A delegation representing Manitoba Pork Council has completed a trade advocacy mission to the Minnesota Pork Congress in Minneapolis where members met with representatives of national and state pork organizations and federal and state government representatives to discuss key issues such as US Country of Origin Labelling and Porcine Epidemic Diarrhea and they will travel to Des Moines next week to participate in the Iowa Pork Congress.

Manitoba Pork Council chair Karl Kynoch says producers in the US have come to realize Mandatory COOL is not doing what it was intended to do and it's actually causing a lot of damage.

Karl Kynoch-Manitoba Pork Council :

We'll always agree that consumers have the right to know where the products come from but it's prevented a lot of baby pigs from going south.

We used to have a lot larger trade of baby pigs going south.

There was in fact over five million pigs coming just out of Manitoba alone and that has dropped down to about three million and that's all due to the fact that the Country of Origin Labelling has put some huge restrictions on the packers and on the retailers and is wanting them to keep separate shelf space for those pigs that are born in Canada and raised in the U.S., separate shelf space from the ones that are strictly born and raised in the US.

It's created such a hurdle for the packers and for the retailers that a lot of them decided just not to carry the Canadian product at all so the American producers have gotten hurt just as much as the Canadian producers because there's barns sitting empty in the US, that used to buy these pigs and there's barns empty in Canada that used to sell them down there.

It's hurt producers on both side of the border but the Minnesota Pork Producers have been a very strong ally of ours in trying to help get some resolve in talking to their representatives in the Senate and the Congress as well.

Kynoch says producers on both sides of the border had hoped the issue would be resolved through the US Farm Bill but as farm bill discussions drag on it's becoming apparent resolution may not happen before the matter is addressed in Geneva at the World Trade Organization.