Sixth-generation farmer Bruce Hudson says Canada’s pork commerce guidelines power him to ship hogs to the U.S. whereas native markets keep off-limits. He needs interprovincial boundaries gone earlier than tariffs put him out of enterprise.
Printed Feb 11, 2025 • Final up to date 2 hours in the past • 4 minute learn
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Ottawa farmer Bruce Hudson at his farm. Photograph by Tony Caldwell /POSTMEDIA
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A sixth-generation farmer, Ottawa’s Bruce Hudson now faces a profoundly unsure marketplace for the three,000 hogs he finishes every year.
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Hudson, the co-owner of Panmure Farms Ltd. in west Ottawa, sells 80 per cent of his hogs in the US and the stability to native consumers. It’s an association largely imposed on him by a dearth of native processing capability – and by regulatory commerce boundaries that make it troublesome to promote Ontario pork in Quebec (and vice-versa).
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Because of this, Panmure Farms vans hundreds of hogs yearly to Hazleton, Pennsylvania, the place they’re processed and offered.
But when U.S. President Donald Trump acts on his menace to impose 25 per cent tariffs on Canadian imports, it will add about $60 to the price of every of his hogs, Hudson says, and make his enterprise nearly inconceivable to maintain.
“I definitely would lose money with the limited, limited profits I have right now,” he says.
If interprovincial commerce boundaries aren’t swiftly eliminated, Hudson says, he must hold sending his hogs to the U.S. since there’s such restricted processing capability in Japanese Ontario.
“Hopefully the trade barriers are lifted or revised in short order,” he says. “I guess I could live with it for a week or two, but not for months and months.”
Eradicating interprovincial boundaries, he says, would supply “a lot more options to move my product within the country.”
Pig farmer Bruce Hudson poses for a photograph at his farm outdoors Ottawa Monday. Photograph by Tony Caldwell /POSTMEDIA
The motion of pigs throughout provincial borders is now ruled by a welter of federal and provincial regulation.
Agricultural coverage is a shared federal-provincial duty in Canada. Broadly talking, the provinces are chargeable for what occurs inside their boundaries, whereas the federal officers govern nationwide packages and worldwide commerce.
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The provinces management their very own meat inspection, which permits them to limit commerce. Typically, for pork to be offered in Ontario, it should be processed at a provincially-licensed meat plant in Ontario. The identical holds true in Quebec and different provinces.
There are additionally a variety of federally-licensed meat crops that enable producers to market their items throughout Canada and internationally. These crops should be licensed by the Canadian Meals Inspection Company.
The system is additional sophisticated by processing capability, which has been falling in each Ontario and Quebec.
Ontario has seen 54 per cent of its abattoirs shuttered in the course of the previous 15 years, based on Ontario Pork, the voice of the province’s 1,900 pork farmers.
Bruce Hudson’s pigs at his farm outdoors Ottawa Monday. Hudson now faces enterprise turbulence due to the specter of 25 per cent tariffs on the hogs he takes to the U.S. for processing. Photograph by Tony Caldwell /POSTMEDIA
In the meantime, meat packing large Olymel shut a number of of its hog-processing amenities in Quebec in the course of the previous three years. In response, the provincial authorities launched a plan to cut back the scale of Quebec’s swine herd and downsize the variety of pork producers.
A fee tasked with managing that plan now requires provincial processors to provide precedence to Quebec hogs.
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Bruce Hudson was one in all many Japanese Ontario pork producers compelled to search out another when a federally-licensed processing plant in Vallée-Jonction, Quebec closed in 2023. He now drives his market hogs 9 hours to a meat plant in Pennsylvania.
Some farmers in Japanese Ontario truck their hogs as far-off as Brandon, Manitoba, a 36-hour drive, for processing.
The Canadian Agri-Meals Coverage Institute, an unbiased coverage assume tank, revealed a 2022 examine on interprovincial commerce boundaries in Canada’s crimson meat business. (Pork is assessed as a crimson meat.)
The report estimated that roadblocks to interprovincial commerce within the business symbolize a $500 million annual “loss of opportunity.” However it recommended reform will probably be complicated since there are completely different requirements between federally-licensed and provincially-licensed processing crops, and between provinces.
“This complicates matters as it makes it more difficult to identify a single approach that can work for all,” the examine concluded.
Pig farmer Bruce Hudson poses for a photograph at his farm outdoors Ottawa Monday. Hudson is a sixth-generation farmer and pork producer who now faces enterprise turbulence due to the specter of 25 per cent tariffs on the hogs he takes to the U.S. for processing. Photograph by Tony Caldwell /POSTMEDIA
In line with the report, some provinces have in depth guidelines regarding areas the place meat is processed, similar to necessities for leak-proof joints between partitions and flooring, whereas others don’t. Provinces additionally differ on guidelines that govern workers change rooms and meat inspection places of work. Meat inspection practices additionally differ with some provinces inspecting each earlier than and after an animal is slaughtered. There are additionally completely different inspection frequencies with Ontario conducting audits in addition to inspections.
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The assume tank recommended the easiest way to advertise extra commerce in crimson meats is to have provincial processing crops meet federal requirements.
College of Guelph professor Ken McEwan, an knowledgeable in agricultural economics, has studied the Ontario pork business for years. In 2023, he says, of the 7.6 million pigs produced in Ontario, about 1.3 million market hogs went from Ontario to the U.S. for processing.
If the U.S. imposes tariffs on these hogs, McEwan says, the worth that Canadian pork producers obtain will probably be discounted by American consumers with a purpose to pay the tariff.
Eradicating commerce boundaries between provinces would possibly help a few of these producers, he says, however many will nonetheless face difficulties due to restricted processing capability in Ontario and Quebec.
Bruce Hudson’s farm outdoors Ottawa. Photograph by Tony Caldwell /POSTMEDIA
“By and large, it’s a capacity issue,” McEwan contends.
Hudson is a descendent of William Hudson, an immigrant who got here to Canada in 1832 from Leeds County, England, and bought 50 acres of farmland. Panmure Farms now has a 1,000-acre money crop and vegetable operation that produces corn, soybeans, cereals and candy corn.
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Hudson doesn’t know if he’ll proceed as a pork producer, or withdraw from the business to focus on his different traces of enterprise.
“I’m in my mid-60s so it’s up to the next generation,” he says. “If they want to keep at it, OK, but we have to determine whether the market is there…It’s a difficult, difficult choice right now.”
Ontario’s pork business employs greater than 18,000 individuals and contributes $3.5 billion yearly to the financial system.
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