Farmscape for May 13, 2026

The General Manager of Manitoba Pork is calling on government and industry to put a greater focus on diversifying the market for Canadian pork and processing more of that pork at home.
An article posted to Manitoba Pork's web site and circulated through Manitoba community newspapers looks at the response of Canadian governments and industry to global trade uncertainty in the face of trade disruptions with the United States and tariff disputes with China.
Cam Dahl, the General Manager of Manitoba Pork observes the trade environment with the U.S. remains uncertain, we have a 25 percent tariff on pork going into China and there are other issues such as the non tariff trade barriers keeping Canadian red meat out of Europe.

Quote-Cam Dahl-Manitoba Pork:
I think we do need to ensure that we have a strategic plan going into the CUSMA review for example to ensure we are preserving that integrated North American market for pork.
That's something that's absolutely critical and the provincial government has been very engaged on this with us and that's something that we do appreciate but we do need to look at ways to diversify our markets.
Governments talk about that; industry talks about that but we actually have to do something about it.
Processing and finishing more pigs into pork in Manitoba is one of the ways that we can diversify our markets.
I think one of the barriers to increased processing in Manitoba is the number finishing and nursery spaces we have.
That would be my first area of focus is to grow our production base and finish more of those pigs to be processed in Manitoba.
Then we could look at increasing our processing capacity in places like Neepawa and Brandon and Winkler.
Again, that allows us to not just ship three million weanlings into the U.S. every year but to process more of that into packages of pork and send it to places like Vietnam or Korea or Tiawan or other places around the world.
It really is a tool for diversification as well as an investment in a major part of Manitoba's economy.

Dhal's article can be accessed at manitobapork.com.
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Bruce Cochrane.

       *Farmscape is produced on behalf of North America’s pork producers