War in Ukraine jeopardizes global food security, says Saskatchewan pork producer

By Bruce Cochrane, Farmscape

A Partner with Polar Pork Farms suggests global food security is being jeopardised by the war in Ukraine.

A combination of factors including shortages of locally produced feed grains due to last year's drought, transportation challenges due to COVID and generally higher global grain prices due to the war in Ukraine has pushed grain prices to record levels.

Florian Possberg, a partner with Polar Pork Farms, says, if grain is going to be in short supply and prices are going to be at a higher-level longer term, there's no question that meat prices will go up because farmers can't produce long term at a loss.

“It would appear that the instability in Ukraine and Russia has caused grain prices to increase. We don't access any of that grain here but it does affect grain prices globally so that has impacted our cost of feeding hogs. As well, longer term, a lot of the fertilizer or a significant part of the fertilizer that's used globally was produced in Russia and Ukraine and that was interrupted and destabilized as well because of the war between Russia and Ukraine,” said Florian Possberg from Polar Pork Farms. Possberg

“Less fertilizer means likely we're going to have lower crop yields and, if we don't have more crop produced than consumption, it's hard to see how we can see lower grain prices so that might have a significant longer-term effect on our business.”

 Possberg says pork producers would like to be able to produce wholesome pork at a reasonable price. He says the hope is that we can get to a price structure that allows consumers to enjoy our bacon and pork chops in their homes on a regular basis.

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