We like to think there is, yes. Producers in New Brunswick will take credit for that.
Both the province of New Brunswick and the hog industry suffered a severe setback some years ago with the closure of the only federally inspected processing plant in New Brunswick, which at the time put the industry in severe distress. A lot of people thought it provided us with a death sentence.
What happened instead was that the remaining producers in New Brunswick got together. We did a really hard and comprehensive review of our industry and where we were at, and we looked at our strengths and weaknesses as an industry. We figured out that up to the point of weaning a piglet, we were very competitive and had done well. Past that, our geographical location, now coupled with our lack of processing facilities, eroded that advantage.
We evolved our industry to handle two types of production.
One is simply SEW production, which was exporting SEW piglets to be finished in the U.S. They were still owned by the Canadian producer, but in U.S. contract facilities. They were also going into Quebec to support finishing facilities in partnership with processors in Quebec, as part of an integrated value chain.
The other model was that we used our isolation and biosecurity programs to produce specialty pork. We were producing antibiotic-free pork and pork raised in stall-free environments and cage-free environments. Both of these have proven successful, and they have allowed us to sustain a production in New Brunswick. While production is now less in pounds of pork, because we're not finishing or providing them, we have increased the total number of animals now being produced in the province of New Brunswick, as of the day the plants were closed. It was just a matter of adaptability.