Farmscape for January 26, 2007  (Episode 2378)

The Chair of Manitoba Pork Council says swine producers on the two sides of the Canada U.S. border share a common concern over rapidly rising feed prices resulting from expanded ethanol production.

Yesterday a delegation of Manitoba pork producers completed a three week trade mission which took them to South Dakota, Minnesota and Iowa to participate in trade shows and to meet and discuss issues with their counterparts in those three states.

The tour is part of an ongoing series of cross border meetings designed to further improve trade relations among Canadian and U.S. producers and to draw U.S. media attention to the importance of trade.

Manitoba Pork Council Chair Karl Kynoch says, when he talks to producers down south, he might as well be talking to his neighbor a mile down the road because the issues are so common on both sides of the border.

Clip-Karl Kynoch-Manitoba Pork Council 

One of the big issues right now is ethanol.

The producers in the U.S. are very concerned.

Feed prices have went up fast and grains prices are getting up where they need to be but what we need to have happen is the meat price follow.

That's a huge concern down here.

Where Iowa used to be a major exporter of corn, they could actually in fact become an importer of corn.

What ever happens down here in the feedgrain price also happens in Canada and you can pretty much figure that what ever the American producer is paying for corn we'll be paying that in Canada plus freight.

Our barley prices and wheat prices have followed that up.

I hate to say that the hog guys need cheaper grain.

In all reality what we do really need is we need the meat prices to go up so that we can allow the grain farmers to also be making a good living.

Kynoch says relations between the two industries are very good and members of the producer organizations in Minnesota and Iowa have committed to attending Manitoba Pork Council's annual meeting in April and Manitoba Pork Council is planning trips to Iowa and Nebraska during the next six months.

He adds, over all, the Americans have been making a lot of money over the past two years so the mood is good.

For Farmscape.Ca, I'm Bruce Cochrane.

       *Farmscape is a presentation of Sask Pork and Manitoba Pork Council