Editorial

A class act

As well as swiping debit cards, one of the jobs of at least one self-serve gas station attendant in Ontario's Golden Horseshoe is driving around to check competitors' prices, and phoning them in to the boss.

Hit rewind to June, 1993, the scene the 33rd floor of the Hyatt Regency hotel in downtown Vancouver. "Please fix the price in Canada at three-point-ten," says an executive of a Japanese maker of lysine, a pig feed additive.

"OK, I will change that price to three-ten," responds Mark Whitacre, a senior executive with Illinois lysine giant Archer Daniels Midland, and the Washington stool pigeon whose taped evidence, as reported in Maclean's magazine recently, eventually led to ADM pleading guilty to price fixing and paying $140 million in fines in the U.S. and $16 million in Canada.

Price research or price fixing - the one's legal and the other's illegal, but both demonstrate the potential dangers to consumers when one company dominates a market. Southern Ontario motorists can drive to the next gas station, but Appin pig breeder Rein Minnema had no other lysine supplier to turn to when prices soared from US60 cents a pound to $1.20 between 1992 and 1994.

Buoyed by some $200 million in civil damages already paid by the lysine cartel in the U.S., Minnema has launched his own $35-million class action suit on behalf of Ontario hog producers.

Corporate concentration is not a new bogeyman for Ontario producers, but the current hog crisis has underscored how vulnerable producers become when available shackle space is controlled by a group of men that could fit around the average farm kitchen table.

Producers such as Minnema are also asking hard questions about why the pork price could have shot back up so quickly, from a low of 40 cents a kilo to over $1, in a matter of weeks.

Alternatives seem desirable on a number of fronts, and necessity being the mother of invention there are any number of initiatives floating around the pork concessions these days.

There's the Ken Palen proposal for a voluntary checkoff to get Ontario's 250 small packers up to HACCP speed.

There's the recent Perth county and eastern Ontario producers' fact-finding mission to the Quebec industry, exploring such options as the ASRA stabilization program.

There's the proposed 3-P pork plant in Ingersoll, which members hope to open by 2000.

And does anyone remember on what shelf the Ontario Pork Industry Marketing Task Force report, or the Serecon solutions, were left?

No better place to get on with new directions than the pork annual in Toronto this week.

© copyright 1999 Agricultural Publishing Company Limited.



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A nice cash injection

It's not often farmers' input costs go down, but they will this time thanks to an alliance between Ontario Pork and Vetrepharm.

The London, Ont.-based animal pharmaceutical company has announced it is cutting prices on its swine vaccines by 25 per cent until July to help Canadian producers maintain their herd health programs during the current economic crisis.

Ontario Pork chairman and Simcoe county producer Will Nap says herd vaccination programs are often the first to go when pig prices drop below costs. While producers still facing prices below a minimum cash cost of production of $1.20 per kilo have to cut somewhere, Nap says letting herd vaccination programs slip will have "repercussions through the industry. The producer tends to suffer afterwards." He estimates producers' veterinary costs range from 50 cents to $1.50 per pig.

Nap praises Vetrepharm for taking the lead, and hopes other suppliers will follow suit. Vetrepharm director of sales and marketing Greg Shewfelt calculates the program could save Canadian swine producers a potential $1 million.

To take advantage, producers simply have to ask their veterinarians for Vetrepharm vaccines. Vetrepharm chairman Graeme McRae is confident discounts will be passed on to producers, who already "know exactly what they're paying for their vaccines. They will know if they are getting the discount." The company will review the program in July.

With $15 million in sales, Vetrepharm was founded 20 years ago to seek alternatives to antibiotics for animal disease control, says McRae. Among its swine products is Colicheck, an E. coli vaccine that stimulates the immune system without antibiotics.

"In North America there is less control over antibiotics in animals than anywhere else in the world...The medical community has been waving a red flag for some time....It's time we started listening," McRae says.

© copyright 1999 Agricultural Publishing Company Limited.



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Packer inspection alternative proposed

Ontario's swine industry should benefit from proposed national standards

Changing consumer attitudes toward food safety have kept retailers, processors and regulatory officials on their toes. But varying provincial standards co-existing with federal rules have created a mish-mash of slaughter and packing regulations nationwide. Now, a proposed new set of federally approved provincial standards could serve to harmonize the shotgun approach.

