Canada: World’s 3rd largest exporter of pork and pigs

Dec 12, 2022

In the weeks and months leading up to the event United Pork Americas, Pig Progress takes a deep dive in pig countries in the Americas. What is pork production like in the various countries in both continents and what are the perspectives for development? Today: a deeper look at Canada.

Canada is the world’s third largest exporter of pork and live pigs, with exports representing about two-thirds of total production. Export is supported by an agency called Canada Pork.

Almost 30 million pigs were processed in Canada in 2020. Quebec leads all the other 9 provinces in the total number of pigs slaughtered, followed by Ontario, Manitoba, Alberta, Saskatchewan, British Columbia, Prince Edward Island and other provinces. Major Canadian pork companies include duBreton, Maple Leaf and Maple Lodge. Pig producers are represented by the Canadian Pork Council.

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Video: Seeing the Whole Season: How Continuous Crop Modeling Is Changing Breeding

Plant breeding has long been shaped by snapshots. A walk through a plot. A single set of notes. A yield check at the end of the season. But crops do not grow in moments. They change every day.

In this conversation, Gary Nijak of AerialPLOT explains how continuous crop modeling is changing the way breeders see, measure, and select plants by capturing growth, stress, and recovery across the entire season, not just at isolated points in time.

Nijak breaks down why point-in-time observations can miss critical performance signals, how repeated, season-long data collection removes the human bottleneck in breeding, and what becomes possible when every plot is treated as a living data set. He also explores how continuous modeling allows breeding programs to move beyond vague descriptors and toward measurable, repeatable insights that connect directly to on-farm outcomes.

This conversation explores:

• What continuous crop modeling is and how it works

• Why traditional field observations fall short over a full growing season

• How scale and repeated measurement change breeding decisions

• What “digital twins” of plots mean for selection and performance

• Why data, not hardware, is driving the next shift in breeding innovation As data-driven breeding moves from research into real-world programs, this discussion offers a clear look at how seeing the whole season is reshaping value for breeders, seed companies, and farmers, and why this may be only the beginning.