Canada commits over $500 million to protect hog producers from African Swine Fever threat

Mar 13, 2025

The Canadian government is taking significant steps to protect rural communities and the pork industry from the threat of African Swine Fever (ASF).

Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (AAFC), Lawrence MacAulay, revealed a funding commitment of up to $567.16 million to support hog producers if key export markets for Canadian pork and live pigs are closed due to an ASF outbreak in the Canada or the U.S.

Although Canada is currently ASF-free, even a single case would trigger international trade restrictions, severely impacting the pork sector, which relies heavily on exports. This could lead to substantial costs for hog producers and force them to consider drastic measures like herd depopulation.

AAFC will collaborate with provinces and territories to develop agreements, potentially increasing the funding to reflect a 60:40 cost-sharing arrangement with regional partners.

This funding is part of a broader strategy to prevent and manage ASF outbreaks. Key initiatives include:

The African Swine Fever Industry Preparedness Program (ASFIPP), which has allocated $15.5 million to 28 recipients for 44 projects aimed at early detection and emergency response.
Enhanced measures at ports of entry, such as additional detector dog teams and increased scrutiny of goods from ASF-infected countries, to prevent the virus from entering Canada.
Ongoing awareness campaigns targeting travelers and small-scale producers.

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Video: Selling Hay for 40 Years: Fritz Trauttmansdorff, Dunlea Farms

Fritz Trauttmansdorff came to Canada from Austria in 1980, bought a 45-cow dairy farm at Jerseyville, and within two years had more hay than he knew what to do with. He sold the quota in 1986, went debt-free, and built a hay business that has kept some of the same customers for forty years. Today Dunlea Farms runs about 2,500 acres — roughly 600 of it hay, the rest IP soybeans and grain corn — and Fritz makes the case that hay isn't the crop you grow when grain doesn't work. It's the crop that makes the grain work.

"If you grow corn, soybeans and wheat, you're on a three-wheeler. If you put hay in the rotation, you're on a four-wheeler."

WHAT WE COVER • Why the hay market moves independently of the Chicago Board — and what that does for farm-level risk
• The real cost of a mistake: five bushels in grain, versus the whole crop in hay
• Getting a second job out of the same iron — planting tractors that mow all summer, tillage tractors that bale
• How a grain farmer can get hay into the rotation without buying a single piece of hay equipment
• Drilling Timothy in the fall and double-cropping soybeans into it the next June
• What it actually takes to go all-in: roughly 500 acres, good sheds, and a baler you didn't buy used
• Local, regional and international hay markets — and choosing which one you're building for
• Why 40-year customer relationships are the asset, not the equipment