Prices below market, slaughterhouse closures, strikes, suspension of exports to China, rising input costs: pork producers are being hit by a perfect storm in the sector. The sector came to an agreement last week, but several producers believe that it is urgent for Quebec to better support them financially.
“If you had called me during the holidays, I was looking for resources to help. The rank workers called me,” breathes Guillaume Gagné, pig farmer from Tring-Jonction, in Beauce.
The current crisis in the pork industry is hitting him hard and, like many colleagues, he has decided to throw in the towel.
He will try to participate in the voluntary withdrawal program, a mechanism that aims, in the long term, to reduce the production of one million hogs across Quebec. “We are stuck in the throat. I suggested we take our keys to our creditors all on the same day. Creditors could put some pressure on the government,” he said in an interview.
However, he is not short of projects, because he has decided to diversify, among other things by reusing food residues. But he believes that Quebec should do more, in particular to find better ways out, while “no creditor will want to lend to do something else,” reports the 37-year-old father.
Stories like his, Martin Boutin hears them every week. Seeing “the disaster” coming, he stopped raising pigs independently last June in Saint-Charles-de-Bellechasse. “It’s even more pressure, it’s distress,” he said.
“With the government, there is total silence, no direct aid has been announced,” laments Mr. Boutin.
Some of his colleagues “drop the pig” for other farms or for retirement. But it’s a more bitter retirement than what they had glimpsed, admits Jean-Yves Audet, pork producer from Les Éboulements, in Charlevoix. The crisis discouraged his son from taking over the family business: “We would have liked things to turn out differently, that’s for sure. That’s what I would have done in his position,” he said.
He too will try to bid on the buyout program with a compensation fund of $80 million.
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All hog farmers signed an agreement unveiled last week to sell their animals below the going price for the next two years. Slaughterhouses like Olymel will pay 4.5% less than the going price for the first year the new agreement comes into effect.
“Just this week, that means I’m sending 200 pigs at $19 less than last week. Already, our price did not cover the cost of production, we ate $40 of the pig. This week I’m eating $60,” explains Mathieu Pilote, an independent pig breeder in Charlevoix.
The agricultural income stabilization insurance (ASRA), paid one-third by the producers themselves, must compensate them if all the breeders declare losses because of this sale at a discount.
“The bonuses will become exorbitant and that puts the production in total chaos. The Minister of Agriculture must stop washing his hands,” urges Cécilien Berthiaume, another producer from Beauce.
The president of the Union of Agricultural Producers (UPA) also wrote last week that “the reason for these funds […] is not to finance the restructuring of a processor”.
Many fear, in fact, the increase in premiums for this insurance, in addition to the future increase in transport costs to slaughterhouses further and further away: “The transport challenge will start really quickly. It is possible that we are not logistically capable of transporting our animals outside, ”also notes Lori-Ann Berthiaume, breeder from Saint-Elzéar, in Beauce.
Contacted by The duty, the Quebec Pork Breeders’ Union also says it hopes for more government involvement. The form that this will take is however still under discussion, we are told.
“The Minister of Agriculture told us: ‘Make an arrangement between yourselves.’ It is now done, so he will have to come out to help us, ”said Mr. Pilote, calling for “government action”.
“We accepted terrible losses to support our processors, but we are having the slaughterhouse closed in the same face,” says Mr. Pilote.