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Canadian culled pork donated to food banks
Ontario food banks are to receive kilograms of pork
produced through the Canadian culling programme implemented in response to the
hog industry crisis.
The "cull breeding swine program" is an unprecedented $50 million
initiative of Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada to reduce the size of Canada's
pig herd. Fewer pigs means higher prices.
Farmers have been losing money on each pig sent to market because of record
feed prices and the high Canadian dollar.
Ottawa's solution has been to pay farmers to kill their pigs--$225 per
euthanised sow. The goal is to reduce the national sow herd by 10 per cent,
meaning about 3 million fewer hogs per year.
The first shipments of ground pork left Ontario plants Friday in
refrigerated trucks for food banks in Ottawa, London, Peterborough and
elsewhere, said Adam Spence, executive director of the Ontario Association of
Food Banks.
The balance of the estimated 63,500 kilograms of pork should reach the 120
food banks by the end of August, Spence said.
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