Earlier this month the federal government approved a Canadian pork industry restructuring plan which will provide interest bearing government backed credit, incentives to help struggling producers transition out of the industry and funding for international pork marketing initiatives.

Canadian Pork Council public relations director Gary Stordy says the announcement was made prior to having the details finalized in order to send the message that a program would be made available.

Gary Stordy-Canadian Pork Council

These three items were announced this month to give producers some indication that there are programming being developed and will become available very soon.

Frankly most pork producers are going in to visit their banks this month or very soon for essentially their annual review.

You don't have to be in the hog business right now but you do know that the industry is facing some serious financial difficulties.

This was essentially a message to banks that they should hold off from making any decisions for producers.

There's these programs that are going to be coming available very shortly and we do believe they're going to be very successful.

As for producers, certainly they should be looking at their operations.

The long term loans, once the details are available, we're encouraging producers to look at what options they have and see if this will work.

We do understand they're facing some liquidity crisis but, at the end of the day, we do understand that there is a number of producers that may decide to leave and consider the hog farm transition program.

Mr Stordy says there is a recognition of the need to make these programs available as quickly as possible and officials are working to finalize details but the program still has some hoops to get through.