Despite months of terrible prices followed by a slow recovery, the prairie sow herd has continued to expand.
But there is also a shift in the herd, as Alberta’s shrinks, Saskatchewan’s grows slowly and Manitoba’s rapidly expands.
The reason for the numbers is producers gearing up to supply the new, giant Maple Leaf hog plant in Brandon, Man.
According to Statistics Canada, Manitoba’s sow herd increased 8.4 percent between July 1, 1998 and July 1, 1999. Saskatchewan’s smaller herd increased 3.6 percent.
Elsewhere Alberta’s shrunk 1.4 percent, Ontario’s herd shrunk slightly, while Quebec’s increased slightly.
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But Statistics Canada’s total pig numbers seem to contradict these results. It shows the pig herd increasing in Ontario and Quebec, and shrinking in Manitoba and Saskatchewan.
Manitoba Agriculture hog industry analyst Janet Honey called these results an “anomaly” caused by a phenomenon that will probably disappear.
For years, Manitoba producers have shipped weanlings to United States feeders. This year saw hundreds of thousands trot south in search of better prices than Canadian feeders and packers would offer.
Now that the Brandon Maple Leaf plant is operating, Canadian hog prices have risen to the point where most weanlings should stay in Canada. That will increase the size of the total pig herd in Manitoba.
“That inventory number should be up quite a bit when they do it for Oct. 1,” said Honey.
Michael McCain, the head of Maple Leaf Foods, said the Brandon plant will focus on keeping Manitoba’s huge numbers of weanling exports inside the province.
Almost the entire decline in Manitoba’s total pig herd is in lightweight animals, Honey said. These animals, weighing from 45 to 130 pounds, were the ones sent south for the first six months of 1999.
The Manitoba numbers are remarkable in light of United States trends. According to analysts Ron Plain and Glen Grimes of the University of Missouri, the U.S. breeding herd has fallen about six percent, while the number of slaughter animals has declined about three percent.
