Challenges and Opportunities of the Alberta Pork Industry

Challenges and Opportunities of the Alberta Pork Industry

Kelsey Smith

NAIT

Abstract

This paper discusses several different topics pertaining to Alberta's pork industry. It will discuses international issues, the Danish pork industry and what Canada can learn from it, Canadian pork industry versus the United states pork industry and what changes Alberta and Canada can make to stay competitive. I will conclude that Alberta needs to think beyond the United States and look at increasing consumption internally and also look at new markets and how they can break into those markets. I will also explore if Canada can employ the model used by Denmark's pork industry and how that may benefit them.

Alberta Pork, it's something that we know is there, most of us eat it but not many of us know that challenges that face the industry. The landscape of pork production and consumption is changing and Alberta's pork industry has to adapt to those changes in order to stay relevant and competitive on the world stage.

International Issues

There are many international issues facing today's pork industry. The first one that comes to mind is religion. There are many regions in the world that forbid people from eating pork. Any country with a predominantly Muslim country would be a difficult market to make any sort of progress in, it would be best to not waste resources trying to get into these markets. Another major issue that has been in the spotlight in the past two year is animal disease. With the media attention that H1N1 got and with it initially being called the swine flu, the pork industry took a big hit. Even though you could not get H1N1 from eating pork the "pork industry [was] hit by weaker demand for pork products while at the same time paying higher feed prices." (The Canadian Press, 2009). There were also the several outbreaks of foot and mouth disease overseas in recent years, which also hurt the international reputation of pork.

Even with those factors the consumption of pork is still on the rise in regions such as Asia, Africa and Latin America (Alberta Pork, 2006) and this presents another challenge for Alberta pork producers. Many countries such as China

produces a much higher volume of pork than Canada and this makes it difficult to compete with them. For now though China is not a major exporter of pork due to problems in their value chain and an inability to meet international consumer demands. (Alberta Pork, 2006). Another country that has an advantage