The new Canadian Pork Promotion and Research Agency will be funded with levies collected on imported hogs and meat
A new federal agency will use funds from a levy on imported pork to pay for research and promotion of the sector.
On Nov. 5, federal agriculture minister Marie Claude Bibeau officially announced the creation of the Canadian Pork Promotion and Research Agency (PRA).
The Canadian Pork Council has floated the idea for nearly a decade as a way to improve the current system used by the sector for promotion and research, characterized as a patchwork of efforts at the provincial level.
“The PRA will be an important vehicle for producers,” pork council chair Rick Bergmann said in a statement.
“It will help facilitate even greater collaboration across the value chain through increased research and promotion activities. In the long run, it will result in improving the long-term growth and competitiveness of the sector.”
The pork council estimates the agency can provide $2 million in additional research and promotion by receiving funds from a 75-cent levy on imported live pigs and a charge on imported pork meat.
Bibeau said the organization would be led by the industry.
“The federal government is not taking over in any way, it’s really their wish to join forces,” she said.
“I believe working together, joining forces, there will be economy of scales in the type of initiatives they launch through the PRA.”
Provincial groups will keep the responsibility of ensuring that check-off revenue is spent effectively, but the national organization will provide them with an opportunity to collaborate on various research and development projects.
In October, Canada’s hog producers called on the federal government to invest $50 million over three years to combat African swine fever. Since 2018, the disease has spread into several European countries and every region of China, but no cases have been reported in North America.
The new agency doesn’t come with the requested federal investment, but Bibeau said the PRA will still help the industry combat ASF.
“They would have more resources to better prepare, get better organized, make more prevention activity, to first, obviously, try to avoid having this disease on our territory. And if we have it eventually, hopefully not, but we would be better prepared to face it,” she said.
Ottawa will have little, if any, say in where the organization directs its money. The board will comprise industry stakeholders, responsible for deciding how and where it will be spent.
The promotion and research model has been tested in other sectors: the Canadian Beef Check-Off Agency generates about $7.5 million a year, funding projects to expand markets and increase sales.
A proposal to create the PRA was published in the March 7 edition of the Canada Gazette Part 1.
Canada imported 157,026 tonnes of fresh and frozen pork in 2019 and another 233,699 tonnes of processed pork, mostly from the United States.
Agriculture Canada and the Farm Products Council of Canada are working with the pork council to establish the new agency.
It is expected to be fully operational by the summer of 2021.
November 13, 2020 at 04:45AM
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