The reputation of Manitoba’s pork industry was in a good place around this time last year.
Results from a public survey conducted last December and shared at the Manitoba Pork Council’s eastern producer meeting Nov. 8 showed year-over-year growth in public goodwill compared to a similar survey conducted in 2021.
Of Manitobans surveyed in December 2022, 89 per cent agreed that the hog sector is good for Manitoba, up from 83 per cent in the previous year’s survey.
Read Also
Pig transport stress costs pork sector
Popular livestock trailer designs also increase pig stress during transportation, hitting at meat quality, animal welfare and farm profit, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada researcher says
Manitoba Pork uses this survey question as an overall gauge of trust, said Susan Riese, Manitoba Pork’s public relations director, in an interview with the Co-operator last year.
Why it matters: Public trust is an ever-present file among livestock industry groups.
The results continue an upward trend that’s been noted since Manitoba Pork began surveying public opinion in 2017. Last year, Riese told the Co-operator that the 83 per cent result was a two per cent increase over 2020.
The 2022 survey also showed 90 per cent of respondents agreed that the hog sector makes an important contribution to the provincial economy, up from 85 per cent in 2021, and up from 79 per cent in 2017.
Seventy-eight per cent agreed that hog producers care about their animals’ well-being, up from about 65 per cent in 2021.
Sixty-one per cent of respondents said the hog sector takes steps to improve its environmental impact. Last year, Riese said about half of those surveyed in 2021 agreed or strongly agreed that hog farmers are working on their environmental impact, 35 per cent were unsure, and 15 per cent said farmers were not trying to improve.
Nearly 90 per cent of those surveyed in 2022 agreed that pork is healthy and safe, and is a nutrient-rich and affordable protein.
Limits
The comparison between 2021 and 2022 isn’t entirely one-to-one, Riese told producers at the Nov. 8 meeting.
The 2022 survey was more tailored to Winnipeg and the major pork-producing regions of Manitoba than previous years. Riese said respondents from the northern half of the province tended to be less familiar with the hog sector and were more likely to answer survey questions with ‘I don’t know.’
Big picture
Riese also relayed stats from the Canadian Centre for Food Integrity’s most recent public trust report. It showed that affordability is the top worry among consumers. When asked which life issues they were most concerned about, 54 per cent of surveyed Canadians flagged the cost of food as a top concern, up from 51 per cent last year.
“No big surprise there. There’s not a day that goes by that we don’t hear about inflation or the rising cost of food,” Riese said.
However, she expressed surprise that the CCFI’s report noted a slide in interest over environmental concerns and suggested inflation was displacing some of that concern.
That doesn’t mean the hog industry can sit idle, she said.
“It’s actually a good reminder for us to get our ducks in a row … so that we can continue to be proactive and not reactive,” Riese said.
The CCFI research showed that most Canadians are happy to eat meat if they know animals are being treated humanely, Riese said. The bigger concern is drug residues and antibiotic resistance.
