There’s a group of hog producers in Alberta that wants to squeeze packers for even better prices.  
Brent Bushell the general manager at Western Hog Exchange Inc. in Edmonton, AB said the news is travelling. 
“You hear our reputation. But granted, with what we were doing when we started, some people didn’t like us and maybe even today, by many processors. And part of that is, very simply, without sounding aggressive, is we’re standing up to them. I mean, we spent ten years before going to them and asking, begging, pleading, whining, discussing for a share of value, and they wouldn’t do it.” 
The WHE took a different tack from a pure business perspective knowing the processors needed the hogs.  
“We’re going to send our hogs to the highest payer. I mean, it’s business 101 and the first reason is that we’ve created some instability with their supply.” 
While people know what is happening in Alberta and Saskatchewan and not so much further east it takes time for the news to travel.  
“And the sole reason for doing this is because we think honestly that the best model is to have processors and producers working together, sharing in the value of the pork, and sharing in both the profits and the losses within the industry, and together working to take other export markets around the world. So that’s what we believe.” 
Bushell isn’t sure what processors believe. If they (processors) continue down the road with broken pricing formulas, as in Western Canada, they will come to a crossroads and he thinks they are there right now. They have to either work with producers and pay more in share or build all the barns and raise all the hogs themselves because producers don’t have the bank account or the intestinal fortitude to continue and lose money. So they’re just not going to do it. 
Producers have five ways to squeeze processors and which is their choice because the WHE doesn’t pick.

So number one is to lobby Alberta Pork for a single-desk system like Quebec and return to the way it was. Alberta Pork has taken that on but it would be a tough thing to achieve.  
There are four ways to reduce the number of hogs going in. Number one, producers can convert their operation from a finishing operation or a farrow-to-finish operation to Isoweans and ship into the US. Number two is to temporarily close the barn, not like a light switch to turn off and turn on, but maybe there’s timing, perhaps repairs or to simply looking at depopulation. The third way according to some producers is to build a slaughter plant and get into that game and vertically integrate. If processors are raising hogs, maybe producers should be slaughtering animals. 
The fourth method is a program called production reduction taking a normal cycle in hog production with roughly six to eight months of the year where producers don’t make money, and that’s purely just global supply and demand. Then, the other months depending on how the market goes, they can make money. 
“Producers on average make money five months of the year and lose money seven months of the year, and hoping that the money they make in five months is enough to cover the holes created in the seven months.” 
About a dozen WHE producers cut back up to 25 per cent of their market hogs by the third week in October and provide fewer hogs to the processor. The reason is they didn’t know if they’d make any money at that time of year. Also, to get processors to sit down and negotiate with producers on what a fair value is. And again, hog price stability is the processor’s Achilles’ heel. 
“Given the high feed costs, I think they’re going to hit one out of the ballpark this year.” 
These producers only fed 75 per cent of their hogs until the middle of October and sold the other 25 per cent of the feed, if they have it, to other people, and with the high feed costs, make more money that way, rather than putting it in a pig and not making any money. 
While only the first year and no final numbers they did it wanting change.  
“The industry wasn’t healthy and isn’t healthy the way it is, and so they’re looking at different ways of getting that discussion. When we talk about aggressively pushing packers, I guess that’s as aggressive as you can get because you’re taking away the number of hogs they have. So, it’ll be interesting to see what comes of it, but those are the five options that we’ve thrown out there.” •
— By Harry Siemens