In April the federal government announced it would pay 225 dollars per head to swine producers who agreed depopulate breeding barns and leave them empty of breeding stock for a minimum of three years.

The program targets a ten percent, or about 150 thousand head, reduction in Canada's swine breeding herd.

Canadian Pork Council Executive Director Martin Rice says, overall, uptake has been slower than expected.

Martin Rice-Canadian Pork Council

We have now passed the 100 thousand mark in terms of the number of animals that are included in the applications to date.

We've had slightly under 500 applications for participation.

A majority of those are from farms that at least had started their culls prior to the April 14 launch date and the rest would be farms that have decided since that time to undertake a cull.

We certainly saw a heavy participation in the Atlantic area, particularly the Maritime provinces and that is well over the ten percent participation rate, at least for Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island.

Ontario has also had a significantly higher rate of participation than the ten percent that was envisioned for the country.

Saskatchewan is pretty much at the ten percent.

Alberta, Manitoba and the other provinces, Quebec, are below that ten percent and recent applications that have been received would suggest they are going to remain below the ten percent.

Rice says, at this point, it doesn't appear the program will be fully subscribed.

He believes the three year commitment to keep barns out of production along with improved prices in the commercial cull sow market are the reasons for the lower than expected participation.