The new standards should improve the lot of Ontario's 250 small- and medium-sized provincially inspected abattoirs - many specializing in pork - who see meeting existing federal regulations as excessively bureaucratic and prohibitively expensive. Nonetheless, a federal approval is more often than not the key to selling into national chain groceries.

The standards have been proposed by a national committee of meat industry stakeholders in each province, chaired by Cliff Munroe, an Alberta Agriculture official. The committee has completed a draft of new regulations that they'll hone over the next year before seeking Canadian Food Inspection Agency approval, but as Munroe notes, CFIA is represented on his committee. Though individual provinces will still be free to reject the new standards, it seems likely that complying processors will find national and world markets accepting of their product.

The Canadian Meat Council (CMC), which represents most large federally inspected packers, has voiced concern the changes could hamper Canada's reputation as an exporter. CMC has a representative on Munroe's committee.

Munroe insists the changes will still ensure high quality. "If there are establishments out there that can't meet the standards, then they're going to have to do something else."

Munroe says members of the Ontario Independent Meat Packers Association are already involved in an ambitious upgrading initiative that will filter out "an awful lot" of substandard plants.

Quebec, Nova Scotia and Saskatchewan currently have no standards governing provincial abattoirs. Plants in provinces such as Ontario are subject to strict regulations. "Somebody's wrong," Munroe asserts.

He notes Alberta plants that sell uninspected meat face fines of up to $10,000, but "across our imaginary border in Saskatchewan, it's legal." While the new national standards will open international markets for existing plants, they could also prevent the importation of unsafe meat.

World Trade Organization rules obligate importing countries to accept product from countries that meet their lowest standard. In Canada's case, that would be provinces with no inspection standards. Munroe says his committee's proposed regulations will maintain current federal quality without adding a financial burden on smaller packers "by reducing the bureaucracy" in existing standards. He says it's a case of applying "outcome-based standards," instead of dictating specific plant requirements.

For example, federal regulations dictate paved driveways. "Is that a food safety risk or can I control the dust by other means, like oil?" he challenges. - Robert Irwin

© copyright 1999 Agricultural Publishing Company Limited.



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Road hogs to do Midwest

If hog markets have you wondering what's really happening in the U.S. hog industry, consider the World Pork Expo pork tour organized by the state of Illinois. The bus trip brings together pork industry participants from around the world and provides an intimate view of the pork industry in the Midwest.

Terry English, Illinois Department of Agriculture, says this year, participants will fly to St. Louis, Mo., Sunday, June 6, and then travel via bus to swine farms, equipment manufacturers and breeding stock suppliers. Before winding up at World Pork Expo in Des Moines, Iowa, June 10, the tour also stops at the University of Illinois, where scientists are scheduled to provide an overview of their latest swine research.

Other tour highlights this year include a visit to the largest manure equipment distributor in the United States, and a stop at Rochelle Foods, an Illinois hog packer with a capacity of around 8,000 hogs per day.

Last year, tour members included Ontario producers, your Farm & Country PORK correspondent, producers from South America, Europe, Asia and Mexico.

Cost this year is US$400 double occupancy, US$450 single. For details, contact Janet Mathis at the state of Illinois office in Toronto (416) 695-9888. - Robert Irwin

© copyright 1999 Agricultural Publishing Company Limited.



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Chuck the check-off, say some U.S. producers

More than 14,000 pork producers have signed petitions to end the mandatory pork check-off in the U.S.

Petition promoters are seeking more than 20,000 signatures in an effort to put the issue before hog farmers at a referendum within the next 12 months. According to the Pork Act, signatures from at least 15 per cent of all producers who sold hogs as of Jan. 1, 1997 are needed to put the issue to a vote.

Promoted by the Campaign for Family Farms, the petition drive was launched last year by producers concerned the National Pork Producers Council was spending check-off money to promote expansion. Ironically, the referendum drive began in 1997, when hog prices were well above break-even.

Timing could not have been better for petitioners or worse for the NPPC, with hog prices dipping to US$10 in fourth quarter 1998, prompting nationwide calls for price spread and antitrust investigations.

