Pork industry ‘side-swiped’ by processing plant closures
Conestoga Meats in Breslau is closed all week after at least seven positive cases of COVID-19
WOOLWICH TOWNSHIP — This was supposed to be a good year for Canadian pork producers.
China, which spent more than $500 million on Canadian pork in 2018 and is the world’s largest consumer, lifted its suspension of Canadian meat imports in November and farmers were anticipating a positive swing in fortunes in 2020.
Then COVID-19 hit.
Last Friday, Conestoga Meats in Breslau — which claims to be the second-biggest pork processor in Ontario — announced it was shutting down its processing line for a week after at least seven individuals tested positive for coronavirus. And in late March, a pork plant in Quebec operated by Olymel closed for two weeks after nine employees tested positive.
These and other shutdowns have created a bottleneck in the supply chain and made it tough for farmers to get their pigs to market.
“I’m getting calls from a lot of producers who are in tears,” said Eric Schwindt, who operates a family pig farm just north of
Elmira.
He’s also the chair of the Ontario Pork Producers’ Marketing Board, which represents the province’s nearly 1,200 pork producers and the 5.5 million hogs they raise each year.
“We’re resilient and we’ll figure it out, but we need some help.”
The pork industry has been “sideswiped” by the plant closures, said Al Mussell, chair of the Ontario Pork Industry Council and research lead at Guelph’s AgriFood Economic Systems. He says some producers may never recover.
“When I say it’s a crisis, it’s not a stretch to think that some producers could lose everything over this.”
Schwindt said a shutdown of one to two weeks is manageable for some farmers if they have the space to house the additional pigs.
He usually sends hundreds of pigs per month to the Olymel plant in Quebec, but that fell by nearly 80 per cent during the shutdown as he tried to find other plants willing or able to accept some of his animals.
Farmers will also change the pig’s feed to a maintenance diet to slow their weight gain once they’re ready for shipment. A hog is ready for market at about six months old and about 125 kilograms (280 pounds).
Every extra day a pig spends in the barn results in additional costs for the farmer — money they can’t make up when the animals are sold.
It costs about $190 to raise one hog for market, Schwindt said, and when the market is good they’ll end up selling them for about $200 per head, or roughly $10 in profit.
North American hog farmers are currently losing about $50 per animal because of the backlog at abattoirs, Schwindt said. That’s about $675 million in losses for the Canadian pork industry, which last week asked the federal government for about $500 million in direct emergency aid.
Euthanasia of animals is also an option, but only as a last resort, Schwindt said.
The shutdown of pork plants in Ontario, Quebec and several U.S. states is unlike anything Mussell has ever seen, and there’s “not much capacity” to send animals to other plants, he said. Canada had 27 federally inspected slaughter plants for hogs in 2019, and almost half (12) were in Quebec.
Ontario also has about 80 licensed abattoirs for pigs, but that meat can only be sold within the province.
The impact of plant closures causes ripples across the supply chain — feed mills could see reduced revenue if farmers can’t pay their bills, Mussell said, and ancillary industries like trucking are also hurt.
“It’s a long supply chain and you can’t just start it up and shut it down,” he said.
Breslau-based Conestoga Meats announced Friday it would close for a week after employees raised concerns when at least seven workers tested positive for COVID-19. Limited operations will continue during the shutdown, and employees sent home for the week will continue to be paid, the company said in a statement.
Workers have been earning a $2 per hour premium since March 23, according to the company.
Public health officials are working with the meat packer, and they have told the company more positive cases are likely given the size of the workforce and the increase in testing.
On Monday, the company told The Record it had not been notified of any additional cases of COVID-19.
About 1,000 employees work at the plant and it processes about 37,000 pigs per week.
The Ontario Ministry of Labour is also investigating after receiving two complaints related to COVID-19 at Conestoga Meats last Wednesday, including social distancing procedures.
A ministry inspector has been assigned and the investigation is ongoing. The ministry says the investigation will be done via telephone.
This follows an earlier complaint the ministry received on March 24 about a lack of personal protective equipment. A ministry inspector conducted an investigation, also by phone, and no orders were issued.
The Canadian Food Inspection Agency says “there have been no reported cases of food or food packaging being associated with the transmission of COVID-19.”