Despite Processing Plant Disruptions Adequate Pork Supplies Expected

The General Manager of the Saskatchewan Pork Development Board is confident Canadian consumers will continue to have access to adequate supplies of pork in spite of processing plant disruptions. The biggest impact on Saskatchewan hog farmers from COVID-19 has been a dramatic drop in live hog prices due to reduced slaughter hog demand as the result of pork processing plant closures, mostly in the United States.

 

Mark Ferguson, the General Manager of the Saskatchewan Pork Development Board says, in western Canada plants are all operating normally.

 

 

We know the plants have all implemented social distancing measures in their facilities. They've all got different break areas to spread the workers out, dividers and increased space between workers and some plants have even added a second shift with half the employees there at a time. We know they're doing everything they can to protect their work forces and it's been successful so far.

 

Eastern Canada has had two different plant closures but is, for the most part, holding things together. In Canada things are going reasonably well on the pork processing side and we don't expect there will be any shortages of Canadian pork going into the stores. The issues that are cropping up seem to be mostly in the U.S. Last week we know that U.S. hog slaughter was down by 15 percent.

 

This week it's looking like it's going to decline by 40 percent by the end of the week. There are hundreds of thousands of hogs that are not able to get processed so hogs are backing up into barns. We're producing less pork in North America, the wholesale pork price is rising which is a good thing but, due to the excess number of hogs out there, live hog prices aren't rising at the same rate as pork prices so there's a bit of a disconnect there.

Video: Evolution of Beef Cattle Farming

The Clear Conversations podcast took to the road for a special episode recorded in Nashville during CattleCon, bringing listeners straight into the heart of the cattle industry. Host Tracy Sellers welcomed rancher Steve Wooten of Beatty Canyon Ranch in Colorado for a wide-ranging discussion that blended family history and sustainability, particularly as it relates to the future of beef production.

Sustainability emerged as a central theme of the conversation, a word that Wooten acknowledges can mean very different things depending on who you ask. For him, sustainability starts with the soil. Healthy soil produces healthy grass, which supports efficient cattle capable of producing year after year with minimal external inputs. It’s an approach that equally considers vegetation, animal efficiency, and long-term profitability.

That philosophy aligned naturally with Wooten’s involvement in the U.S. Roundtable for Sustainable Beef, where he served as a representative for the Colorado Cattlemen’s Association. The roundtable brings together the entire beef supply chain—from producers to retailers—along with universities, NGOs, and allied industries. Its goal is not regulation, Wooten emphasized, but collaboration, shared learning, and continuous improvement.