LEDUC, Alta. — Alberta Pork members have rejected a resolution asking the organization to investigate the possibility of making pork a supply managed industry.
Ciaran Ormond, who argued in favour of the resolution, said rising feed costs and roller-coaster prices have made hog production unsustainable, and producers and government need to take another look at supply management.
“We need a new and fresh examination of supply management,” Ormond said.
Pork producer Rocky Morrell agreed, saying producers couldn’t reject the idea of supply management with the survival of their industry at stake.
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“This is the only answer to give any credence to our survivability,” he said. “With supply management, we finally got consumers to help us out. They pay for eggs, poultry and don’t even question it. At the end of the day the consumer, through the retailer, has to sustain the industry or make the decision we don’t want this industry,” he said.
“Unless massive changes are made to the industry, it’s a race to the bottom.… We have got to try something like this. I don’t see anything else.”
However, producer Ben Wooley said supply management would result in tariffs on exported pork and put half the producers in the room out of business.
“The whole idea of building pig farms on the Prairies and value-added agriculture is all because of the amount of grain we produce. The premise is still right. We need to be adding value to what we feed.”
Jurgen Preugschas said exploring supply management won’t solve producers’ problems and would be a waste of money.
Morrell said supply management should be given a chance. Consumers buy fair trade coffee to help beleaguered coffee producers and likely would buy pork from Canadian farmers if they knew the seriousness of the situation.
“These farms are going down,” he said.
“You wouldn’t believe how many insolvent farms are out there. The family farms are really in trouble. Most of them need a hug and say it’s over.”
