Farmscape for March 24, 2008  (Episode 2789)

Saskatchewan's Minister of Agriculture expects the recently announced moratoriums on the expansion of hog barns in much of Manitoba to have a minimal impact on hog production in his province.

Earlier this month Manitoba Conservation announced permanent moratoriums on the construction of new or expanded hog barns in southeastern Manitoba, the Red River Valley including the Capital Region and the Interlake.

Saskatchewan Agriculture Minister Bob Bjornerud suspects the moratorium may simply result in a shift in hog industry expansion in Manitoba to the western part of the province and he doubts that will have a big effect on the Saskatchewan industry, at least in the short term.

Clip-Bob Bjornerud-Saskatchewan's Minister of Agriculture 

We've had pretty strong regulatory guidelines here, I think dates back to 1971, and I think there's a pretty intense review before a hog barn goes up and I think most of our people, everyone, is concerned naturally with the environment but the ones that follow it very closely I think, to a great degree, are satisfied that our regulations that are in place are working well when it comes to hog barns.

I think the regulations in Manitoba are somewhat more onerous on producers than they are here in Saskatchewan.

I think for that matter even in North Dakota probably.

I'm not sure just exactly of all the details in that but that's the information I get that the rules are somewhat tighter in Manitoba than they are here in Saskatchewan.

I think we're quite satisfied the regulations we have in place have worked well in the past and I think such things as ground water and things like that always come to the surface as a concern.

But I think with the regulations we have in place we certainly haven't ran into any problems with them to this point and we have a fair number of years of history here with hog barns out there right now and to this point everything has worked fairly well.

Bjornerud suspects, without the moratorium in place in Manitoba, continued construction of new barns in the areas affected and the larger number of hogs produced would have potentially had a greater effect on the Saskatchewan industry down the road.

For Farmscape.Ca, I'm Bruce Cochrane.

       *Farmscape is a presentation of Sask Pork and Manitoba Pork Council