A patient pig farmer from Saint-Elzéar in Beauce regrets the fact that he can’t sell his animals at a better price outside of Quebec, despite the crisis bleeding his industry dry.
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“I’m not able to put out a pig in Ontario or in the United States,” denounces the Beauceron Cécilien Berthiaume, who has an $8 million pork production.
“We were tricked by Olymel. We enrich them. We leave $18 on the table per pet. We have to open up so that we can sell more outside of Quebec with transparency,” pleads the man who raises 45,000 pigs at the La Nouvelle-Beauce MRC.
In recent days, other producers like him have denounced the situation to the Journal, but all wanted to remain anonymous for fear of upsetting Olymel, with the exception of Cécilien Berthiaume, who was shocked by the announcement of the closure of the slaughterhouse in his Vallée-Jonction corner with nearly 1,000 workers.
“Olymel controls the volume. With the last conference they were granted full integration. They were dying of laughter,” he says of the Quebec processor, whose turnover tops $4.5 billion.
Provided by Cecilien Berthiaume
Cecilia Berthiaume
“With the current formula, breeders are doomed to lose money. We’re sacrificing a lot of small farms,” he says.
Inquiry Request
In the journal, he even goes so far as to ask the Quebec government to urgently investigate the pork industry to understand how it works.
When questioned by Le Journal, Olymel, which has its headquarters in Saint-Hyacinthe in Montérégie, refused to comment on the comments of angry growers, recalling that it had requested state aid for the affected growers.
At Les Éleveurs de porcs du Québec, we have stated that we support a “diagnostic report on the competitiveness of the sector”.
“Grower income is currently almost $50 below the cost of hog production. However, with the old pricing formula negotiated in 2019, producers’ income would still be in deficit of around $40. The liquidity crisis on the farm that we are currently experiencing is mainly due to the grain price and the very low American price reference,” analyzed its President David Duval.
Photo provided by David Duval
The President of the Éleveurs de porcs du Québec, David Duval, during an interview with the Journal in July 2020, a few months after the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. The latter had a disastrous impact on Quebec’s pork industry.
“Since the pandemic, breeders have conducted several hog sales with buyers outside of Quebec (mainly in Canada) to sell surplus hogs after Olymel reduced purchases,” he said.
global phenomenon
In the Journal, Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (MAPAQ) André Lamontagne said he was already working on updating a diagnostic portrait in light of the “many global changes”.
“The decline in slaughter and production levels is a phenomenon observed worldwide. The external market therefore offers few opportunities for live pigs from Quebec, mainly because of the additional costs,” he stressed.
File photo, Stevens LeBlanc
The Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (MAPAQ), André Lamontagne
“Our commercial teams work alongside the industry to develop new markets with high value-added products. I just returned from a mission to Japan last March to promote our Quebec pork internationally,” he concluded.
Two years ago, Quebec invested $150 million in Olymel, including $74 million from the Department of Commerce’s new Quebec Business Growth Fund and $76 million from Investissement Quebec.
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