by SUSAN MANN
The first poultry processor to be approved under Chicken Farmers of Ontario’s New Entrant Processor program will start processing chicken for the halal market in January.
Sheik Halal Poultry Farms, located in Grand Valley, already processes a range of other poultry products, including ducks, quails, partridges and turkeys at its plant. But starting with the A-128 quota period, which runs from Jan. 1, to Feb. 21, 2015, the company will begin processing chicken too.
As part of Chicken Farmers of Ontario’s new entrant processor program, Chicken Farmers provides successful applicants under the program with a minimum of 50,000 kilograms of calculated base up to a maximum of 100,000 kilograms, communications and government relations director Michael Edmonds says by email.
Calculated base is a processor’s share in kilograms of the Ontario chicken market and is determined by Chicken Farmers. Processors must have calculated base to buy their chicken supply from Ontario farmers and they must also have a Class A license issued by Chicken Farmers.
For new entrant processors approved under the program, their new entrant calculated base is non transferable. The program was created as part of Chicken Farmers distribution of supply policy.
In addition to getting calculated base, the new entrant processor will also have access to all business and transactional services Chicken Farmers provides to all processors, Edmonds notes.
He says the primary market for Ontario-grown and processed halal chicken is Ontario’s growing Muslim community. That community is estimated to be about five per cent of Ontario’s 13.6 million people and more than seven per cent of the 6.054 million people in the Greater Toronto Area.
“The successful applicant will have met all the financial and business requirements set out in the board’s policy and should be well positioned to support its target market,” Edmonds says.
According to the board’s policy, new entrant processor program applicants had to submit a comprehensive business plan that included a marketing plan, provide verification of their relevant experience as a meat processor and proof that they have or are in the process of getting either their Canadian Food Inspection Agency or provincial inspection approvals along with confirmation from a financial institution they will be able to provide a letter of credit. In addition, applicants had to submit a range of other information, including chicken catching arrangements, payment procedures to farmers and other things.
The chicken board will be accepting new applications for the 2015 program until Oct. 31. Edmonds says the board doesn’t disclose how many applications it receives each year.
Edmonds says Chicken Farmers launched the program because it continues to look for innovative ways to grow the chicken industry in Ontario. The organization also has a new entrant program for chicken farmers to help new producers enter the industry. The two programs are just “two ways the board is fulfilling” the mandate to grow the provincial chicken industry.
The new entrant processor program was launched two years ago. The new entrant producer program was launched in 2012 and so far four farm families have become chicken farmers through the program.
Officials with Sheik Halal Poultry Farms couldn’t be reached for comment. BF
Comments
North Korea, Cuba and the former Soviet republic come to mind. One cannot help but wonder, after reading an article like this, do we live in Canada, supposedly the land of the free?
Unbelievable.
Absolutely unbelievable.
Raube Beuerman
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cartel
Plain and simple. No denying it. Tell me the CFO and supply management doesn't fit the definition
Your right. Its a cartel. But so are unions, health care system, education system, auto industry, taxis, lawyers, postal services, radio, newspaper, and so on. Whats your point?
To compare the health care system, for example, to supply management, is both ludicrous and wrong, if for no other reason than because one cannot inherit a medical degree the way one can inherit quota, and indeed, that's about the only way one can, at present, acquire dairy quota.
Secondly, the biggest difference between cartels and the list of occupations supply managed farmers seem to fixate on when trying to justify their unjustifiable strangle-hold on the poorest group of consumers, and their ability to be financial bullies in the farm community, is that the legal system, the medical system, and the education system, are all based on merit demonstrated by the individuals in those professions, whereas the members of a cartel simply have to be born with, for example, quota under their pillow.
Thirdly, everybody in the medical and educational sectors is paid, not by the users, as is the case with supply management, but by revenues generated through the income tax and property tax systems. The same principle applies, albeit to a lesser extent, in the legal system, through the availability of legal aid.
Furthermore, a cartel is typically formed to provide benefit to only the members of that cartel - OPEC being a prime example. To claim that anything about either the auto industry or the newspaper business might be a cartel is, once again, completely ludicrous, epecially given the extent to which auto manufacturers and newspapers have gone bankrupt or out of business in the past decade.
In addition, poor people don't use taxis, they ride the bus - but if they want to buy dairy and poultry products, they have no choice but to pay the rip-off prices effectively dictated by supply managed farmers.
In the final analysis, however, every student learns, in his/her very first course in ag economics, exactly why any comparison of supply management to the examples proffered by our anonymous poster are inapplicable, just-plain wrong, and would guarantee an automatic failure in any ag economics course anywhere.
Stephen Thompson, Clinton ON
"Poor people" do take taxis when buses are not available for their needs. Taxis are a choice because of the auto cartel inflates the price of autos in this country. Many makes and models of cars are cheaper in the USA. Furthermore, 42% of the average household income goes to taxes. More than food, shelter and clothing combined. Doctors, teachers, nurses are subsidized 100% by taxpayers. Their unions are cartels and taxpayers shell out to their demands. Your right, there is no comparison. Taxpayer funded cartel related professions take more from the household. If you give me a failing grade for making obvious observations, I would use that as a badge of honor.
Everybody who teaches economics gets pedantic students, often from dairy farms, who claim that their interpretation of "obvious", should over-ride economic principles.
Economics, however, is the discipline of dispelling half-truths believed by people without any understanding of economics, such as the half-truths you seem to so-proudly proclaim to be obvious and which you unwisely, and thankfully anonymously, claim to be your badge of honor.
Unfortunately, your positions are not just wrong, they are ridiculous - for example, your claim "Taxpayer funded cartel related professions take more from the household", is just plain nonsense because taxpayer funded professions take nothing from those households that don't pay any income tax.
The rest of your comparisons are just-plain loopy, and not worth the electronic ink involved in a reply.
And, yes, you would not only get a failing grade, your hopelessly-out-to-lunch comments would make you the butt of ridicule by the rest of the class - and being the butt of ridicule in front of your peers is not a badge of honour.
In fact, as I recall, the last time I had a student unload a load of garbage similar to your posting, another student turned around and said to the offending student - "Stop being such a pin-head"
Stephen Thompson, Clinton ON
So just how many students did you give a failing grade to as their teacher ?
Pretty sure every student passed with flying colors as long as they drank the ST koolaid !
There is I am sure a reason you are no longer teaching !
Most of the problems in the world today are because what was taught in the schools is not how the real world works . Do as I say not as I do !
Pretty much the only people who ever failed any course I taught were those people who didn't sign their names on the exam - I suspect they went on to become anonymous posters on this site.
In addition, only those people with a really-poor education believe the tripe that what it is taught in school does not mirror the real world - for example, economics not only mirrors the real world, it is the real world.
But, of course, too many farmers with, at best, a high school education, wouldn't, and obviously don't, know that - too bad!
Stephen Thompson, Clinton ON
You're absolutely right about poor people taking the bus,l see them piling out of buses at Casino Rama all the time.Obviously the Dairy and poultry buying comes second.
I am not aware of any "cartels" past or present with a new entrant program.
Don't worry,you can re-apply next year.
There are quotas on the amount of lawyers allowed into law school. Same with doctors. Remember Bob Rae paid Uof T to keep seats empty in med school because there were too many doctors? Taxis are another good example. If the quota amount is full, no new entrants. They can always apply the following year. Whats your point?
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