Mood of Canadian Pork Producers Brightens

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Monday, March 15, 2010

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Mood of Canadian Pork Producers Brightens

CANADA - The chair of Manitoba Pork Council says the mood of Canada's pork producers has brightened in the wake of improvements in the market for live hogs, according to Bruce Cochrane.

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A combination of low live hog prices, high feed costs, a strong Canadian dollar, the global recession and US Country of Origin Labelling have contributed to approximately three years of losses in the Canadian pork industry.

Manitoba Pork Council Chair Karl Kynoch says hog markets have turned around and more importantly feed costs have come down allowing producers to pencil in some small profits over the summer months.

Karl Kynoch-Manitoba Pork Council

We've had some real positive things coming out of world markets in the last few days.

We're hearing now that China is going to allow the US back into their markets a little stronger bringing more product out of there.

Russia is looking at bringing more product again out of North America into their markets.

Anytime that we can increase our shipments into the world markets that is just hugely positive for all of North American producers in trying to bring that price back up.

That's been really positive and I think shows the economy is maybe getting a little stronger where people can also buy product which again has went a long ways to help out.

For the second and third quarter of this year we're looking at some small profits and some break evens.

We're probably looking at a fairly tough last quarter or first quarter of next year right now if you do look at the future markets but a lot of people are still hoping that those markets can recover if we could see a little bit better product movement this summer.

A lot of people are still holding out faith that we can maybe get into some break evens and really look at some very good profits again in 2011.

Time will tell on that but I will say it's a lot brighter out there now than it was a year ago.

Mr Kynoch acknowledges there are huge losses over the past three years to make up so it will take about three years of 50 dollar a pig profits to recover the lost equity.

None the less, he says, producers are feeling a lot more positive being back to break even or slightly profitable positions.

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