Heard Health Expected to Determine Profitability in 2022

Jan 03, 2022

A partner with Polar Pork Farms says health status will be key in determining the economic strength of Saskatchewan's pork sector in the coming year. Amid feed costs that are more than double those of one year ago, lower global swine production resulting from losses due to African Swine Fever and herd reductions due to low returns, especially in China, have reduced global pork supplies.

Florian Possberg, a Partner with Polar Pork Farms, says we really didn't drop our production very much at all in Canada and should be in a good position through 2022 and into 2023.

Clip-Florian Possberg-Polar Pork Farms:

Locally, in Saskatchewan, we've benefitted from having just phenomenal health. Other parts of North American, including Manitoba and Ontario, have struggled with PED and PRRS and other challenges. We've been sparred that largely or almost exclusively in Saskatchewan so that's been a great benefit.

North America has benefitted because Russia and Europe and China and the whole of southeast Asia have challenged by African Swine Fever and even in parts with Foot and Mouth Disease. We've been sparred that in North America. We cross our fingers.

We do all we can, follow very strict biosecurity measures and monitoring so that we can keep those things out of our province. As long as we can keep those things out, we'll have an advantage but, because of the amount of freight going back and forth between Asia and North America, the chance of getting African Swine Fever is always there.

Source : Farmscape

Video: Evolution of Beef Cattle Farming

The Clear Conversations podcast took to the road for a special episode recorded in Nashville during CattleCon, bringing listeners straight into the heart of the cattle industry. Host Tracy Sellers welcomed rancher Steve Wooten of Beatty Canyon Ranch in Colorado for a wide-ranging discussion that blended family history and sustainability, particularly as it relates to the future of beef production.

Sustainability emerged as a central theme of the conversation, a word that Wooten acknowledges can mean very different things depending on who you ask. For him, sustainability starts with the soil. Healthy soil produces healthy grass, which supports efficient cattle capable of producing year after year with minimal external inputs. It’s an approach that equally considers vegetation, animal efficiency, and long-term profitability.

That philosophy aligned naturally with Wooten’s involvement in the U.S. Roundtable for Sustainable Beef, where he served as a representative for the Colorado Cattlemen’s Association. The roundtable brings together the entire beef supply chain—from producers to retailers—along with universities, NGOs, and allied industries. Its goal is not regulation, Wooten emphasized, but collaboration, shared learning, and continuous improvement.