Brumm Speaks Out

This past week I spent time in southwest Ontario, traveling with a swine veterinarian and presenting at a couple of producer meetings. On Tuesday of this past week, the January 1 pig inventories for Canada were also released by Statistics Canada.

While those of us in the swine industry in the US have been living with losses for the past 2 years, these losses so far have not translated into closure of very many swine production facilities. In Canada, it’s a different story.

The Canadian inventory peaked on October 1, 2005 at 15.205 million pigs. On January 1, 2010 it stood at 11.630 million head, a 23.5% drop. On January 1, 2005, there were 1.634 million head in the kept for breeding category, with this number falling 18.3% (299,000 head) to 1.335 million head on January 1, 2010.

The largest share of this decline in inventory has occurred in Ontario. Pig numbers in Ontario declined from 3.105 million pigs on January 1, 2009 to 2.868 million head on January 1, 2010, a 7.6% decline in inventory in 12 months. From their peak inventory numbers in 2006, Ontario producers have reduced total inventory almost 1 million head, with a 100,000 head reduction in the breeding herd. Their industry has contracted almost 25% in the past 3 years.

As we were driving around I saw several 2-400 sow farrow-finish sites sitting empty. At the meetings, all of the producers were seeking answers to questions about their future.

Compared to US producers in the Midwest, the future does not look very clear for Ontario producers. While they are excellent producers and have risen to the challenge of getting more pigs with less expense, there are several location and trade issues that they must overcome.

In Ontario, over 50% of the pigs are slaughtered at the Maple Leaf plant in Burlington. This plant was for sale by Maple Leaf at one time and there is continued concern about its long term future. All other slaughter plants are very small and could not absorb Ontario’s production if the Maple Leaf plant were to close.

Ontario is east of Chicago and has a net positive basis relative to Chicago for corn. While Iowa and Southern Minnesota producers typically price corn at -$0.30 to -0.40 below Chicago, Ontario producers typically price it at +$0.10 to +0.30.

The Canadian dollar is very strong relative to the US dollar. In Ontario, the only risk protection is US markets so any currency fluctuation must be included in the risk. With a strong Canadian dollar and weak US dollar, anything priced in US dollars becomes very expensive. Said another way, anything paid for in US dollars becomes worth less when converted to Canadian dollars.

Canada has approximately 30 million people, with the majority located within 50-75 miles of the US border. With a pig herd that is 1/6 the size of the US herd, and a population that is less than 10% of the US, this means they are very dependent on exports for profit. The strong Canadian dollar versus the US dollar means US producers can sell identical products in export markets for less money, making US pork a preferred product because of price.

While many of the Ontario producers I visited with intend to remain in production for now, they are not optimistic about the opportunities for youth to return to the family farm with pig production as the base enterprise. When the current production facilities reach the end of their productive life, many producers will close the door on pork production.

It’s the middle of February and I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve shoveled my driveway. Winters grip has been harsh this year, and it looks to remain for a few more weeks.

It’s one thing for me to complain about clearing a driveway when I live in town. It’s been another story for producers and their employees this winter as they have daily faced the challenges of keeping driveways open and assuring bin access for feed trucks. when you spend 4+ hrs several days a week moving snow it becomes a long winter.

I was made aware of this constant challenge several times in the past few weeks as I worked in our research barns and had discussions with several nutritionists. The good news for the pigs is that are confined inside where the temperatures are relatively warm and they don’t have to climb snow drifts to access feed and water and the water is not frozen, etc.

To those industry critics that want us to revert to the ‘old’ ways of rearing pigs, I remember well the ‘old’ ways. They involved pigs with frozen backs during transport, frozen teats on sows coming into the farrowing house, pigs with prolapes from piling into straw packs, etc. The best example of the ‘old’ way is a comment by a long time veterinarian friend who witnessed the industry conversion from outside lots to confinement.

He told me one time that in the ‘old’ days, he knew he would spend his time repairing prolapses on growing pigs on days the wind was from the southeast as the possibility of pigs staying warm and dry in ‘Cargill’ facilities was minimal on these days. He contrasted that veterinary effort with the challenge of today where pigs are relatively warm and dry and the challenges are in determining herd health practices for prevention of disease. As a person trained in animal health and concerned with their welfare, he much preferred the confinement option for the growing pig.

Our failure in the animal welfare debate has beena failure to help critics understand how much we’ve improved the well being of pigs by our current production practices. Maybe it’s time we dug out pictures of the ‘old’ days to help this generation of critics understand what they are asking us to revert to.

Last fall I departed from my weekly blog about pigs to share with readers the decision my wife and I were making regarding placement of Elizabeth in a group home. This week I want to depart once again to share with you how this process is coming along.

Liz has been living in a group home with 2 other girls for 4 weeks now, and appears to be adapting very well. So well in fact that when we return her to her residence after a visit to our home, she immediately tells us to leave.

The staff at the home have been very good in learning how to work with Liz, and in turn Liz has been very good at testing their patience and creativity. The staff are all relatively young females with lots of energy who don’t like to sit around, so they are always doing something with the girls that live in the home. In the 4 weeks that she has been in the home, Liz has gone clothes shopping, bowling, shopping, petting animals at Pet Expo, shopping at the mall, shopping at WalMart, etc. Needless to say Liz loves it.

What made me really realize how different our life has become without Liz in the home occurred this morning. When Liz was living with us, the school bus was at our door at 7:10 am. This meant I had to always have the driveway wheelchair clean by 7 am. At 3:30 pm another round of shoveling was necessary in order to get the wheel chair up the driveway and into the house when she returned home. While I still shoveled snow this morning prior to 7 am, it was with a different sense of urgency and attention to detail.

Jan and I want to thank all of you who have sent us notes, or otherwise communicated your cares, concerns and best wishes. So far it does appear that we have made the right decision regarding Liz’s future.