Farmscape for March 17, 2010   (Episode 3385)

The Canadian Pork Council estimates the Hog Farm Transition Program has resulted in a ten percent reduction in the national breeding herd.

Under the 75 million dollar Hog Farm Transition Program pork producers who have agreed to idle swine production facilities for a minimum of three years are being awarded compensation based on a tendering process.

Preliminary results of the fourth and final tender were released yesterday.

Canadian Pork Council Public Relations Manager Gary Stordy says the program has reduced the Canadian sow inventory by about 10 percent.

Clip-Gary Stordy-Canadian Pork Council:
In total this program has removed about 137 thousand sows and that will have a ripple effect as the then next months go down in the amount of hogs going to market.

Those producers that were successful on this last tender will be notified over the next couple of days and it will be confirmed whether they want to continue and accept their bid.

For those who do continue and want to de-populate or have already left the industry unfortunately, they can request a 25 percent advance on their successful bid and then of course once their barn is empty and they can provide other relative information the rest of the payment will be made to them as long as they're not in any type of bankruptcy and have control of their facilities.

Then of course the next step after that is regular reviews and audits of the facilities to make sure that they're living up to the expectations of the program and that is to keep their barns empty for three years.

Successful bidders have until April 15th to confirm participation.

If confirmation is not received by the deadline, the bid will be deemed unsuccessful and all unclaimed funds will be used to honor bids next in line from the fourth tender.

For Farmscape.Ca, I'm Bruce Cochrane.

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