Quebec’s $17.5 million aid package for hog farmers with herds hit by post-weaning multisystemic wasting syndrome (PMWS) will include both direct aid, due next month, and interest-free loans, the province announced Tuesday.
The aid package, announced in general terms before Christmas, will be in two parts. The first will be direct aid for PMWS-affected hog feeding operations, to be delivered automatically to farmers signed up under the federal and provincial ag income stabilization programs, CAIS (called PCSRA in Quebec) and ASRA, for the program year 2006.
The support will cover up to two-thirds of the value of the hogs affected by PMWS, which makes its presence known in infected herds as a sudden and substantial increase in the death rate among young pigs.
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La Financiere agricole, the provincial ag lending agency, will oversee the program and already has the needed information on production volumes and PMWS losses, the province said in a release. The compensation is expected to be paid out in February, it added.
The second part of the program takes the form of a 24-month interest-free period on loans of up to $50,000 for hog farmers whose herds were hit by PMWS in 2006. A 12-month interest-free period will be offered to hog farmers who took part in the provincial aid program for PMWS in 2005.
Hog farmers looking for more details on the loan program can call their local Financiere agricole office, the province said in its release.
PMWS (referred to in Quebec as SDPS, short for syndrome de deperissement postsevrage) last emerged in swine herds in Quebec starting in the fall of 2004 and was contained by vaccinations in the fall of 2006, after which weaned pigs’ death rates returned to normal levels.
The disease is associated with pork circovirus 2 (PCV2) but is considered to need another “co-factor” such as a compromised immune system or poor genetics.
