A receivership order filed June 12 in the Court of Kings Bench in Winnipeg has appointed BDO Canada Limited as receiver and manager for Genesus Inc., Genesus Genetics and Can-Am Genetics, Inc.

Swine genetics company Genesus in receivership

China to encourage hog farmers to reduce capacity after price slump
Aggressive expansion in Chinese hog sector turns to mounting losses on demand downturn
China will "guide" farmers to reduce hog production capacity as it steps up regulation of the industry, the agriculture ministry said on Tuesday, after an aggressive expansion drive led to an oversupply of pigs and heavy losses.

Olymel to idle multiple Prairie hog barns
Packer cites 'continued financial losses' in sector
Pork packer Olymel is preparing to dial back its hog production in Western Canada by shuttering six of its sow units in Alberta and Saskatchewan. Olymel, the agrifood arm of Quebec’s Sollio Cooperative Group, announced Friday it has served 80 employees with layoff notices at five sow units in Alberta and one in Saskatchewan. The […] Read more

China’s 2022 pork output highest in eight years
Average hog weights remain relatively high
Reuters — China’s pork output increased 4.6 per cent in 2022 from 2021 to reach its highest level since 2014, official data showed on Tuesday, confounding some expectations for a smaller rise. Pork output in the world’s top producer of the meat reached 55.41 million tonnes, the highest since 56.71 million tonnes recorded eight years […] Read more

Pork industry sees uptick despite skyrocketing input costs
While returns have improved, the sector has lost about 40 per cent of its farms in the last decade
Reading Time: 4 minutes Hog farming has been a tough slog for years, but matters have improved slightly since the beginning of the pandemic, says the executive director of Alberta Pork. Unfortunately, soaring input costs are running in parallel with higher hog prices, and the industry remains in decline, said Darcy Fitzgerald. There are now an estimated 300 commercial […] Read more

Maple Leaf to buy four Saskatchewan hog barns
Pork processor plans future upgrades
Two sow barns and two nursery hog barns in central Saskatchewan are set to become the property of meat processor Maple Leaf Foods. Toronto-based Maple Leaf announced Wednesday it plans to buy the four barns from Polar Pork, a group of farms spearheaded by members of the Possberg family — well known as the founding […] Read more

Pork producers eye an average year — which would mean more losses
Barns are already being shut down, and this exodus will accelerate, says industry veteran
Reading Time: 3 minutes The past year hammered the already struggling hog industry — but is there hope on the horizon for 2021? “I don’t want to be doom and gloom, but I have to say no,” said Brent Bushell, general manager of Western Hog Exchange. “In Western Canada, on average, producers haven’t made money since about 2015. Guys […] Read more

F. Menard’s pork industry assets cleared for sale
Antitrust regulators have cleared the path for La Coop federee to take up a significantly larger, vertically integrated share of its home province’s pork packing, feed milling and hog production sectors. The agribusiness co-operative announced Thursday its Olymel and Sollio Agriculture arms have “received the green light” from the federal Competition Bureau to buy the […] Read more

HyLife co-founder Paul Vielfaure, 59
Funeral arrangements are pending for one of the founding brothers behind Prairie hog production and pork processing firm HyLife. Paul Vielfaure died suddenly Nov. 23 at age 59, his family reported in a brief obituary in Winnipeg and Steinbach newspapers this week. Radio-Canada reported Tuesday that Vielfaure had died in Phoenix, Arizona. While Vielfaure was […] Read more

Cattle herd still shrinking in StatsCan estimates
The size of Canada’s cattle herd is still in decline and almost a quarter smaller than its peak in 2005, Statistics Canada reports. The federal statistics agency on Thursday released estimates showing the herd at 13 million cattle on farms on July 1 this year, down 2.1 per cent from the same date in 2014. […] Read more