The Rural Voice, 2005-07, Page 57PERTH ifetk
County Pork Producers NEWSLETTER
Russ Danbrook, President
519-356-2385
• The Rural Voice is provided to Perth
County Pork Producers by the PCPPA.
Government policy with a vision to the future
Any opinions expressed herein may
not necessarily reflect the views of
the Perth County Pork Producers'
Association.
Last month's article on our
competitiveness by Phil Anwender
has provided lots of food for thought.
It's clear that in Ontario we have
some major disadvantages in input
and product pricing to overcome. We
must put a major effort in to try to
level the playing field. There are also.
however. some less -talked -about
areas that we have been slipping in.
that have made us competitive in the
past. The main area is research and
development.
Too long ago when I was in
college in the mid -'70s. our crop
science instructor. Jim O'Toole
would hammer home to us that there
was a disturbing trend by
governments to reduce money spent
on research. As I recall. he would
make the point that it would be our
responsibility to keep pressure on
those in power to spend on research
as this is what would keep us
competitive in the future. Not doing
so would have consequences in our
future competitiveness. Research is a
long-term investment. Has his
prediction come to be?
My primary joy in hog farming is
found in swine genetics. We have
been fortunate in Ontario and in
Canada to have had government
money (our tax money) spent in the
past into R and D which led to the
development of the ROP program of
the '60s. This evolved in the early
'80s into the national EBV BLUP
(best linear unbiased prediction)
program that we still use today
although it is quite enhanced from the
original. This program was developed
by the late Dr. Brian Kennedy of the
University of Guelph. We. through
research dollars developed it and it
set us well ahead of the rest of the
world. It provided Canadian
producers with genetics that gave
them an incredible advantage in
carcass, feed conversion. growth rate
and farrowing productivity traits.
This system has been adopted
around the world with pretty much
every major genetics company
adopting it in one form or another
Our research dollars developed it. we
were first in the world and we had
years of benefit before others would
follow. We are still ahead primarily
because of Canada's unique internet-
based nationally -linked herd and
prompt frequent genetic evaluations
and very large (possibly the largest)
linked herd in the world.
Almost 10 years ago the federal
government decided to get out of
genetic development and cut IN
funding from millions to near zero
PERTH COUNTY PORK PRODUCERS'
PORK PRODUCTS
• Smoked Pork Chops • Fresh Pork Chops • Stuffed Loin Chops
• Smoked Sausage • Smoked Cheddar Sausage • Bacon Burgers
• Teriyaki Pork Steaks • Vittorio's BBQ Sauce
AVAILABLE FROM:
Steve Hulshof (Kinkora) .......... 348-8167
Walter Bosch (Monkton) 356-9000
Ted Keller (Mitchell) 348-9836
Almost all of the provinces except
Quebec have followed suit so that
today in Ontario there are no
government dollars spent on genetic
improvement. It has been left for
breeders to carry the financial burden
and on project -by -project applications
for funding. There will he a price to
pay and I would argue we are paying
already. I believe the narrowing of
the gap between our genetics and
those of the U.S. are a direct result of
this government policy.
This is only one area that 1 have
used as an example hut I'm sure there
are mane areas with similar stories
from crop science to nutrition
Leaving research solely to private
and multinational companies to fund
and carry out does not give us as a
province or counts a competitive
advantage over another counts
such as the U.S Do you think we
would he given lead time with a
new product over the U.S.
by multinationals' I would argue that
we would see a delay in \ears with
lead time hung given to the large
lucrative t' S market that', called
a competitive disadvantage and
the reason that we must do the
research ourselves through
government policy
We need to lead the way in
technology. gencuc. feed and crop
science as well. The deck will always
he stacked against us in input and
product pricing so we need to make it
up through better efficiencies.
We need active involvement by
our governments in developing
sustainable competitive agriculture in
this province. This is a dramatic shift
from the current government crisis
management that results in too many
regulations and downloading of costs
to active visionary thinking with real
investment into R and D and ON1 AF
extension work and an actual forward
looking agricultural policy' :
- Submitte(/ by .h,,
JULY 200-) D3