Thank you very much.
I wish to thank the committee for inviting us here this afternoon to discuss our perspectives on this study of promoting the domestic trade of agricultural and agrifood products by reducing interprovincial barriers. The Canadian Pork Council serves as the national voice for hog producers in Canada. We're a federation of nine provincial pork producer associations, and our purpose is to play a leadership role in achieving a dynamic and prosperous Canadian pork sector.
Pork is a key component of Canada's agrifood sector and provincial agricultural economies right across the country. The industry's made up of just over 7,000 hog farms. Our cash receipts are in the area of $4 billion, and we account for 8% of farm cash receipts, which is the fifth-largest source of farm income in the country.
Canadian hog production this past year was just slightly over 25 million, of which about five million were exported to the United States as live pigs where they were finished for marketing, or in some cases for immediate slaughter. The rest were processed here in Canada. Of that total just over 96% were processed in federally inspected plants with a little under 4% going through provincially inspected plants.
The federal meat inspection system goes back over 100 years. lt has served us very well, providing both a high level of confidence for consumers in Canada as well as in our export markets. lt's a solid system based on continual review and improvements based on science and also scrutiny by export markets. This makes our federal system, in our view, incredibly robust and globally accepted.
Hog farmers are a key part of the production of safe food. They are committed to providing excellent care and raising healthy hogs. Through our council, the on-farm program for food safety has been in operation since 1998. lt is a national, HACCP-based approach, designed to match systems within federally inspected plants and now considered a condition of sale for federal plants. Farmers' paramount interest is seeing that the animals they raise produce safe pork.
The Canadian Pork Council is keenly interested in additional marketing opportunities that could become available to our pork farmers, and supports efforts to reduce barriers to trade and commerce. Much of the work we do is devoted to this very issue, although our focus has been with export markets. Over 60% of pork production is exported, and this is dependent on the confidence the governments in these export markets have in our food safety system. In this, Canada has been very successful. Pork is exported to over 100 countries, each one having reviewed and accepted our federal inspection system.
lt is vital both for maintaining Canadians' confidence in their domestic food supply, and for retaining our access to export markets, that Canada's high national food safety standards not be compromised. The CPC views any changes to the current system as acceptable only under conditions where a formalized and validated equivalency of standards exists, which ensures Canada continues to maintain a single, world-recognized meat safety standard both for international and interprovincial trade in meat products.
lt is also critically important to confirm that this standard applies to imports as well. While we are a major exporter, we also import roughly a quarter of the pork consumed in Canada. These imports originate from countries whose inspection systems have been examined by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency and are deemed to be equivalent to our federal meat inspection standards. Our WTO international trade obligations require that imports are subject to no less favourable treatment than our own domestic requirements. Changes should not be made that would permit imports to be measured to a different, lesser standard than the one currently in place.
ln an age of instant global communications, any domestic food safety crisis, regardless of the cause, can create a loss of credibility both domestically and internationally, and this is a reason to ensure the maintenance of consistent, high food safety standards across the country that apply equally to all food producers and processors.
Overall, hog producers support a strong, clear, and transparent meat inspection process that provides a consistent level of safety for all.
We look forward to answering questions. Thank you again for inviting us to appear before you today.