By Paul Morden, from www.theobserver.ca The Observer
Just three years ago, hog farmers in Lambton County were mulling over a federal program aimed at helping them leave their troubled industry.
Some did, but others stayed and today times are much better.
Statistics Canada recently reported Ontario hog prices were up more than 45% from the year before.
“It’s a heck of a lot better than what it was,” said Chad Stanton, a Forest-area farmer and president of the Lambton Pork Producers.
“There’s a lot more hog producers with smiles on their faces going into 2012 than there was for the past three years.”
Stanton added, “There is room for profit margin,” on local hog farms today, “but it’s still not out of the woods yet.”
Back in 2009, Ontario’s pork industry was hard-hit by overproduction, a high Canadian dollar and the impact of an outbreak of the unfortunately named swine flu.
That incorrectly suggested that hogs carried the virus, and while authorities moved quickly to change the name to the H1N1 flu, the damage was done.
When a promised federal package for the industry arrived in the summer of 2009, it was less than expected.
But it included money to help struggling pork producers leave the industry.
There were said to be 2,700 pork producers in the province at that time. The Pork Ontario website says there are 2,000 today.
Lambton had about 145 hog farmers back in 2009.
“We did lose producers, which is disappointing,” Stanton said, adding he’s not certain how many left the industry in Lambton.
Like other livestock producers, pork farmers are dealing these days with higher grain prices that increase their feed costs. But, Stanton said that’s not all bad.
“High grain prices mean good meat prices,” he said.
If the price of the corn used in hog feed was lower again, hog prices would be lower too, according to Stanton.
Federally, the Canadian government continues to challenge the U.S. move to require mandatory country of origin labelling on pork and some other commodities imported and sold there.
Ottawa is also working to open up markets for Canadian pork in South Korea.
“There are a lot of different things I know the government is working on,” Stanton said.
But, he added, “it takes time.”
Observer Article ID# 3431442
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