By Bruce Cochrane
The manager of industry and policy analysis with Sask Pork says now is an excellent time for grain growers considering diversification to consider hog production.
With the increasing cost of commercial fertilizers, interest in the use of hog manure fertilizer is building.
Mark Ferguson, the manager of industry and policy analysis with the Saskatchewan Pork Development Board, says for those located close to a hog barn, it's of great benefit to utilize that manure to grow crops.
Mark Ferguson-Saskatchewan Pork Development Board:
Those producers that are close to a barn are of course very interested in the fertilizer that's available from it and those producers definitely recognize the value of having that product available to grow crops with.
One of the things that's interesting is you can get into the hog industry and have a hog barn and be able to utilize this product.
In a lot of cases this can provide, if you put on 8,000 gallons an acre, it can give you close to $100 an acre in net value to have the product available so who wouldn't be interested in that type of benefit for their farm?
Of course it's a product that's difficult to transport so really the key factor is being located within a few miles of an existing barn.
If you do want to access hog manure and get into the hog industry, I think it's a perfect time to be thinking about that because a lot of the packing plants around western Canada could use hogs and so if this is something you're interested in getting involved with, it would really be a perfect time to build a barn.
Ferguson encourages anyone interested in getting into hog production to take advantage of manure on their land to grow crops to contact the Saskatchewan Pork Development Board for more information.
Source: Farmscape