Canadian Gov Hog Restructuring Plan Announced.

[charliep]

For what it is worth, here is a USDA press release on USDA activities to aid farmers south of us.

http://www.usda.gov/wps/portal/!ut/p/_s.7_0_A/7_0_1RD?printable=true&contentidonly=true&contenti d=2009/08/0373.xml

[Fransisco]

I think your 7 tonne per sow figure should be pretty close. One of the numbers being thrown around is $500 per sow for closing the doors for three years. That works out to 150,000 sows and about a million tonnes of feed that wouldn't be needed.

Don't know if $500 a sow is reasonable, that's not the end of the business that I'm in but like I said that's one of the figures being bounced around.

[craig]

I agree with Charlie's assessment. If you as grain farmers don't think this will effect your bottomline you are sadly mistaken. I expect a large cow herd reduction also this fall and that will also impact us. As for who owns these operations I know alot that are still owned by farmers or groups of farmers. Withot a restructuring ( writedown)of loans by the banks in the near term you will see a number of these large operations fold. It is not possible to sustain the current losses at this stage of the game. Sadly if we loose the feed industry we become more dependent on the CWB and if you think that is a winning recipe just look what's on the table right now with predictions it's only going to get worse.Guess we can grow wall to wall canola till our fields become over run with disease. As a farmer I'm always looking for more options not less.