The dramatic rise in the value of the Canadian dollar and the unprecedented high cost of feed coupled with a downturn in live hog prices has made for tough times in the Canadian pork industry.

Saskatchewan Pork Development Board Chair Joe Kleinsasser, on hand for Saskatchewan Pork Industry Symposium 2007, says while the mood of pork producers could be best described as somber they appear to be girding themselves to hang in for the long term.

Joe Kleinsasser-Saskatchewan Pork Development Board

There are initiatives afoot both at the national and provincial levels and they almost are a mirror image of each other.

What we want to do is change the structure of CAIS to speed up the process of getting money into the producers hands and do what ever we need to change the program so that it is more user friendly, that it will be able to be utilized over a wider part of the industry which would require the removal of the caps because right now a significant huge part of our industry is not eligible for CAIS simply because of the caps and we feel they have to go.

We're also going, and this is both before the federal and provincial governments, and asking for a short term hog loan.

We prefer to call it not a hog loan but a transitional assistance through these times because right now the crisis the industry is in and the amounts of moony that they're bleeding, losing is just not sustainable for any length of time.

We feel the times will get better.

We just need help to get from there to here.

Kleinsasser says producers don't want to send the perception that they feel this industry can not be profitable because it can.

He says hog producers are proud of the role they plan in society as producers of food and suggests the general public needs to be more aware of the crisis the entire agriculture industry is facing.