Tories would be willing to provide incentives to hog farmers

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This article was published 13/09/2011 (5171 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Conservative Leader Hugh McFadyen said Tuesday morning that a Tory government would be willing to provide incentives to hog farmers to invest in anti-pollution technology so they can expand their production.

Under legislation introduced by the NDP, hog farmers can expand their operations if they take certain measures to protect nutrients from entering Lake Winnipeg.

After a speech this morning at a Manitoba Chambers of Commerce breakfast, sponsored by the pork industry, McFadyen said if government is going to impose costs on an industry to keep nutrients like phosphorus from entering the lake, it must lend it a hand.

“Simply regulating without any financial incentives has the effect of killing jobs and not solving the fundamental problem, which is phosphorus getting into the lake,” he said.

“What we want is a framework where jobs are created, the lake gets cleaned up and it’s done so in a way where there’s appropriate financial incentives to encourage that transition to a more sustainable mode of operating.”

The chairman of Manitoba Pork, the hog producer lobby group, said under existing regulations, 100 smaller family operated hog operations are expected to go out of business in the next 18 months.

Karl Kynoch said farm technological improvements proposed by government that would allow farmers to expand are either prohibitively expensive or do not even exist.

He said government regulation has already had a dampening effect on the industry. Hog production in Manitoba is down by one million animals from peak levels a few years ago, and if the trend continues there will not be enough hogs produced in Manitoba to fully supply the new Maple Leaf Foods plant in Brandon. The plant employs 2,000 people.