Manitoba hog industry continues to grow

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This article was published 14/04/2023 (911 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Manitoba hog producers face global trade uncertainties, disease prevention issues, increasing environmental concerns and sky-high input costs — all of which are affecting producers’ margins — but the Manitoba hog industry continues to grow.

At the Manitoba Pork annual meeting on Thursday, producers got updates on a lengthy list of regulatory issues that they need to attend to.

New sustainability regulations and protocols — including the new Canadian Pork Excellence program — may layer on additional administrative work for producers, but much of the industry agrees it is a good investment towards protecting the market that now represents about $1.7 billion to the provincial economy.

Even though, as Manitoba Pork chair, Rick Prejet said, “It’s not particularly profitable right now”, the number of animals produced annually in the province is up to about eight million, an increase of about 33 per cent over the last eight-to-10 years.

Cam Dahl, general manager of Manitoba Pork said the industry is paying much more attention to bio-security and health and sustainability issues than was the case 15 years ago.

“That awareness to really keep sites secure and keeping your pigs healthy has really grown over time,” Dahl said. “But Manitoba producers are doing a good job.”

The additional precautions and investment means that the cost of new hog barns — there have been about 40 built in the last five years — can get up to about $15 million now.

“It’s gotten a lot more complicated since Old McDonald,” Dahl said.

Disease outbreaks are not critical these days but the local industry is at the tail end of PED (Porcine Epidemic Diarrhea) outbreak that started in 2021. Disease mitigation has been fairly successful.

And while many countries in Asia and Africa have been dealing with African Swine Fever, measures have been in place including ramped up security at Canadian ports by the federal government, to ensure the disease stays out of the country.

“If ASF comes into Canada our borders will closed completely,” said Prejet. “It would be a disaster. But we have taken good prevention measures in Canada.”

ASF’s presence in so many markets — ASF has also hit important international consumers markets like Vietnam and Philippines and part of Europe — has added another level of uncertainty to the international markets.

While the Japanese market remains stable — it is the major destination for much of the production from the HyLife plant in Neepawa — the Chinese market is a major concern.

“We don’t really know what is going on in China where there are disease issues,” Dahl said in reference to the hog and pork markets.

Like many other commodities China is both the world’s largest producer of hogs and its also the largest consumer market.

“So what happens in China is really important,” he said.

The war in Ukraine has also disrupted the feed market. Ukraine is one of the world’s largest exporters of corn .

Feed corn prices are close $9.00 per bushel, compared to about $5.00 before the pandemic and soybean meal at more than $600 a tonne compared to $470 before the pandemic.

“About 60-to-70 per cent of the cost of raising hogs is feed,” Prejet said. “Those inflationary costs put us in one of those phases of the cycle where it means there is not that much money to made right now.”

Lean hog prices are traditionally up and down and producers are currently getting about 10 per cent more for their pigs than they were getting before the pandemic.

While Dahl said that some of the province’s 600-plus hog barns are likely nearing the need for capital renewal, the industry has had significant capital investment over the past few years.

Maple Leaf Foods invested about $182 million, in the 73,000-square-foot expansion of its bacon plant in Winnipeg to establish a pre-cooked bacon operation that was completed in late 2021.

And last fall Dutch hog breeder Topigs Norsvin officially opened its new $35 million hog genetics operation north of Gladstone.

martin.cash@freepress.mb.ca