Farm-Scape, Episode 1583

Manitoba Pork Council is hoping a preliminary US Department of Commerce ruling this week will prompt the American swine industry to end its pursuit of import duties on live Canadian hogs.

Petitions filed by the National Pork Producers Council in March accused the Canadian swine industry of dumping illegally subsidized hogs into the US and called for countervail and antidumping duties.

In a preliminary ruling announced this week the US Commerce Department determined government support provided to Canadian swine producers are not sufficient to justify countervail duties.

Manitoba Pork Council Chair Karl Kynoch says the trade action threatens producers on both sides of the border and should be discontinued.

"The NPPC has accused the Canadian swine industry of receiving millions of dollars in illegal subsidies.

What this ruling has done has shown that we are not receiving the subsidies and we are, in turn, working on an even playing field.

The one thing that we would is that this would show to the American producers their accusations are false and they should back off and drop this case because this case is just going to hurt producers on both sides of the border.

The one thing I think they're not realizing is, if they pursue the dumping, there's going to be injury done to their producers in the US just as much as there is to the Canadian producers.

There's roughly four million weanlings going out of our province every year that are only 17 days old. Those pigs are going into a lot of family farm operations in the northern states of the US and, as they cross the border and eat American corn they provide American jobs and a living for a lot of farmers down there."

Kynoch says if the supply of Canadian weanlings moving south dries up a lot of swine operations will be shut down in the US and that, in turn, will send a lot of people off the farm back into the work force.

For Farmscape.Ca, I'm Bruce Cochrane.