Amid the ever growing shortage of food supplies worldwide, the federal government is offering to pay Canadian pig farmers to destroy their breeding stock. The $50 million program is designed to correct the fallen prices of swine in the country.
The federal government, in an effort to correct the disastrous decline of the price of pork, has put together what is reported to be an "unprecedented" program. They are offering farmers cash in exchange for their agreeing to kill off 10% of the current swine population in the country, which amounts to the slaughter of approximately 150,000 pigs. The slaughter is to be completed no later than fall of this year.
"The value that the market is providing to hog farmers for their breeding animals has fallen to virtually nothing," said Martin Rice, executive director of the Canadian Pork Council on Monday.
"It is due to the economic collapse of the industry. These are farms that families have spent decades building up. We cannot see relief coming. It is agonizing for them. It takes a toll."
Canada's 10,000 pork producers are mainly in Ontario, Quebec, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta and British Columbia. They are in a financially desperate situation as the price of feed continues to climb, while the price of pigs at market falls. Swine that once sold for $150.00 are now bringing $100. The cost to produce the pigs has increased over 50%, mostly due to the rapid rise of feed costs due to the push for bio-fuel production from corn, resulting in farmers losing over $65.00 on every pig they own.
The stronger Canadian dollar has also hurt farmers because hog prices are set in the United States. As the Canadian dollar strengthened, the return to Canadian farmers shrank. But as the U.S. dollar weakened, American farmers found new export markets for their pork. As a result, while Canadian farmers have been cutting back on their herds, U.S. farmers have been raising more hogs.
Under the guidelines of the program farmers will be paid $225 for every hog they kill. They must agree to wipe out their entire breeding herd and stay out of the hog business for three years. The government hopes the program will reduce a glut on the market that has helped drive down prices.
"It's a pretty drastic step," said Clare Schlegel, a hog farmer near Kitchener, Ont., who is also president of the Canadian Pork Council. The $225 price is roughly four times what a farmer would get for a culled hog on the market today, he added.
Just this month, Stomp Farms Ltd., the second-largest hog producer in Saskatchewan, filed for bankruptcy protection and many other farmers have quietly sold off their stock.
Joe Kleinsasser, who runs a hog farm south of Saskatoon, said he is losing roughly $50 a pig even though he grows his own feed grain. "You are looking at a very dire situation."
Karl Kynoch, chair of the Manitoba Pork Council said "
We're in extremely severe times here and some producers are having to make that choice, even though it goes against everything they believe in. Every week we hear of more producers closing their operations because they're not able to feed the pigs any more."
Farmers are being urged to have their hogs professionally slaughtered, however there is nothing preventing the farmers from completing the kill on site. An estimated 50,000 have already been taken down, with an additional 100,000 expected to be culled by this fall.
"We want to minimize the amount of on-farm euthanizing," Rice said. "Before we would approve that application we would need to know how it was going to be done - that it was going to be done humanely and in an environmentally sound way."
And what will be done with the meat? The majority will be used for pet food or otherwise disposed of. An estimated 25% is expected to end up in area food banks.
Clare Schlegel, a hog farmer near New Hamburg, Ont., said it is heartbreaking to risk losing a farm that he and his family have spent decades building up. But now there are factors such as the price of feed going up because of the expanding bio-fuel industry around the world.
Competition from cheaper imported pork is also trimming the meat from his bottom line.
"We wonder ourselves why prices aren't better," Schlegel said. "The market is the market, but still, in human terms, you want to see good food put to good use. In my 30 years, I never dreamed we would be at the point where we are."
This is just alarming on so many levels. With a worldwide shortage of food supply we are witnessing a government paying farmers to destroy the very thing millions are begging for - food. Haitian's eat dirt sandwiches while 150,000 pigs are taken to slaughter in Canada.
The economics of our current global economy leaves me baffled, and filled with despair.
We push to find fuel alternatives under the guise of "global warming" and the desire to lessen our dependence on foreign oil, and in doing so raise the cost of producing food for the planet well out of reach for most farmers. As a result millions of people are starving, and the numbers are growing expeditiously each and every day.
These pigs,150,000 of them, will be "disposed of" or used as pet food, with only 25% of the meat finding its way into the bellies of starving people across the country.
Seems that in "going green" we are only making things worse for the entire world population, but hey, let's try to look at the bright side shall we? At least we'll have rid the planet of all those horrific incandescent light bulbs.
