Farmscape for December 16, 2009   (Episode 3376)

The Canadian Pork Council reports per animal unit payouts in the second round of tendering under the Canadian Hog Farm Transition Program will be very much in line with those accepted in the first round.

The Canadian Hog Farm Transition Program is part of a comprehensive federal pork industry restructuring initiative and offers compensation through a tendering process to Canadian pork producers who agree to exit the industry for a minimum of three years.

Canadian Pork Council public relations manager Gary Stordy reports the range of accepted tenders under the first two rounds was similar.

Clip-Gary Stordy-Canadian Pork Council:
The first tender took place on November 9th and we did make some adjustments in some of the numbers.

The new numbers, there's been 75 successful bids.

The low bid was 300 dollars AUE or animal unit equivalent and the high bid was 997 dollars.

There was just under 11 million dollars allocated in that tender.

We just got through our second one just recently and there was 115 successful bidders.

The high and the low bids were roughly the same.

The low bid was 370 dollars animal unit equivalent and the high bid was one thousand 34 dollars animal unit equivalent.

The bids came in roughly the same and I would account that for producers adjusting the bids that they submitted the first time and new producers that participated in this auction noticing the range of accepted bids from the first auction.

Stordy says the payout on the second auction is expected to be between 25 and 26 million dollars which will take the total allocated to about the 36 million dollar mark or about half of the 75 million dollars available under the program.

He notes the third tender is scheduled for January 20th and 25 million dollars has been allocated for that round.

For Farmscape.Ca, I'm Bruce Cochrane.

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