When Perry Mohr, the retiring general manager of h@MS Marketing Services started in the hog business 28 years, the Manitoba Hog Marketing Board had 3,100 hog producers delivering hogs for marketing. Today, the number of hog producers h@MS serves is 144 across Western Canada.

“We don’t represent every producer in Manitoba, Saskatchewan, or Alberta, but that’s really our production base, 144 growers that market 1.5 million hogs through their services,” said Mohr in an interview in Starbuck at the last, in a series of five district producer meetings, three in Manitoba, and two in Saskatchewan.

He’s stepping down as of May 23, 2016 when Bill Alford, director of producer and marketing services takes over as general manager of h@MS.

Mohr began as an assistant sales manager with Manitoba Pork est. and rose through the ranks to become CEO of Manitoba Pork Marketing and now general manager of h@ms Marketing Services, a joint effort between producers in Saskatchewan and Manitoba.

What is state of the hog industry?

“The state of the hog industry today, particularly in the last two years is a lot better than it was the previous ten years,” said Mohr. “Certainly one of the reasons I was going to do what I’m doing, retiring from my position as the GM of h@MS Marketing was partially due to the stress and duress of working in the hog industry. Working with farmers going broke. I’ve told this story many times, more often than not, when a producer would call me, there were tears, frustration, because many were calls from producers losing their farms.”

Today, he says, it is the exact opposite where there seems to be a little bit of optimism again. Of course here in Manitoba, some of that optimism is tempered by some of the environmental restrictions, in terms of building hog barns.

During h@MS two meetings in Saskatchewan, he spoke with some producers in Saskatchewan that are expanding their operations, or building new ones. There is some growth going to take place in western Canada — although he argues it is still a little premature to suggest there will be a building boom. Here are Mohr’s reasons why.

“We’ve only had two good years of profitability, in Manitoba. We have environmental restrictions, it takes a whole bunch of capital today to build a hog barn and I argue the profits in the last two years have not changed people’s minds in wanting to really extend themselves in terms of credit; the financial institutions have not really lined up to leverage funds to this industry,” he said.

If he goes back 15 or 20 years, producer meetings like the one in Starbuck all of the major banks would be here, they would want to know what is going on, and lots of money flowing into the industry.

“Today it’s an anomaly to see a financial institution represented at one of our meetings!”

When Mohr looks back, change throughout the years of the industry occurs daily. The number of producers are way down, as already mentioned. A hog 220 pounds back in 1988, today the average weight is 270 pounds and some producers are pushing that to 280 and 290 pounds per individual hog.

He is proud of the infrastructure that is very good, world class, and world class producers.

“I make no bones about it, I’m very fortunate to have worked for some of the most progressive and best hog producers in the world in the last 28 years,” he added. “Having said that, when you take the 3,100 hog producers at that time, and today 144, consolidation and lot of changes, many forced on the industry because of financial challenges, and stringent environmental regulations, often curtailing production and adding more costs.”

Where does Perry Mohr go now? “At the moment I have no immediate plans, but have not ruled anything out. I’ll give this retirement thing a chance. I have some hobbies, and heavily involved in the music ministry at my church, that takes up lots of time,” he said. “If I can find something where I can incorporate my music into my work that would be ideal. I’m not ruling out working in the hog industry again down the road.”

Mohr is looking for some down time working to recover fully from some major health challenges in the last five years. •

— By Harry Siemens