By Bruce Cochrane.
The General Manager of the Saskatchewan Pork Development Board reports the pork industry across the country appear very supportive of a national levy to be collected on the sale of pork consumed in Canada.
The Farm Products Council of Canada held public hearings last week in Montreal to gather input on the proposed creation national levy on the sale of pork consumed in Canada.
Neil Ketilson, the General Manager of the Saskatchewan Pork Development Board, explains the check-off would be modeled after a similar levy in place for Canada's cattle industry and could generate over a million dollars per year to promote increased pork consumption and support research.
Neil Ketilson-Pork Development Board:
The levy actually applies to all pork products but appreciate and understand that, within the provincial bodies, there is a provincial levy that the pork associations use for the services and the things that we do on behalf of producers here everyday.
The national levy would be a levy that would be a fixed amount right across the country.
It would apply also to imported pork.
Canada right now exports about 65 percent of what we produce but conversely we import up to 30 percent of what we consume so the imported product would also have this levy applied against it.
As I understand it, and it has to be determined, it depends on the agri-food council and their recommendations and it also depends on the federal government and the minister of agriculture in terms of how they move this thing forward but the levy would apply to imported products on a prorated basis equivalent animal levy as to the minimum amount of levy collected in any of the provinces cross Canada.
Ketilson says time frames would be up to the Farm Products Council of Canada and the federal government but if the stars line up it could be in place in 2017.
Source: Farmscape