June 1, 2020

Canadian, US pork industries intertwined, suffer with US processing plant shutdowns

Canadian pork farmers have often been closely linked to the pork industry in the US, and considering this, the shutdown of US pork processing plants has pummeled the Canadian pork industry amid the COVID-19 pandemic, St Albert Today reported.

The report noted that while pork plants in Canada were not so badly hit by the viral outbreaks as the beef plants, several outbreaks at US pork plants mean that the country's processing power has dropped by an estimated 25% to 50%.

Shutdown of US pork plants has also caused the decline of prices as there has been more supply than processers can handle.

"The problem really for the hog industry ... is the prices crashed and it's crashed into the futures as well", Darcy Fitzgerald, executive director of Alberta Pork, was quoted as saying. "At the end of the day, because of COVID-19, the farmer just isn't getting paid".

Shutdowns in the US have caused a backlog of 600,000 pigs per week, causing the price of American hogs to drop and consequently Canadian prices too, as per report.

The Canadian federal government announced last May 5 C$252-million (US$183.65-million) in agriculture funding to support the country's food chain, but pork producers said it wasn't enough.

Pork producers are seen to lose C$675 million (US$ 492.12 million) this year. Jurgen Preugschas, a pork farmer and former president of the Canadian Pork Council, has described 2020 as a tough year for the industry.

"This is as bad as we've seen it", he Preugschas was quoted in the report.

The Canadian Pork Council, meanwhile, has asked for $20 per hog to feed the animals to keep pork operations going.