Pork producers from across Canada expressed concern about the future of their industry Wednesday, a day after a new strain of flu virus was reported in three Saskatchewan hog barn workers.

Pork producers said the development was concerning even though health officials said the new strain of flu was not linked to the H1N1 influenza A virus circulating internationally since first surfacing in Mexico in March.

"Here we go again," Jack DeWit, chairman of the B.C. Pork Producers Association said after learning about the new flu. "It seems to be an ongoing thing. We get over one thing, and it seems like the next thing hits."

Leaders of Canada's pork industry were in Saskatoon for meetings on swine health issues.

Maintaining healthy animals has been a top priority for the industry since the H1N1 outbreak.

Health experts, including officials from the WHO, have repeatedly said that consumption of pork is safe. Nevertheless, the industry has seen a drop off in sales.

Neil Ketilson, the general manager of the Saskatchewan Pork Development Board, said Wednesday that the industry in Canada had lost an estimated $500 million in the past three months.

According to the Canadian Pork Council, a national agency for the pork industry, the losses can be attributed to a fall in prices for hogs and coincide with the emergence of H1N1 swine flu.

For individual producers, the mounting losses are raising questions about whether or not they should stay in the business.

"We've been down on our knees because of the economics and now, again, this concern is really bombarding us," Rick Bergmann, a hog farmer from Manitoba, said on Wednesday.

"How long is this going to last?" he added. "With all these negative pressures, how long can the industry go?"

Officials could not say how the three workers came to contract the new flu strain, but said they had not been outside of the country and that the pigs they had contact with were tested and were found to be healthy.