Farmscape for June 13, 2011   (Episode 3601)

The chair of Manitoba Pork Council says there's a growing realization that the challenges faced by pork producers on both sides of the Canada U.S. border are the same.

Last week members of a delegation representing Manitoba Pork Council met with their U.S. counterparts during World Pork Expo 2011 in Des Moines.

The trip, the latest in a series of reciprocal visits involving representatives of Manitoba Pork Council and national and state pork organizations, was intended to help maintain open lines of communication and promote trade advocacy.

Manitoba Pork Council chair Karl Kynoch notes producers in Manitoba trade a lot of live swine with the U.S. and have joint partnerships with U.S. producers.

Clip-Karl Kynoch-Manitoba Pork Council:
The relationships between the hog producers in Canada and the U.S. are very good at this time.

I think a lot of that's due to the fact that a lot of Canadian producers are coming south and talking to the American producers and getting some communication going on back and forth.

I think the big thing that's really changed over the last seven or eight years that we've been coming down here is a lot producers realize, whether you're in the U.S. or whether you're in Canada, we're all dealing with the same issues.

I've got to tell you talking to somebody in the U.S. you may as well be talking to your neighbor two miles down the road.

All the issues are similar, the environmental, the animal welfare, political issues, all of this stuff is very similar in both countries.

We've had opportunity to discuss issues of concern in the U.S. here, whether it be feed issues, trade issues and all that and hopefully things can continue to go smooth between our two producer groups.

So again, a very useful trip into the states.

Kynoch says one of the big concerns among producers on both sides of the border right now is access to feed grains.

He notes there's a lot of unseeded acres in the U.S. and acres that were seeded late, a lot of unseeded acres in Canada and with the high grain prices squeezing profit margins there's a lot of concern in the U.S. just the same as in Canada on access to grain and the cost of the grain.

For Farmscape.Ca, I'm Bruce Cochrane.

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