Canadian culled pork donated to food banks

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.

 

• Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada

• Ontario Pork

 

Subscribe here to the Pig Progress newsletter