Pork Producers Are In A Dire Situation Due To COVID-19

Aug 27, 2020

Canada's hog industry is in a dire situation. Producers across the nation are facing unprecedented volatility and loss due to COVID, and the chair of the Canadian Pork Council is calling for dramatic changes to programs like Agri-stability.

It was back in the spring, that Federal Ag Minister Bibeau urged producers, including those in the pork industry, to sign onto agri-stability, but very few producers did. The Canadian Pork Council's Rick Bergmann says after a decade of trying to convince Ottawa to make changes, it's time. "Guys were getting into 2020, thinking it would be a good year. The challenge of COVID has really sideswiped a lot of the farms here in Canada. There has been, in some areas, some improvement on the pricing. We say what's the problem and what's the solution. The problem is COVID so the solution is we should be able to rely on a good backstop. You have Agri-Stability but that backstop is no longer what is required or what is needed."

Bergmann hopes there will be some changes to the Agri-Stability program to help farmers. "The federal / provincial Ag meeting is coming up in October. We've been talking to the federal government saying there's a solution to the problem. We have got to get a backstop that is more reliable to producers. We have been talking to the government for about a decade about increasing the trigger back to 85% of what it used to be. Now were talking to them saying because for a decade they have said no to us, let's work on the compensation rate and bring that to 85 percent. What that does is help the focus going directly on those that are hurting the most."

Bergmann is interested to see what comes out of the meeting that will be held in October.

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