Farm-Scape is sponsored by Manitoba Pork Council and Sask Pork Play Audio Farm-Scape is a Wonderworks Canada production and is distributed courtesy of Manitoba Pork Council and Sask Pork.

Farm-Scape, Episode 1435

The newly elected Chair of Sask Pork says all stakeholders within the province's swine industry will need to work as a team to ensure the industry's ability to survive the current low hog prices.

The spin-off impact of the discovery of mad cow disease in Canada in May and then in Washington State last month combined with the strengthening of the Canadian dollar have taken a dramatic toll on live hog prices in Canada.

Sask Pork Chair Shirley Voldeng says he organization's top priority right now is to make sure producers have the information and the tools that will help them weather the current low hog prices.

"We're being guardedly optimistic that the future is going to be good. Working as a team is important. We're all part of this together and we need to work together.

We've been having discussions with the government about some things and we're trying to keep as optimistic as we can, providing information to producers and ways to help them through this.

Producers need some support from their financial institutions and, from my understanding, there has been quite a bit of that going on, people extending their lines of credit or not paying principle on loans, things like that.

The support from the financial industries has been key to getting to the point we're still at and still being part of the industry. That's a key part.

Also we're hoping, if there's some government support available, that something like that would come through.

The new CAIS program might be able to address some of the issues that are happening".

Voldeng says, at this point, Sask Pork is looking for options that will help producers get through this rough period.

She says traditionally prices do tend to improve during the summer so the hope is that will come around.

She admits if the situation doesn't improve by summer it's going to get tight in terms of cash flow.

For Farmscape.Ca, I'm Bruce Cochrane.