Manitoba will direct cash from a federal community development plan to upgrades on municipal wastewater treatment plants that will allow expansions at two major pork processing facilities.
The province announced Friday that it will flow part of the federal government’s pledged $41.9 million Community Development Trust funding package into upgrades of industrial wastewater treatment facilities at Brandon, home of Maple Leaf Foods’ pork plant, and Neepawa, home to the Springhill Farms pork plant.
The province said upgrades for wastewater treatment will allow both pork plants to raise their processing capacity, thus cushioning the hog sector against the potential effects of U.S. mandatory country-of-origin labeling (COOL), due to be implemented Sept. 30.
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A strategy to bolster Manitoba’s hog industry against the effects of shutdowns or slowdowns of hog exports to the U.S. was a recommendation in the recent report from the provincial Clean Environment Commission on the environmental sustainability of the hog sector.
In Brandon, the province will pay $7.8 million toward a $15.5 million wastewater plant upgrade, including $3.9 million from the federal communities funding announced for Manitoba Thursday. Maple Leaf and the City of Brandon will fund the balance of the project.
Ottawa’s Community Development Trust program, using $1 billion from the projected 2007-08 surplus, offers provinces funding to help communities and workers suffering economic
hardship caused by volatility in global financial and
commodities markets.
Among benefits to other local industrial users, the Brandon wastewater expansion will allow Maple Leaf to step up processing capacity to 86,000
hogs from 75,000 per week.
The Neepawa wastewater treatment upgrade, meanwhile,will get a total of $11.8 million and, when completed, will allow the Springhill Farms
processing plant to expand. Of that, the province will put up $5.9 million while the balance will come from the Communities Development Trust funding.
Springhill Farms — which was recently bought by Hytek, a major hog production company based in La Broquerie — is “committed to significant investments in the processing
plant and in a new wastewater treatment facility to take
Springhill Farms to the next level,” said Guy Baudry, CEO of
Springhill Farms and vice-president of Hytek.
Training, loans
In related funding announcements, Maple Leaf will also get $1.1 million in training assistance
to support new jobs created both as a result of the Brandon expansion
and of Maple Leaf’s planned expansion to its facility on
Lagimodiere Boulevard in Winnipeg.
Hytek, meanwhile, will get $600,000 in provincial training assistance and up
to $10 million in an interest-bearing, fully repayable loan
through the Manitoba Industrial Opportunities Program
(MIOP), Agriculture Minister Rosann Wowchuk announced Friday in Neepawa.
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