Ottawa, Ontario – Hog producers in Prince Edward Island (PEI) have been impacted by COVID-19 outbreaks and disease control measures at processing plants, and many producers are being forced to keep hogs on-farm beyond their standard lifecycle. This has resulted in extraordinary feed and maintenance costs which have put a financial strain on their operations.
Today, Member of Parliament for Malpeque, the Honourable Wayne Easter, on behalf of the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food, the Honourable Marie-Claude Bibeau, and PEI's Minister of Agriculture and Land, the Honourable Bloyce Thompson, announced the launch of an initiative under the AgriRecovery Framework to provide up to $500,000 to assist hog producers affected by processing shut downs due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The program will be funded through AgriRecovery, a Federal-Provincial-Territorial disaster relief framework to help producers faced with the extraordinary costs associated with recovering from disasters, and will be cost shared on a 60/40 basis between Canada and PEI.
This Initiative will provide assistance for up to 90 per cent of the cost to feed market-ready hogs held back from processing, and to manage surplus hogs whose welfare is at risk. The PEI Department of Agriculture and Land will administer program applications and payments to producers.
Source : Government of Canada