Last November Saskatchewan's pork and beef producers called on governments come up with programs, including improvements to the Canadian Agricultural Income Stabilization program, to help them contend with the current low prices.

In response Ottawa announced the Targeted Advance Program under CAIS, a program which had been supposed to provide the province's hog producers about 18 million dollars.

Sask Pork general manager Neil Ketilson says about one quarter of the province's hog producers have now learned they'll get nothing under the program and the rest will get significantly less support than they were told they could expect.

Neil Ketilson-Saskatchewan Pork Development Board

First of all it seems obvious to us that the CAIS program, the way it works in terms of its lags, in terms of payments, in terms of its total inability to meet the cash needs of the industry, isn't going to work for us.

I think that point needs to be made loud and strong.

The program is a mature program now.

It's had a three or four year stint.

Surely the people that are managing that operation should be able to get a program that meets the needs of the industry.

I'm sure if you talk to a lot of people in the agriculture sector, they're not convinced of that.

So we're going to be asking our provincial government to bring that program and the administration of that back to Saskatchewan so that we hopefully can get a program that's administered correctly, timely, accurately and is a transparent one.

Ketilson notes the short term hog loan being provided by the province is a significant help to producers and will get them through the winter.

However, he stresses, without federal support beyond CAIS the hog industry will not be the same one year from now as it is today.