Representatives of Manitoba Pork Council will visit Minneapolis 13 to 15 January and Des Moines 21 to 23 January as part of a trade advocacy mission.

Manitoba Pork Council chair Karl Kynoch says the goal is to promote more open trade between the two countries and identify potential issues of concern.

Karl Kynoch-Manitoba Pork Council

When we get into the US one of the things that's been a very hot topic for the past few years is the Country of Origin Labelling.

Again the hog producers in the US have been supportive of trying to get a fix to that and move forward in a more positive and friendly trade atmosphere so again we'll be seeing what we can do with our counterparts there to try to get some help in the lobbying side and issues like that.

The sooner we resolve this Country of Origin Labelling and make sure the two countries are on a level playing field the better for both countries.

Another issues I know that's been a concern in the US has been the stalls for the hogs.

There's been a lot of talk in Canada with the code coming out over 2014 some time and there's been a lot of concern from the Americans how far Canada is going to go with stall-free.

They're watching that very close to see what happens in Canada because that will also have an impact in the US in what Canada does and how they raise their hogs.

I'm sure we'll have some discussion on that and try and get up to speed on where each of the US states are as well.

Then on PEDV we'll be trying to get an update on what's going on there and what we can do for biosecurity as well.

That's fairly devastating to some of the producers that have been catching that in the US so we'll want to make sure that we have all the information that we can get on the PEDV as well.

Mr Kynoch says these trade advocacy missions have helped Canadian and US pork producers learn more about each other and relations between the two industries are very good right now.