Farmscape for November 24, 2006  (Episode 2315)

The president of Humbolt based Big Sky Farms suggests it makes sense to consider locating a moderately sized hog slaughter plant in Saskatchewan.

Saskatchewan hog producers are considering options after Maple Leaf Foods announced it will close its hog slaughtering plant in Saskatoon and that it is not prepared

to allow the facility to be sold as an ongoing operation.

Big Sky Farms President Florian Possberg believes, rather than looking at a four and a half million head facility, it might make sense to consider replacing the Maple Leaf plant with a moderate sized facility which will be capable to operate at capacity.

Clip-Florian Possberg -Big Sky Farms

Our barns are successful because every sow stall that needs to be full and every farrowing crate that needs to be full is full.

There's no way you can have a slaughter plant designed to do four and a half million hogs doing two million hogs.

So, if the reality in Saskatchewan is a million hogs in Saskatoon, well maybe you build the most bloody efficient plant to handle a million hogs.

You might leave a couple bucks on the table because it's not the same efficiency as a four and a half million head slaughter plant but it's a 17 to 20 dollar freight bill down to Sioux Falls and that's a lot more money that we leave on the highways from here to there that we don't get back.

We're about to lose a plant in Saskatoon that does 800-850 thousand hogs.

We start trucking those million hogs down to Sioux Falls, guess what, Sioux Falls is going to be full and then we're on to Fremont, Nebraska and Austin, Minnesota and Marshalltown, Iowa, this is going to get very expensive very fast.

Producers plan to meet next week to further assess their options.

With the Saskatoon plant expected to wind down operations within 12 to 18 months producers fear they don't have a lot of time to consider the alternatives.

For Farmscape.Ca, I'm Bruce Cochrane.

-Florian Possberg was part of a producer panel that examined hog industry issues last

week as part of Saskatchewan Pork Industry Symposium 2006

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