Path Dependence in the New Brunswick Pork Industry: Historical Policy Interventions and Institutional Lock-In in a Peripheral Livestock Market

Abstract

This study examines the long-term decline of the New Brunswick pork industry through path dependence theory, focusing on how historical policy interventions, institutional arrangements, processing infrastructure, and producer routines shaped the sector’s trajectory. Using a qualitative case-study approach, the research draws on Hog News newsletters (1981–2001), semi-structured interviews with four producers, and an institutional narrative from Porc NB. The findings identify four self-reinforcing mechanisms: coordination effects through marketing board governance and Ontario price referencing, dependence on established out-of-province processing networks, sunk investments in production infrastructure, and learning effects reflected in producer expectations and routines. These mechanisms operated within a broader structural context of persistent feed-cost disadvantage and declining regional processing capacity. The study concludes that the sector’s decline is best understood as the cumulative result of historically embedded institutional and economic processes that progressively constrained producers’ adaptive options.