A Senior Economist with Farm Credit Canada suggests consumer demand for pork both domestically and internationally and factors that influence the ability of pork producers to supply export markets will continue to play a role in hog markets moving through 2026.

Farm Credit Canada’s just released 2026 Hog Outlook indicates 2025 was a good year for the Canadian and North American hog sectors and 2026 is expected to be similar.

Justin Shepherd, a Senior Economist with Farm Credit Canada, says North American consumers are choosing pork more often in the grocery stores for multiple reasons, one being that pork has seen lower price inflation over the past three to fours years compared to the other proteins, including beef and chicken.

From a global perspective and how that impacts Canadian pork demand, it really comes down to trade access and having the ability to ship pork freely to places like the United States but also when we look at China continuing to have a 25 percent tariff on Canadian pork, that remains a bit of an irritant for the industry as to where they send some of their cuts and getting that resolved in the future will definitely help.

The CUSMA renegotiations that are supposed to come up in the middle of the year will definitely have an impact throughout the rest of 2026 but, until anything changes, we continue to have free trade with the United States and producers can rely on that market.

The other uncertainty right now is voluntary country of origin labelling. That came into effect January 1st of this year.

So far, we haven’t noticed any large changes on demand or impact on a sector like the hog industry but it is something to watch for, especially at some point when the United States gets their disease issues under control and they’re able to produce the amount of hogs that they would like to. At that moment does that policy become a bigger deal than it is today?

~ Justin Shepherd, Farm Credit Canada

Shepherd acknowledges trade uncertainty has definitely been in the news a lot lately but, looking at the year ahead, we know what we’re going to be dealing with over the next few months.

To access the forecast, visit fcc-fac.ca.