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World Pork Expo June 6, 2003 Report 08
(Episode 1265)

Manitoba Pork Council's District Three Director says the prospects of mandatory Country of Origin Labelling seem to the most pressing issue among producers attending the 2003 edition of World Pork Expo.

Gary Tolten, who farms near Newdale, says the general mood at this year's show appears to be one of optimism and the feeling among producers on both sides of the border is that Canada and the United States need to work together within a common North American market for hogs.

He says the biggest concern has been how COOL will impact the industry.

"The packing industry in the states could be hurt if they have trouble slaughtering Canadian hogs.

Some of the Canadian hogs may have trouble finding homes to be slaughtered. Weanlings may have trouble finding barns down here to be fed in and packing plants in Canada could be over utilized and American plants could be under utilized because of bureaucratic red tape.

Probably there will be very little or no benefit in the cost.

Canadian product may be slightly cheaper on the store shelves but we've always produced a safe quality product and we will continue to do so on both sides of the border so the red tape of saying where the pig was born or where it was fed and verifying that is just an added expense to our production costs".

Tolten says there could be a huge amount of record keeping and it's going to fall on the producer to bear the costs of verifying where the animals came from with no benefit to the consumer.

He says Canadian and American producers grow a similar product and it's not a food safety or a food quality issue.

At World Pork Expo, I'm Bruce Cochrane.