SASKATOON – The National Farmers Union wanted Roy Romanow to just say no to corporate hog farms.
But the Saskatchewan premier wasn’t prepared to do that during an appearance at the union’s annual convention here last week.
“I’m reluctant to give a commitment to rush in and say ‘no’ to corporate farming on the question of pigs, for example,” he said. “We have to wait and see the details of what exactly is being proposed, where the dangers lie and what, if anything, should be done as a consequence of it.”
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NFU members peppered the premier with questions about the future of the hog industry in the province, zeroing in on the proposal by Saskatchewan Wheat Pool to get into hog production.
They asked if the government is contemplating new laws to protect family farms and pressed him for a promise that the government won’t allow family farms to be displaced by large-scale corporate units.
Romanow said his government would prefer to see the hog industry based on family farms, but that might not allow for the kind of growth the province wants.
He said the target is to produce three million pigs by 2001, about double the current production.
“We’d like to do it ideally through family farms … but we think practically what’s going to happen, given the numbers we’re talking about, is likely some sort of combination of individual farmers, co-operatives and corporate farms.”
Romanow said Sask Pool seems to be sensitive to environmental and social concerns surrounding an expansion of hog production.
“I think we proceed, but we have to do it with care and caution. We’re not going to do it in a rapid way that would trample over individual farmers or despoil the environment,” he said.
