By Bruce Cochrane
Research conducted on behalf of Manitoba Pork indicates the biggest challenges faced by the province's pork producers include government regulation, market prices and profitability.
As part of a strategic planning exercise conducted on behalf of Manitoba Pork pork producers, industry stakeholders and the public were asked about how Manitoba Pork is meeting the needs of producers and consumers.
Manitoba Pork general manager Andrew Dickson says producers identified 7 or 8 areas they felt were significant in terms of their businesses.
Andrew Dickson-Manitoba Pork:
The 3 biggest challenges they faced were government regulations, market prices and profitability.
About 80 percent of the producers expected to remain in the industry but they didn't see their operation expanding in the near term.
About 75 percent of the producers saw the council having a significant role in their business success and they provided a lot of information back in terms of our success as council on dealing with things like animal care, the trust factor in terms of how the industry is being portrayed to the general public, about how we go about promoting environmental practices, we got some feedback on how the council communicates with members and so on.
The big thing always is, when you're offering programs and services is to get feedback to guide you as to whether you're having success or not.
This survey indicates that we're on track in a number of key areas which are very important to producers and, in some areas, we may need to reconsider our approach.
There was nothing that stood out as needing urgent attention.
It was more one of fine tuning, perhaps doing a better job of explaining some of our programs and efforts to producers and continuing to have a strong program in terms of sharing information with the general public about how this sector works and what it's doing.
Dickson says feedback from the survey will be used in designing future programs to ensure continued success.
Source: Farmscape