Canadian pig producers are happy to put 2023 and its financial losses behind them, but will 2024 be any better? It appears producers in Canada and the United States are reducing the size of their breeding herds, which normally would reduce the supply of pigs and pork and support the price. But the January U.S. […] Read more
Tag Archives Hog Hub
Big futures trades harder in all-electronic world
Report concludes all-electronic trading has not affected the cost per trade, although pit trading did add an option value
WINNIPEG — Who were the winners and losers when Chicago shut its live trading floors for livestock futures and sent everything to the electronic world? That’s a question two economists at the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission have attempted to answer in a new article in the American Journal of Agricultural Economics. Large futures users, […] Read more
Industry leads efforts to fight wild pigs in Man.
HOLLAND, Man. — Manitoba’s wild pig-busters have moved fast to find, trap and destroy the monsters since they got set up a couple of years ago. They aim to entirely eliminate the invasive beast in just a few years. Related story: Man. wild pig control requires different strategy “It’ll probably take most of a decade,” […] Read more
Uncertainty looms for hog sector in the wake of Prop 12
The impacts of a California animal welfare law that took full effect on the first day of 2024 are already being felt, according to Manitoba Pork general manager Cam Dahl. “Yes, Jan. 1 was a deadline but, in truth, Proposition 12 has been enforced since July,” he said. Proposition 12, or Prop 12, is a […] Read more
Carcass competition spices up Man. hog show
Slumping lean hog prices have made for trying times recently in the industry, but producer interest was high at trade show
BRANDON — Anyone who wanted to meet a young, competitive, chatty hog producer last week just had to hang outside the glass-fronted hog cooler at the Brandon Hog and Livestock Show. There, throughout the event, groups of young men, mostly Hutterites, came by, approached the glass and appraised the top five carcasses on display. To […] Read more
Seneca Valley virus causes headaches for pork sector
Manitoba Pork says wider application of an export requirement the U.S. introduced this fall would have halted shipping
A mild virus masquerading as a more serious disease caused frustration in the hog sector this summer, but it could have been much worse, Manitoba producers heard during an early November meeting of the Manitoba Pork Council. Earlier this year, American authorities started requiring a veterinary export certificate for certain cull sows coming out of […] Read more
Be able to prove your work, hog producers told
Sector officials say ‘backing up what we say and proving what we do’ is the best defence against criticisms from the public
PORTAGE LA PRAIRIE, Man. — Manitoba hog farmers are being told to embrace and live the Manitoba Pork Council’s prevailing mantra: “backing up what we say and proving what we do.” That line, spoken several times by MPC general manager Cam Dahl and other pork council staff and directors, was being promoted as the mindset […] Read more
Hog industry prepares for ASF
PORTAGE LA PRAIRIE, Man. — Whenever African swine fever hits North America’s hog farmers, it will shock and shake everybody in the pork industry. How the crisis would unfold is hard to predict, but the broad outlines of response can be seen by the preliminary preparations made by farmers, industry and government. “Immediately upon first […] Read more
Batch farrowing is a strategy that can improve hog health
Conventional farm health wisdom focuses on vaccines, antibiotics and other medical interventions. In addition to these hallmarks of pig health management, some farms have gone back to basics in designing pig flow through their operations to improve animal health. Pig flow also affects sustainability of the farm’s human resources, marketing of hogs and profitability. In […] Read more
