Quebec’s powerful hog marketing board continues intense negotiations with Olymel and other smaller pork packers over a deal that would end up reducing hog production rates by 1.2 million hogs per year.
Rene Roy, a director of the Quebec board and president of the Canadian Pork Council, said they have been talking eight hours per day for the last week and said he thinks they are close to a deal.
He said production cuts will be mandated across the board.
He said Olymel will be closing one of its hog-slaughtering plants and it will have to reduce production from its farms the same as all other Quebec hog producers.
Olymel owns some of the largest and most modern hog farms in the province.
Roy said it’s hard to predict the full extent of the fallout from the crisis, but he does expect a large percentage of older farmers with smaller operations to retire from pork production.
The need to convert housing from sow gestation crates to mingling in pens will prompt some to quit rather than invest in renovations, he said.
There are others producing under contract and they may also quit, he said.
He expects there will be a significant increase in the export of weaner pigs to the United States and some movement of market hogs to the U.S.
Economist Steve Meyer of Kerns Associates in Iowa said any surge of Canadian exports from Quebec might prompt producers there to call for countervailing duties to offset any help Canadian governments provide to Quebec producers.
Roy said the federal and Quebec governments are involved in discussions to provide help to the industry.
Meyer also said he has heard no producer concerns about competition from Canadians in meetings he has attended in the U.S.
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