Two large hog farmers quit in Nova Scotia
The once-thriving pig industry of Canada’s second-smallest province of Nova Scotia is now almost dead. Two pig farms have recently announced their closure.
Jo-Mar Farms in Warren has not raised any pigs since last autumn and will soon be finishing off marketing the animals it has been sending to the United States. The farm will soon be completely out of an industry that two decades ago included more than 40 hog farms across Nova Scotia’s Cumberland County.
Financial support
Late last week, Gerald Vermeulen, chair of the province’s pork marketing agency, announced he’d quit the business as well. He has 4,000 animals at his farm in Canning and 6,000 in the USA. He said everything went downhill when the province announced in 2006 that it was pulling financial support from producers.
Statistics Canada is showing a 59% drop in pig production over the past year, with only 13 farms remaining from a time when there were more than 90.
A combination of high feed and production costs, higher fuel costs and higher insurance at the same time as low prices is probably due to the collapse of the farms.
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