The chair of Manitoba Pork Council says trade advocacy efforts in the U.S. have gone a long way toward improving relations between Canadian and U.S. pork producers.
A range of topics will discussed when members of Manitoba Pork Council travel to Minneapolis next week and Des Moines January 21 to 23 as part of a trade advocacy mission to the U.S.
Manitoba Pork Council chair Karl Kynoch says relations between the two industries right now are very good.
Karl Kynoch-Manitoba Pork Council:
When we go down to the U.S we meet with the Minnesota Pork Producers.
We also meet with the Iowa Pork Producers.
The National Pork Producers Council will be around, we'll also have a session with them somewhere.
We'll also have some round table breakfast discussions with some of the producers and some of the board members.
We work through the Canadian Consulate General's office in Minneapolis.
The ag specialist there will be helping us to set up some meetings with some of the Agricultural Secretaries in the U.S. to discuss any issues there.
It's trade advocacy that we're doing there.
We've been doing that for a number of years as we do still depend on the U.S. for probably about three million weanlings a year that go into the U.S. and we have to make sure that those relationships are kept up.
The other thing that we do is just simply get an understanding of what's going on in the U.S. and we try to make sure that the Americans understand what's going on in Canada.
It's also about trying to prevent any future trade cases and this type of thing.
If there's any irritants happening in Canada that are irritating the Americans we're better off to be in the U.S. explaining it and answering the questions just because we don't want to go down that road of another trade case.
Anytime that we can meet up with our U.S. counterparts and better understand each other's industry I think that goes a long way just to helping producers out on both sides of the border and it's been very successful.
Kynoch says Canadian producers have gained a better understanding of American issues, U.S. producers have come to understand a lot more about Canada and there is a recognition that there are more similarities than differences.
