By Bruce Cochrane
The chair of Sask Pork is encouraging hog producers to contact their members of parliament and candidates from all sides running in Canada's 42 general election to make sure they understand the importance of agriculture and the hog industry to our country.
Canadians will head to the polls October 19 to elect a new federal government.
Saskatchewan Pork Development Board chair Florian Possberg says issues of key importance to the hog industry revolve around anything to do with trade, including discussions surrounding the Trans-Pacific Partnership and other free trade agreements and the dispute over U.S. Country of Origin Labelling, labour shortages at both the producer and processor level and animal health.
Florian Possberg-Saskatchewan Pork Development Board:
From a national party platform agriculture really has trouble to register on their awareness so what we have to do is we have work with key players in the parties that deal with the ag portfolio and those things to make sure they are aware of what our concerns are and make sure they're listening to the folks that are going to provide the right environment for our industry.
There are things that can take agriculture and put it at a real disadvantage.
We're seeing some discussion around genetically modified food and environmental concerns and those things.
We do need to have rules and regulations that support agriculture.
Possberg says the goal of hog producers, as food producers, is to provide the best quality at a reasonable price and ensure consistent availability.
He says consumers want safe food that's readily available and producers want an environment where the whole value chain can be viable for the long term.
Source: Farmscape