No Food Crisis, Just a Market Crisis

But of course pointing out the Holy Market is a failure is heresy so the corporate media call it a food crisis. As a vegetarian this appals me, as a human it is also appalling, people are going hungry and measures to prop up the system that is inherently flawed which could incidentally feed them, deliberately remove food-

Amid soaring food prices and global shortages of some commodities, Canadian farmers are being offered $50 million by the federal government to destroy 150,000 pigs – or 10 per cent of the herd – this summer.

The program, announced in February, came into effect yesterday and is aimed at rescuing the industry from economic collapse.

Canada’s hog farmers badly need help to cope with soaring feed prices and a higher dollar, said the Canadian Pork Council, which is administering the program.

“I’ve been farming for 30 years, and this is the worse crisis I’ve seen,” said council president Clare Schlegel, a hog producer near Tavistock, Ont.

The money will be used to cull 150,000 breeding sows, which in turn will diminish the annual stock by three million pigs.

The destroyed sows will not become part of the commercial food chain.

The farmers say they hope about 25 per cent of the meat will go to food banks instead. Sows are usually made into sausages. Canada’s processing industry won’t be able to handle more than that, Schlegel said. The rest would be turned into pet food.

The program comes amid soaring demand and rising prices for pork in countries such as China. But Schlegel said Canadian farmers couldn’t export enough pork to China to offset the decline at home.

Meanwhile, some Canadian stores are now stocking only imported pork because the lower United States dollar has made the price of domestic pork uncompetitive, he said. He declined to name the retailers.