Hog producers searching for industry fix

P.E.I. hog producersare trying to come up with a newdirection to save their embattled industry.

Anthony Nabuurs, headof the P.E.I. Hog Commodity Marketing Board,told CBC News the board didn't expect a meeting Tuesday nightto provide all the answers, but he hoped it would at leastbe a start.

"I think it's time that we get producers in a room and have a discussion about what's going on, and also discuss the transition for the industry or whatever that we have been discussing for the last three months, long before this plant issue came up," he said.

"We're not going to have all the answers tonight, not by a long shot."

Last week, P.E.I. Premier Robert Ghiz announced there would be no new money for the Island's pork processor, leaving the future of P.E.I.'s only hog processing plant in jeopardy.

Island taxpayers currently have about $6 million invested in operating loans in the plant.

The Tuesday nightmeetingisonly open to producers.

Three quarters of P.E.I.'s hog farmers have gone out of business in the last six years. There are about 90 hog farmers left on the Island.