The major challenges set out in the Revitalization Strategy are to ‘package’ or
systematize the marketing platform and to build the marketing capability which
links production, processing and marketing in a highly connected manner.
This is not easy. Indeed this requires a set of industry investment strategies
that create new business structures between producers and processors.
However, the alternative is the continuation of a system that is clearly not
functioning well in the present and certainly is not positioned to compete with
well organized systems in other countries around the world.
If the fundamental challenges within the Canadian pork industry are not
addressed, the conditions that have created the distress which is currently at
play will only re-emerge in the future. At best, the Canadian industry may
continue to supply the domestic market but lose its export markets. At worst, it
may be unable to compete at all and Canadian consumers will rely totally on
pork products that are imported from pork producing countries.