Farmscape for December 19, 2005 (Episode 2001) Manitoba Pork Council is expressing its frustration following news that Canada has imposed provisional antidumping and countervailing duties on unprocessed grain corn imported from the United States. Last week the Canada Border Services Agency announced, effective immediately, imports of unprocessed US grain corn will be subject to provisional antidumping and countervailing duties totaling $1.65 US per bushel. Manitoba Pork Council Chair Karl Kynoch says, while the biggest impact of this duty will be felt by Canada's livestock industry, it will have a minimal impact on American corn growers. Clip-Karl Kynoch-Manitoba Pork Council This hits Manitoba hog farmers just like a lump of coal in their Christmas stocking at this time of year. We expected $1.20 to $1.60 , we actually have it at $1.90 Canadian per bushel. This is going to add about 20 dollars per head to our cost of production to finish a hog out so it puts our break even point about 20 dollars a head higher than it was before. This in turn could put us at risk of another US trade action on hogs also. When you increase our cost of production you also increase our dumping margin if we were to be challenged so we could end up paying 20 bucks extra for corn and then paying 20 dollars extra on another duty if we were faced with a trade challenge on live hogs going south again. We couldn't have had this corn duty come on in a worse year for Manitoba. In Eastern Manitoba we virtually have no crop this year as all the crop land was flooded out so it's going to have a huge detrimental impact on eastern Manitoba as producers were hit with, one, already increased freight costs to bring grain in. Now they're hit with this duty so I'd say, for a lot of Manitoba producers, it couldn't have come at a worse time. Kynoch suggests this corn duty problem just highlights the need for all political parties to share their vision of a comprehensive and responsive Canadian agricultural policy that can fairly address the legitimate concerns of all farmers. He suggests, with the federal election campaign in full swing, we can only hope the politicians won't forget who really puts the food on their plate. For Farmscape.Ca, I'm Bruce Cochrane. *Farmscape is a presentation of Sask Pork and Manitoba Pork Council |