From what I can tell, the Manitoba feedgrains market is in peril on the demand side, and that’s because of provincial legislation and nasty political calculation.
Manitoba’s heading into a fall provincial election, and the reigning NDP is showing all the signs of repeatedly targeting and scapegoating the hog industry as a way of appealing the “green” and economically reactionary elements of its base. And the Tories, scared of being tied to the libeled industry, have been doing nothing to remove the smear.
Here’s part of a news release released yesterday by the already hard-campaigning NDP, entitled “Hugh McFadyen Can’t Handle The Truth.”
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“THE FACTS ON PROTECTING OUR WATER: Fact: Hugh McFadyen said he will repeal a ban on putting new hog barns next to Lake Winnipeg – one put in place to stop animal waste from flowing into the water. (Hansard June 9, 2008). Fact: Hugh McFadyen call investments in wastewater and sewage treatment “wasteful spending.” (PC News Release, April 14, 2010) . . . “
What’s notable here is not the rather loose (totally inaccurate?) description of the NDP’s infamous Bill 17, which put a moratorium on hog barn construction in the Red River valley, but simply the fact that the NDP seems keen to tar the PC leader with a connection to the hog industry.
That’s rather odd, isn’t it, that being sympathetic to the situation of a major provincial industry and the source of thousands of tax-paying jobs is somehow seen as a negative, but that’s what the NDP government and various “green” and anti-intensive-farming groups have managed to do in this province in the past 10 years. Even though vast areas of rural Manitoba, much of Brandon’s economy, and significant amount of Winnipeg’s economy are built upon the production of a few hundred hog farmers, the industry has come to be something seen as bad.
The assumption that the NDP is deliberately smearing the hog industry seems impossible to dispute. I still keep, as a particularly dishonest piece of political wording, the news release I received a few weeks ago announcing the news conference that would point the finger of blame at the hog industry for Lake Winnipeg’s water woes, even though scientific studies have shown that the hog industry is not a dominant source of the phosphorus leading into the lake or its watershed. Hog farmers are not mentioned in the notice:
“Media Notice:
Who: Premier Greg Selinger
When: 10:30 a.m. TODAY Thursday June 2
Where: Room 68, Legislative Building
Topic: Action plan to save Lake Winnipeg”
There it is. A motherhood and apple pie topic: saving Lake Winnipeg.
And the premier proceeded to announce legislation that, in the minds of most who have studied its vague provisions, effectively extends the hog barn moratorium from the Red River valley to the rest of the province. And of course he specifically pointed out the hog industry as a source of phosphorus going into Lake Winnipeg.
When Bill 46, which became the Save Lake Winnipeg Act, was put up to a vote, the PC party voted in favour of it, even though major farm organizations such as Keystone Agricultural Producers and Manitoba Pork Council argued stridently against it. I guess no one wants to be on record voting against something called the Save Lake Winnipeg act.
Perhaps the NDP will restrain its dogs if it wins reelection, after shoring up its base with this sort of a nasty campaign. One would like to hope the more economically-savvy elements of the NDP, and the London School of Economics-educated premier, know enough to avoid killing the golden goose. And perhaps the PCs will undo some of the damage to hog farmers of the NDP government’s acts and regulations once they’re in power and find the courage to fight the negative perception of the industry. (That’s something the NDP has been attempting to do: prove that the PCs would undo all the work the government has done to shackle hog farmers).
Who knows?
But while this may appear, in some people’s minds, to be an issue for just a few hundred farmers, wiser people know that thousands of jobs throughout Manitoba rely on the industry. And thousands of farmers should realize – and this point is why I am mentioning this in a markets blog – that the hog industry is a HUGE source of demand for Manitoba and Saskatchewan feedgrains. This year, even Alberta feedgrains are flowing to Manitoba because of the crop production problems in both Saskatchewan and Manitoba last year.
Just think about how much five, six, seven or eight million pigs eat in a year. That’s demand for feedgrains that doesn’t have to be there. I lived in Saskatchewan through most of the 1990s and that province – under a different NDP government – was desperate to get INTO the hog industry so that it wouldn’t rely on exporting bulk grains at discounted prices – especially low value feedgrains – and shipping the jobs to other provinces and countries.
If you are a farmer in the eastern half of the prairies, the feed industry demand helps shore up the prices for feedgrains you get, whether you sell to hog and cattle feeders or not. It provides a continual source of consumption for wheat, barley, oats, corn and other crops that don’t make food grade. Without that demand, it makes sense that feedgrain prices would drop further back into an export-basis market. That’d cost prairie crop growers hundreds of millions of dollars.
So that’s why this is a market issue that farmers need to care about. If the industry is slowly smothered, that market shrinks and dies. And prices will ease downwards. Once we’re through this bull market in crop prices, which has lasted four years now, demand sources like the feedgrains market are once more going to be vital.
So if you’re paying attention to this election, maybe suggest to your local NDP candidate that he or she stops beating up on the hog industry. And maybe tell the PC man or woman that they shouldn’t so meekly go along with the beatdown.
They’re messing with your markets.
