April 29, 2009

Canadian hog inventories for the first quarter of 2009 is seen to fall slightly, according to data from Statistics Canada.

On April 1, Canadian farmers had an estimated 11.9 million hogs on their farms, down 1.1 million or 8.6 percent from the same date last year - the first time since January 1998 that the hog inventories in Canada are below 12 million.

Hog inventories have been declining for the past three years. High feed costs, soft slaughter prices, and the implementation of country-of-origin-labelling (COOL) legislation in the US have led to farm restructuring and farm closures in Canada, in which provinces that relied on exports to the US or that lost slaughter capacity were most affected.

At April 1, Canada had 8,300 hog operations; about 1,000 fewer farms than one year ago as several hundred producers took advantage of the federal government's Cull Breeding Swine Program to dispose of their breeding herd.

In addition, the domestic slaughter of hogs increased 3.9 percent compared with the first three months of 2008 as slaughter capacity improved in some regions.

Hog producers exported an estimated 1.7 million hogs in the last three months, down 42.8 percent from the peak reached in the first quarter of 2008.

The number of sows fell 6.0 percent from a year ago. Despite variation among provinces the number of sows in the West fell 8.5 percent and 3.9 percent in the East.

Sows expected to farrow during the second and third quarters of 2009 are down 6.6 percent and 5.6 percent respectively from the same period last year.