The Hog Industry Loan Loss Reserve Programme is part of a comprehensive federal pork industry recovery plan and is designed to allow producers to restructure existing debt and term out payments over a longer period.

Earlier this week Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada announced the federal government is extending the application deadline from the 1 March to the 26 March and increasing its share of the risk to 90 per cent on loans used to repay advances received under the Advance Payments Programme.

Canadian Pork Council President Jurgen Preugschas says producers have been finding it difficult to get approved for loans but he's hoping the change will ease that difficulty.

Jurgen Preugschas-Canadian Pork Council

We think of course that it should help somewhat if the financial institutions are prepared to lend the money because it reduces their risk even lower than it was before.

I would hope that some producers will get the loan now that they weren't going to get before but whether or not it's going to be successful will be determined by the financial institutions.

Certainly from a Canadian Pork Council standpoint we're disappointed.

We felt that this programme was going to be effective in helping producers, those that wanted to continue in production.

With the uptake only being some 160 producers out of the eight thousand producers we have in Canada certainly tells me that the programme has been anything but successful.

Mr Preugschas says Ottawa's efforts to tweak the program are certainly appreciated and he's hopeful the financial institutions will see this as a positive and help more of our producers who are in financial distress.