The general manager of Manitoba Pork says relations among Canadian and American pork producers are running at a ten year high.
Next week representatives of Manitoba Pork will travel to Minneapolis for the Minnesota Pork Congress and the following week to Des Moines for the Iowa Pork Congress as part of a trade advocacy mission.
Manitoba Pork general manager Andrew Dickson says the trade missions are very productive.
Andrew Dickson-Manitoba Pork:
We've been doing this for ten years now and I think we can say that we've developed a good working relationship and understanding of the production issues, the economic issues and so on that face producers on both sides of the border.
I think there's a much better understanding of Canadian pork production amongst American producers now than there was say ten years ago.
The importance of that lies in that we haven't a trade case with the United States for 10 years now.
If you look at the history of these things in Canada there's been trade wars about the pig industry for the past 30 to 40 years.
We've always had one of these things and this has been the longest period of time we haven't had such a trade issue as we've had in the past so we look at this as significant.
We need to move on and look at how we in North America deal with things like disease management.
When they get a bad disease in Iowa it poses a threat to our industry in Manitoba and visa versa.
A bad disease in Manitoba will affect the industry in Iowa.
Dickson notes we're trying to keep the disease they have in the U.S. out of the Canadian system so actions they're taking will be discussed and we want to make sure we're not bringing disease down into their systems.
He says issues to be discussed will include transportation rules, disease and the transfer of disease.
Source: Farmscpae