Council chairman Rick Bergman said “it would be a step in the right direction and send a clear message to all producers that they have our backs.”
Federal Agriculture Minister Marie-Claude Bibeau has offered to boost the reference margin from 70 to 80 per cent, but the Prairie provinces have balked at the extra costs they would face under a traditional 60-40 split between the two levels of government.
The grain-dominant Prairie agriculture economy is coming off of a year of high prices, but pork producers have been hit hard and Bergman said they have been barely surviving on razor-thin margins.
