A delegation representing Manitoba Pork Council will travel to Des Moines, Iowa next week to take part in the 25th anniversary edition of World Pork Expo.

Manitoba Pork Council general manager Andrew Dickson says representatives will be meeting with US pork industry officials, producers and researchers to discuss a range of issues including amendments to US Mandatory Country of Origin Labelling announced last week.

Andrew Dickson-Manitoba Pork Council

Our hope is that we'll be able to get an understanding from producers what the impact of the new COOL regulations that USDA has brought in and whether that's affected their ability to continue to buy Canadian origin baby pigs.

It's probably early days yet.

I'm sure the American processors and retailers are still trying to figure out exactly how they're going to handle these new rules.

We know they're not happy about it.

There was a system in place.

Now they have to make significant changes to how they label and track products through the whole pork value chain.

There's obviously going to be a chill, if that's the right word, through the industry as to what's happened here.

But we will encourage producers down there to continue to try and buy our weanlings and use them in their system because we feel we provide them good healthy stock that gives them an economic advantage in the market place.

Mr Dickson notes Canada has already indicated it feels the amended rules fail to comply with World Trade Organization rules and will be seeking the authority to impose retaliatory tariffs on imported US products.

However, he stresses, the hope is the US will bring the law into compliance without the need for retaliation.