The four-year financial crisis in the hog industry has
decimated the number of Ontario producers, but left total hog production steady
at about 4.7 million market hogs per year.
There were 18,000 producers registered with the Ontario Pork
marketing board in 1981, half that, or 9,000 in 1991, less than half that, or
4,000, in 2001 and less than half again, or only 1,800, last year.
The figures were cited during the annual meeting of the
Waterloo Pork Producers Association at Linwood recently. Waterloo’s total
dropped from 174 in 2010 to 156 last year, but total production held almost
steady at 121,900 in 2010 and 121,700 last year.
Waterloo has a number of Mennonite farmers producing to
organic standards and/or animal welfare standards and relatively few
large-scale hog barns.
