 acres in soybeans and corn, mainly to make feed for the pigs.
He said he decided to accept the time-demanding pork council leadership after his wife and son agreed to pick up more of the workload on the family farm.
“There is a reason I didn’t do this until I was 62,” he said. “I guess I am semi-retired on the farm.”
His years as head of the Quebec hog board also prepared the family for the demands of the national role.
