Canada-The Pig industry.

CANADA-THE PORK INDUSTRY.

The chairman of Alberta Pork says payments that were supposed to help livestock producers have instead put a number of farms at risk.

Herman Simons says shortfalls in payments under the Alberta Farm Recovery Program are serious enough that there could be a shortage of hogs for processing. Simons says a number of beef and hog producers who were expecting a second round of payments through the provincial program are instead getting bills.

Others are getting 40 per cent or less of what they expected in the second disbursement under the program, which was announced last June. Funded by Alberta Agriculture and Rural Development, the program has been administered through Agriculture Financial Services Corporation, an arm of the provincial government.

Simons says of the 25,000 or so beef and swine farmers who received initial payments, 163 have been asked to return money because they were overpaid. He says hog producers tried to warn the province in November that trouble was brewing with the plan.

Simons’ is scheduled to meet with Agriculture Minister George Groeneveld today, but doesn’t expect an immediate solution.