The Rural Voice, 2000-03, Page 22THE SWINE INDUSTRY IN
Industry observers look at the trends in consumer preference, marketing,
environment and biotechnology that will shape the industry in five years' time
By Keith Roulston
The rapid change in the pork
industry in the past decade has
left most producers with their
heads spinning, trying to grasp the
new realities. How then do producers
look ahead and see where they
should be in five years time?
A group of speakers focussed on
that topic at the Centralia Swine
Research Update in Kirkton,
February 2. The speakers looked at'
everything from market forces to the
environment to the future of
biotechnology in outlining where the
current trends seem to be in the
industry.
20 THE RURAL VOICE
Having just returned from a
European trip, Ken McEwan, an
economist from Ridgetown College
was able to bring a different
perspective to the discussion of
where the market for pork is heading
by 2005.
Pork makes up 48 per cent of all
meat eaten in the world, McEwan
said. Beef makes up 27 per cent of
world meat consumption but has
been losing ground. Chicken and
turkey make up 22 and three per cent
respectively but they've been gaining
a greater share of the market.
By world consumption rates,
Canadians are far behind countries
like Germany in the amount of pork
they eat. That holds potential for
Canadian pork producers to gain
more consumption right at home,
McEwan said.
Eastern Europeans are big
consumers of pork and as the
economy recovers from the effects of
50 years of communism, there's a
potential for greater consumption
there. It's a potential Smithfield
Foods Inc., which already produces
12 million hogs in the U.S., is
already banking on with new
European investment, McEwan said.
Elsewhere in Europe, pork
production is moving to Spain, now
part of the common market, from the
Netherlands, which is expected to
reduce pork production by 25 per
cent because of environmental
concerns, and concentrate more on
the greenhouse industry.
In Europe, the number one
consumer concern is food safety,
with price a secondary factor. In
Canada, where consumers have taken
food safety for granted, price drives
the market.
That kind of consumer confidence
is a thing of the past in Britain where,
after scandals like mad cow disease,
consumers no longer trust their
government, farmers or scientists to
protect them. They do, McEwan
says, trust the retailers who ensure
that confidence by tracing food