After three years of losses, it looked like the pork industry was finally set to rebound this spring. Summer is typically a time of higher prices and experts were predicting that farmers would break even or even turn a profit. Then the H1N1 influenza virus made headlines around the world as “swine flu.”
“Swine flu was a kick in the pants we didn’t need,” said pork producer Eric Schwindt, who finishes about 1,000 pigs a year at his farm north of Elmira and works full time for Genex Ontario, a swine breeding company.
“I talk to a lot of producers every week and they’re all wondering how they fit into this business,” he said.
The H1N1 virus followed three tough years for pork farmers. In 2006, swine circovirus hit herds in Ontario and Quebec; in 2007, the soaring Canadian dollar made Canadian pork less competitive on world markets; and in 2008, production costs went up as fuel and feed prices climbed.
“In business, you can sustain a period of loss for a period of time, and the pork industry [is] … used to a cyclical marketplace, but this has just been a succession of events that are negative and it’s lasting for years,” said Wanda Jeffray, chair of the Ontario Pork Producers Marketing Board.
The impact of H1N1 was direct and devastating. Prices immediately dropped $20 to $25 per pig, and Ontario Pork estimates Ontario hog farmers lost $9 million in the four weeks following the outbreak of the virus.
Producers and public health officials rushed to reassure the public that H1N1 couldn’t be contracted from eating pork, and the message seems to have gotten through to Canadian consumers, Jeffray said.
The problem is that Canada exports some 50 per cent of its pork, making the industry vulnerable to changes in world markets. When H1N1 broke, countries such as China, Russia and South Korea used the virus as an excuse to slap restrictions on Canadian pork. Although some of those restrictions have now been lifted, the industry is still suffering.
Heading into the fall, the picture looks just as bleak.
“Farmers are faced with almost guaranteed losses and severe losses to the point of $40 per pig,” said Martin Misener, swine veterinarian at Linwood Veterinary Services.
“The big concern, as we head into the fall and winter, is if this H1N1 starts to show up with any kind of frequency, what kind of an impact will that have?”
The one bright spot for local farmers is the development of niche markets. Jones Feed Mill in Linwood has partnered with Genetiporc on a humane pork initiative; Grand Valley Fortifiers is supporting a natural pork initiative and there are organic programs getting off the ground.
“Our local community is extraordinarily well-suited to that kind of production,” Misener said. “[They] tend to be smaller farms, quite well set up to handle a more expensive kind of production.”
Pork producers have been lobbying the federal government for relief for hog farmers, and they’re waiting on an announcement of what form that assistance will take.
While government loans will help in the short term, in the long term there will have to be a wholesale change in the Canadian pork industry. Ontario Pork is pressing for a shift away from commodity production toward a value-added product that would be distinguished and priced higher.
“There will always be commodity production in Ontario, but not such a large part of the portfolio,” Jeffray said.
For Misener, part of the problem is that until recently, the urban community was largely unaware the pork industry was struggling. To that end, he spent $15,000 of his own money to produce a commercial promoting the Canadian pork industry.
For Misener, it’s important to promote not just the product, but how it’s produced. He explains that family farms have gradually disappeared in the U.S. over the past 20 years, to be replaced by large corporate entities.
“It’s these kinds of crises that tend to push an industry in that direction,” he said. “I think that would be a big loss to Canadians.
“I think it’s extremely important to get as much awareness out there and promote the industry for what it truly is, and that’s a family-based industry.”
