Manitoba hog producers have been left without a prominent price discovery tool since Feb. 19, when Manitoba Agriculture stopped reporting average prices.
Industry representatives will meet April 21 to see if they can come up with a new way to report a benchmark price, said Janet Honey, chief of market statistics for the department.
Springhill Farms, one of three packers who reported prices to the department, complained the old system didn’t reflect prices paid by exporters, and included hogs coming into Manitoba from other provinces, as well as some premiums.
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Honey said it’s important for hog producers to be able to compare the prices they receive to the benchmark price.
Without the packer price, producers have been using the Manitoba Pork Marketing Co-op Inc.’s prices as benchmarks, said manager Perry Mohr.
Because the co-op is the largest marketer in the province, it’s not hard to find out what it is paying, said Mohr.
“If any price is visible, it’s ours.”
Producers and buyers use the price as a base for negotiating prices for direct contracts, Mohr said, and that puts pressure on the co-op to make sure it’s competitive.
“That’s not necessarily a bad pressure,” he said.
But Gerry Friesen, chair of the co-op, railed against unnamed organizations that, he said, are trying to break apart the collective marketing efforts of producers. Friesen declined to elaborate, but said certain elements in the province are pitting producers and marketers against each other.
“Some people want to fragment groups,” he said.
Because of the crash in hog prices, many farmers are making short-term marketing decisions, said Friesen, and are quick to switch their allegiances if it means more money.
He said it’s likely that marketing contracts are being broken as producers second-guess their marketing decisions.
This marketing chaos doesn’t serve producers well, said Friesen, because if they don’t stick together now, they will be more vulnerable in the future.
