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agriculture

GEOFF ROBINS

From hog barn to barbecue grill, this has been a summer without sizzle.

As cool weather persists throughout the Prairies, Ontario and the Maritimes, barbecue grills gather dust. Briquette bags remain sealed. Grocery store displays of Montreal steak spice go untouched.

And Anna Tomeczkowicz can't move any pork chops.

"Nobody is barbecuing in this weather," she said from her family's Toronto butcher shop, Spring Creek Farm Produce. "We are selling much less of all the grill meats."

As if Canada's hog farmers needed any more bad news.

Fewer chops on the grill translates into lower prices for pigs , compounding an anxious year of catastrophic losses for pig producers that has persuaded many to sell the farm.

"Based on present market, we may have to close the doors by mid-September or October," said Manitoba farmer Bill Vaags. "We'd have to sell all the stock. Some of the pregnant sows might have to be aborted. It's a sad story."

Particularly sad given Mr. Vaags's standing among the nation's pork producers. Former president of the Canadian Pork Council and member of the Manitoba Agricultural Hall of Fame, he's been raising hogs in the province since 1961.

But in that time, he's never seen it so bad.

Barbecue season normally brings a seasonal spike somewhere around $1.50 a kilogram. Thanks to high feed prices, Mr. Vaags needs at least $1.30 to break even, but as of last week he was looking at $1.07, a price that's plummeted more than 20 per cent in recent weeks.

The blow wouldn't be so bad if he had some cash on hand. The past two years have been so lean that the 73-year-old says he's burned through most of his retirement fund.

"We weren't exactly sitting pretty for retirement before," he said. "But now so much money is gone, we're looking at surviving totally off of meagre pensions."

Various forces are conspiring against Canada's hog farmers. New U.S. laws surrounding country of origin labelling have changed American meat-buying habits, and the rising loonie - now sitting over 92 cents compared with the U.S. dollar - has made all Canadian exports less competitive.

To make matters worse, some say the industry took too long to persuade consumers they wouldn't catch the H1N1 flu from eating pork.

The result is an industry on the wane. More than 3,300 hog producers have left hog farming since 2006. Many of those who remain are having difficulty bearing the strain.

"We're hearing from farmers who are not eating, not sleeping, not talking to spouses, having arguments with children and neighbours," said Janet Smith, program manager of the Manitoba Farm and Rural Stress Line. "We've seen more calls from hog producers than we ever have."

The Canadian Pork Council has requested an $800-million loan from Ottawa on behalf of farmers, but Agriculture Canada has yet to make it clear what kind of special assistance it may offer the industry.

Until federal help arrives, some producers will scrounge for feed.

"We are really struggling to feed the pigs," said Jurgen Preugschas, president of the Canadian Pork Council. "As farmers, we maybe cry wolf a little too often, but this is way beyond that. When your top producers are losing extreme amounts of money and producers are having nervous breakdowns, it's serious."

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