Discussion and concern continue amongst all farmers regarding NAFTA negotiations or the lack thereof, ensuing tariffs, and how it affects current commodity prices and demand or the lack thereof.
Grain and special crop farmers are harvesting a decent crop varying from below average to average depending on what the industry considers to be average after several great if not bumper crops in Manitoba.
Cattle producers face higher feed prices if not direct feed shortages and hog producers face uncertainties due to trade battles and African Swine Fever amongst other diseases. Dairy farmers and others raising supply-managed commodities face some difficulty due to President Trump’s obsession with our supply management system. Then reports surfaced that those in Canada’s Liberal government may purposely want to see NAFTA scuttled for various unthinkable and ideological reasons.
Jim Long hog industry commentator said African Swine Fever (ASF) continues to move in China. It is a massive challenge for Chinese authorities to control the ASF. Lots of pigs moving, that is 600 million a year, with millions of sows in backyard production.
“We have observed ASF in Russia for ten years, and they can’t contain it despite having a large land mass with swine widely dispersed. China has twenty times more pigs than Russia,” said Long. “In China, producers feed a large percentage of their pigs with reusable bags moving pigs in vehicles with wooden floors; wash/disinfection of trailers has room for improvement.
Recently he communicated with a swine veterinarian that works in Eastern Europe and China to get his opinion re ASF in China from his real experience with this virus.
His reply – “We (Canada), but also the whole planet may have a major job in feeding 1.4 billion people.”
Long said the Chinese authorities announced new measures to control the spread of ASF, including the prohibition of inter-province movement of live pigs among the affected provinces and neighbouring provinces – that covers 16 provinces, more than half of the country. Other measurements would be stopping the use of pig blood meal for feed and increasing the subsidy from 800 to 1200 CNY ($117 US to $174 US) per pig under mandatory killing.
“The restriction of hog movement and ASF issues are affecting the China Hog Market. Price in Liaoning, which has an ASF break – 11.9 CNY/kg live weight (78¢ US/lb. live weight), while in Zhejiang, ASF free – 18 CNY/kg live weight (1.19 US/lb. live weight). That’s a $100 US per head difference,” he said. “We will be watching China hog prices closely – they will reflect most quickly the supply-demand effects of ASF.”
Long said recently officials in Belgium identified two wild pigs with ASF, the first-time they’ve observed ASF in Western Europe.
Dr. John Carr, international livestock consultant and veterinarian, said one of the things that fascinates him about this current outbreak is the timing because the pig prices in Canada is pretty awful.
Dr. Carr who feeds pigs in Mainland China, Hong Kong, South Korea, and the Philippians says “China is a major importer of Canadian pork so there is an impact on cost because of what will happen in China where the price will collapse, has collapsed and is collapsing. That’s gonna have an impact directly with us here at home on our exports.”
Then there is the other side of the coin where 1.4 billion people eat 40 kilos of pork a day with over half the world’s pigs. Now to put that in some perspective, it ends up being about 1.5 million pigs a day, so the Chinese eat the Canadian industry every week and a half. These numbers are almost unbelievably astronomical. Canada has 14 million pigs, and China has 500 to 600 million pigs, so Canada’s industry is relatively small.
He expects the official number now at seven or eight farms to actually be hundreds of outbreaks and eventually devastate the Chinese pig industry. The long and short of it said Dr. Carr, Canadian pig farmers must focus on breeding and production.
“With the price in the tank now, who knows where it will be a year from now: China still needs to feed 1.4 billion people.”
“We’re all feeling the pain, and this outbreak is going to tank the price of pork in China, it already has,” said Dr. Carr. “And we may even have slightly more pain because our exports drop because the Chinese can’t afford to buy them while they can buy cheaper food at home.
But I am convinced the reality will be in a year’s time China is going to need pork, and I believe that the pig industry has a duty of care to China which some people might find difficult.”
Carr said if the Chinese need pork they’re going to need Canadian pork, so his thoughts for pig producers in Canada to get their breeding targets right.
“When you’re sitting with a sow, don’t have a sour face because in a year’s time the price could be excellent. So when you’re breeding that sow you pat her on the head, and you tell her she’s a good girl, and you get them pregnant and let’s have fantastic litter size and let’s enjoy the next year of Canadian farming,” said Dr. Carr.
The problem with China is everybody has pigs: They love pork, they love pigs. With a thousand or so odd breeds and many of those pigs live at home. With pigs living in households within an industrialized pig industry in an industrialized nation, there are pigs everywhere.
“I see pigs on the back of guys’ motorbikes going to market, through to air-conditioned truck containers, so they have everything,” said Dr. Carr. “I look after three to three and a half thousand sows at a nucleus farm about six hours north of Beijing. And I’m the chief veterinarian, so this is a primary problem in our face. We have already, because of the outbreaks that are occurring in Russia coming increasingly east, we have enhanced our bio-security no end. We have the number one piece of bio-security in China, which is our perimeter fence and I spend an awful lot of my time not looking at the pigs, I spend a lot of my time looking at the perimeter fence.”
James Hofer Starlite Colony Hog Boss and representing the Colonies on the Manitoba Pork Council said as he listened to Dr. Carr’s comments, “We have to keep it out.”
“I agree with what John said that Canadian Food Inspection Agency [CFIA] immigration has to do their thing and when I sit here and think about developments that happen in the world I say to myself boy the world gets smaller every day,” said Hofer. “And something that happens on another continent with the way we’re travelling, moving products and stuff it impacts us. Anything that happens anywhere in the world has an impact on the rest of the world.”
Hofer said when he thinks about the whole food production process, agriculture in general and something so big happens it can become a catastrophe.
“It brings out the vulnerability that we have in feeding people, producing enough food for the world,” he said. “Consumers, governments need to support agriculture. They need to work with agriculture. It is something about food, it’s essential. There’s no debate to be had about that, everybody needs to eat, and it’s something that we need to take seriously.” •
—By Harry Siemens