Meat Industry INSIGHTS Newsletter

981285 Glickman Urges Canadian Help With U.S. Hog Crisis

December 23, 1998

Washington - U.S. Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman has urged his Canadian counterpart to help resolve two hog packer strikes that are contributing to heavy flow of live hogs from Canada into the United States, a department official said on Wednesday.

The same aide said Glickman also called a voluntary price floor set by Farmland Industries, Inc. on hog prices “a very positive step.” Kansas City- based Farmland, the largest agricultural co-op in North America, on Tuesday announced it will pay a minimum of $15.00 per hundredweight for hogs in an effort to help producers struggling with the lowest prices in more than four decades.

Glickman has also called procurement officials for the federal prison system, the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the Departments of Defense and Veteran Affairs to point out current low pork prices and to urge them to buy pork, the aide said.

The Agriculture Department estimates that resolving the two labor strikes at the Quality Meat Packers Ltd. plants in Toronto and Brampton, Ontario, would reduce the volume of slaughter hogs entering the United States by 25,000 per week, the aide said.

Workers have been on strike at the two plants since early this month.

Glickman has spent much of this week working on pork issues. On Monday, he met with U.S. meat packers, meat industry groups and the American Farm Bureau Federation.

He met Wednesday with U.S. banking industry representatives to solicit their help with the cash flow problems many producers are facing, the aide said.

Glickman is also scheduled to meet Wednesday with representatives from the National Farmers Union.

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Iotron Technology Inc.

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