By Bruce Cochrane
The chair of Sask Pork remains hopeful expanded trade deals will help maintain profitability within the North American pork industry during the coming year.
Although Porcine Epidemic Diarrhea challenged North American pork producers high hog prices combined with declining feed costs made 2014 one of if not the most profitable year ever for North American pork producers.
Florian Possberg, the chair of the Saskatchewan Pork Development Board, acknowledges there's a very good chance 2015 will not be at the same level of profitability as 2014.
Florian Possberg-Saskatchewan Pork Development Board:
Numbers are starting to increase in terms of sows being bred.
Productivity per litter is increasing as people either protect themselves from PED or find better ways to deal with it so we're definitely going to see significantly more hogs in North America in 2015 and typically that does depress our prices.
However with feed being at a lower cost likely in 2015 than when we started out in 2014 we're optimistic that at least the first half or maybe three quarters will still be quite profitable in 2015.
2015 we will see increased production but if North America can continue to expand our exports to countries around the world that really does create an opportunity for us.
To do that of course we need to have trade deals with countries that appreciate our product and our governments need to work on trade agreements that are trade friendly.
Possberg says, while we do expect to see increased production, if we can find markets we can continue to expand the ability of North America to supply the global market with pork.
Source: Farmscape