The Campaign for Family Farms is a network of several state rural organizations, including groups from Minnesota, Kentucky, Illinois, Indiana, Missouri, Iowa and Wisconsin.

"NPPC is part of the problem. They have been spending our dollars to push more expansion by the biggest hog corporations, who have increased their sow herds by 50 per cent in the past two years. It's time to cut the cord and end the mandatory check-off," said Ovid Lyon, a Missouri producer.

Some organizations have wondered aloud why the NPPC doesn't kick check-off money back to help financially strapped members. "When you are a small or medium family farm, you cannot use packer contracts. They are designed for mega hog producers, and they are leaving us at the mercy of the packers," said Mike Schall, Gilmore City, Iowa. "The check-off doesn't help me," said Rodney Skalbeck, Renville County, Minn. "It goes to help sell pork, but packers and retailers just keep that money."

Campaign co-ordinators are concerned about voting procedures and the verification process related to a referendum. In fact, no rules have been established. USDA has told organizers that procedures will be developed as needed.

Of the US$54 million collected in check-offs from producers the NPPC will receive US$42 million in 1999, with the rest going to state associations. For 1999, US$22 million in producer dollars will go to promotion, and US$11 million to research and education.- Steve Marbery

© copyright 1999 Agricultural Publishing Company Limited.



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Pfizer fights back

Drug giant Pfizer is not taking the recent European ban on its antibiotic pig feed additive virginiamycin lying down.

As reported in Farm & Country PORK (Jan. 18), 12 of the 15 EU member countries banned four feed antibiotics, including virginiamycin, mid December. The other banned products are bacitracin zinc, spiramycin and tylosin.

After taking legal action against Denmark, Pfizer has now taken aim at the EU, reports Feedstuffs. Citing a European Commission report finding no evidence of risk to human health, Pfizer demands the EU to reverse the ban, which starts June 30 and will be reviewed at the end of 2000. The ban is also unfair to farmers who have used the drug for 30 years, Pfizer says.

© copyright 1999 Agricultural Publishing Company Limited.



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Mixed marks for web crisis coverage

When disaster strikes, people want credible information, quickly. For immediacy, radio and television surpassed newspapers long ago.

Ever since pork prices crashed last November, the National Pork Producers Council, based in Des Moines, Iowa, has set the information pace with a frequently updated website that includes NPPC political initiatives, government responses and market analysis. NPPC has even served up sound files so visitors can listen to speeches and press conferences.

The NPPC has been under intense pressure from its producers (see story, page 14) and will grab any opportunity to herald a bang for its check-off buck. Its website www.nppc.org/ serves up a not-too-subtle blend of advocacy with news. That doesn't diminish the importance of the resource, but it underscores the need for visitors to maintain a healthy level of skepticism.

That said, NPPC outdid counterparts the Canadian Pork Council on the web. Until the past few weeks, when it finally posted some press releases, the CPC website www.canpork.ca hadn't been updated since its August-September newsletter found its way to the web. Apparently, CPC has a new staffer who should soon be giving the website some badly needed attention.

When the pork crisis began, only a few hundred web surfers had signed up for access to the "producers only" section of Ontario Pork's website. Therefore, it's likely the board didn't initially view it as an efficient way to reach the province's approximately 6,000 producers.

But the surprisingly rapid deterioration in hog prices caused a sense of desperation on the concession roads. The pork board eventually began rapid updates to its website as one means of coping with what had become a serious information vacuum.

If there were any doubts remaining, it became clear the Ontario Pork web site was working well when the Quality Meat Packers strike was finally settled. Votes were counted late one Friday night and the news was posted at the Ontario Pork website the following day.

There is a need for restricted access to the site as it allows producers to retrieve their farms' grading information. But I'm not convinced there is a need to restrict the contents found in the "for producers only" section.

Does the general public really need to be protected from such items as new marketing initiatives, a board meeting with Christian Farmers, strike details, or a dinner invite to MPs? I think hiding these events only baits the curious, who include pork industry foes such as People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) and their perpetually misguided allies who infest the 'net.

