Stirring The Pot - March 19, 2008
Stew Slater, columnist As a regional official for the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, Murray Pink is certainly qualified to talk about limiting the amount of pork coming into Canada from places operating under a different set of health and environmental regulations. In fact, he did exactly that at a recent meeting in Stratford, organized by Perth-Wellington MP Gary Schellenberger and attended by about 70 - mainly livestock farmers.
Pink may not, on the other hand, be qualified for assessments about why livestock farmers are demanding such measures be taken. Still, with the government recently committing $50 million to allow hog farmers to exit the industry, it was refreshing to hear a federal bureaucrat - any federal bureaucrat - candidly admit that short-sighted planning by both farmers and
governments may have contributed to animal agriculture's current woes.
"The reason we got into growing lots of beef and hogs is because you could
make money doing it," Pink commented, before recalling how slaughtering
capacity dropped dramatically in Canada due to increased live exports to the
US. First due to border disruptions related to mad cow disease, and now with
the high loonie, access to those US slaughtering options is disappearing.
Among the slaughtering plants that remain in Canada, the largest are owned
by US companies that hold no loyalty to purchase from Canadian sources.
"At the end of the day, things change," Pink said.
Things certainly have changed for livestock producers over the years. The
hog industry in particular has undergone a complete transformation from its
one-time core of small-scale, mixed farms to the dominance of
intensively-stocked, specialized production facilities protected by
"bio-security" access restrictions. This has happened due to disease
concerns, increasingly strict environmental regulations, wariness of animal
rights spies and, as Pink noted, a drive for economic efficiency.
Changes will continue. The federal initiative, proposing to pay $225 for
each sow removed from the nation's breeding inventory, aims to allow hog
producers to empty barns and gradually decrease the backlog of market-ready
hogs in Canada.
Interviewed following the Stratford meeting, Ontario Pork director Teresa
Van Raay of Huron County said, "there's a lot of interest" in taking the
government up on its offer. But, due to a requirement that barns remain
empty for three years following the removal of sows, people who truly enjoy
working with pigs - especially those just starting their careers - "may
change their minds."
Selling the concept to the average Canadian voter - if and when they become
widely aware of the fund - may be even more challenging. Due to
environmentally-based requirements for access to a certain amount of
agricultural land for the spreading of manure, a good proportion of hog
farmers also grow cash crops. With bread prices rising to unprecedented
levels and ethanol refineries turning large government subsidies into the
purchase of high-priced Ontario corn, it might to be tough to justify giving
taxpayers' money to the farmer's pork-producing hand while the
crop-producing hand takes in record profits.
The other ongoing trend that's being completely ignored by the sow cull fund
is society's increased concern about animal welfare.
The biggest criticism of the initiative, so far, has come from Canada's food
bank sector. That's because, in order not to distort the existing domestic
supply and demand, the Agriculture department has decreed culled sows must
not enter the human food chain. They must be used for pet food, rendered
into byproducts, or composted.
"It would be an extreme shame and waste if these (animals) end up in the
landfill as opposed to feeding people all across Canada," Ontario
Association of Food Banks executive director Adam Spence told the London
Free Press.
Van Raay admitted the restriction "is not well-accepted" among pork industry
leaders, and the Canadian Pork Council has been working to have it changed.
Even Ontario's rendering industry is questioning the wisdom of expecting an
already taxed dead stock disposal system to suddenly handle what could -
according to an estimate in the Ontario Farmer newspaper - amount to 300
sows every weekday for five months.
"I can't believe the government never talked to the renderers at all before
they announced it," said one industry insider in the Ontario Farmer article.
Perhaps a bigger threat, though, is what happens when animal rights
activists get hold of the notion that thousands of perfectly healthy sows
are being killed and destroyed. And it's not like - as was the case in
Britain during the foot and mouth and mad cow scares, or in BC and other
locations during the bird flu scare - decision-makers can hide behind a
perceived threat of disease. This is purely economic.
It's entirely possible that farmers who decide to take the government up on
its offer will saddle those who are left - many of whom truly love working
with pigs and would like animal rightists to take another look at their
practices - with an inalterable public image as an industry bent solely on
maximizing profits.
Allowing slaughtered sows into the food bank supply chain would mitigate
those public perception effects. But the government's program designers were
right: it would distort domestic prices.
The Canadian Pork Council saw its request to send slaughtered sows to
developing nations as food aid denied due to World Trade Organization rules
about subsidized exports. It's surprising that leaders from an industry so
focused on the international effects of farm subsidies would even consider
either the domestic or foreign "donation" options. Neither is workable.
A top US pork industry commentator suggested that, even if a
liberally-estimated number of producers participate in the sow cull, the
already-established trend towards a downsized Canadian industry will not
significantly accelerate. So, in the grand scheme of things, "the winners in
the short run will be those farms that are planning to exit the business
anyway."
What should be done instead to help struggling hog farmers? Regretfully, I
can't offer any insight. But the sow cull is not the answer, and my advice
to tempted near-retirement producers is to pass on the government's offer,
for the good of the next generation of conscientious hog farmers just
starting their careers.