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 1476

US pork producers insist anti-dumping and countervailing duty petitions filed against live hog imports from Canada are not intended to restrict trade but rather to offset unfair trade.

A petition, filed with the US Department of Commerce and the International Trade Commission, asks the US government to determine whether Canadian hog producers receive illegal subsidies that allow them to dump hogs into the US and calls for countervail and antidumping duties.

The action was initiated in response to a substantial increase in imports of Canadian live hogs over the past three years.

Mary Staley with Collier Shannon Scott, the firm representing US producers, says that increase appears to be due substantial subsidies provided to Canadian hog producers.

"There are over 20 programs. A lot of them are income stabilization programs where, if a farm is losing money, it can get assistance from the provincial or the federal government and there's beneficial financing that's offered to certain producers to give them loans at preferential rates, things like that that are creating these benefits that we believe many of the Canadian hog producers are receiving.

That allows them to continue with their increase in production whereas, if things were controlled solely by the market, they would be cutting back their production.

What we're seeing is an increase in the herd size, increasing production in Canada whereas the US producers, because of the difficult economic conditions, have been cutting back their herd size".

Staley says US pork producers are not attempting to stop trade with Canada. She says the issue is not about free trade but rather about balanced trade and offsetting unfair trade practices.

For Farmscape.Ca, I'm Bruce Cochrane.