Internet users can see a report of PETA's latest, and by all accounts to date, authentic, undercover video, featuring atrocities on a North Carolina pig farm www.meatstinks.com/pigcase.html.

Image is a deadly serious issue for pork producers. Testifying before a Senate Appropriations subcommittee early last month, Federal Bureau of Investigation director Louis Freeh said, "The most recognizable single-issue terrorists, at the present time, are those involved in the violent animal rights, anti-abortion, and environmental protection movements."

Until groups such as the Ontario Farm Animal Council establish a web presence to promote the way most progressive farms handle animals, there is a heavy burden on existing websites to educate the public and to be as transparent as possible about an industry we should be proud of.
Robert Irwin manages Farm & Country PORK's industry crisis web site www.agpub.on.ca/pc/main.htm

© copyright 1999 Agricultural Publishing Company Limited.



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State-of-the-art showcase

The Groenestege-Cold Springs build-lease deal ushers in a new era for Ontario production

Short-term price valleys in the pork industry don't shake builder Fred Groenestege's long-term bullish view for Ontario agriculture, even if a significant piece of his construction company's business, swine facilities, has slowed. In Groenestege's view, whether you're in construction or production, if you're not looking two or three years ahead you're handicapping your business.

That outlook is reflected in the early December completion of a $1.75-million, 1,250-sow facility on his company's property near Wartburg, Perth county. The barn, in the works since 1997, showcases technology and design that Groenestege says "reflects where the industry's headed" in terms of animal comfort and housing, worker health and satisfaction, efficiency of operation, and concern for the environment.

Sows are housed in eight rows - the inside four for breeding and outside four for gestation. Slatted alleyways at the rear of each eight-foot deep stall open to underground manure storage with one year's capacity.

Breeding stalls have pinless rear gate open and close mechanism that makes for easy sow access.

Dry, radiant heating is accomplished via hot water running through H and I-inch tubing embedded in the concrete floors.

Air inlets under gables and increased roof-line insulation combined with decreased ceiling insulation create an intentional heat loss through the roof that, in winter, also pre-heats incoming air. Fan ventilation needs are minimal.

The passive heat energy system, says Groenestege, keeps dust to a minimum compared to propane box heater systems: "As soon as you burn propane, you produce moisture, which brings humidity - and that's one of the toughest housing issues in swine, because ammonia, being water soluble, attaches itself to the humidity and rises. That can contribute to respiratory problems."

Also keeping dust down is an enclosed, augered automatic feeding system that feeds into a trough running in front of the crates. An adjustable float watering system also flows into the trough.

The nine farrowing rooms are separated from the sow unit by a 10-foot wide main corridor that allows easy access for service people. Equipment mechanicals are located primarily in this area, so on top of shower-in, shower-out protocols, health risks are minimized.

Each farrowing room has 22 side-opening farrowing crates, 11 per side, 198 in total, in parallel. The central walkway affords employees front and back views of sows and piglets. Crates are 5x8 feet. Piglets are weaned at two weeks and sent out for finishing.

The facility has been leased to Cold Springs Farm for a 10-year period, reviewable after five years. John Alderman, Cold Springs swine division GM, says the unit has met or exceeded his expectations: "Herd health has been terrific, as has productivity. We had our first farrowings first week in January from sows we'd bred elsewhere last fall, and by end of January had had 2,000 piglets."

Alderman says the farrowing unit's size fits well with Cold Springs' larger finishing operations, which are set up for flows of 1,000 animals. "Having all pigs arrive from the same facility is a health bonus, too," he says.

While acknowledging the lease arrangement is unusual for Ontario, Alderman likens the situation to a mall's retail outfits: Cold Springs is renting the space to conduct the business they're best at and leaving the business of providing the best facility to the "mall" owners - in this case Groenestege. Alderman says the company is actively looking at further lease arrangements of state-of-the art buildings.

That would suit farm manager Paul Bellinger to a T. In the eight years since he left Ridgetown College after studying production and farm management, he says he's never worked in a better environment. "Feeding takes five minutes, the alleys are wide for cleaning and scraping, it's not dusty, my feet stay warm...It's great!" - Richard Charteris

© copyright 1999 Agricultural Publishing Company Limited.



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