WINNIPEG – If Manitoba’s pork industry is to double by the year 2000, Harry Enns believes hog producers need a more flexible marketing system.
Last week, the agriculture minister announced that within a few months, Manitoba Pork will lose its single-desk selling powers. The agency allocates hogs to the province’s four packers and negotiates prices on behalf of about 2,200 producers.
Enns commissioned a report last fall that recommended an open marketing system for the province. He said hog barns are becoming larger, and big operations should be able to strike their own deals with packers.
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“Why force the system to go through a third party when it’s not necessary?” he said.
But Ken Foster, chair of Manitoba Pork, said the agency has helped the industry grow. He said most producers and packers want to keep the single selling desk.
In fact, an independent survey of producers done this spring showed 62 percent did not want dual marketing and 83 percent believe the agency gives all producers equal access to the market through the single-desk system.
Foster said he’s not sure what effect the change will have on Manitoba Pork, but he’s worried that services will be duplicated and small producers will get lower prices for their hogs.
Foster said Manitoba Pork allocates more than two million hogs a year between four plants, and sometimes ships hogs to the U.S. “I think we do it as efficiently as anywhere in North America,” he said.
Under an open marketing system, larger producers may have a better bargaining position, Foster said. “Many producers feel that packers may start paying for who you are and not what you produce, even if the smaller producer might have a far superior quality animal.”
The agency has recently introduced several innovative programs, including one that helps J.M. Schneider Inc. contract with producers to get hogs meeting certain export specifications.
Last week, the agency indefinitely suspended its forward price contracting program, which has been popular with producers. “We have no idea what is going to happen to the price structure in three months and beyond,” Foster said.
Better for packers
While Enns admitted Manitoba Pork has helped increase production by 50 percent in the past decade, he said dual marketing will help ensure packers get enough hogs.
Enns also said Manitoba Pork’s arrangement with Schneider is unfair. “I’m not prepared to live with a situation that allows Manitoba Pork to cut a deal with one packer and then not extend it to another packer.”
But Foster said the arrangement is open to any packer and has been for several years. Schneider is the only packer that has opted to use the program.
“Some of the things that are being said at the government level are misleading, very misleading,” he said.
