Canada's pullet growers denied marketing agency

Tuesday, May 6, 2014

by SUSAN MANN

The federal government has decided it can’t support the Pullet Growers of Canada’s request to establish a marketing agency.

“We have given the matter due consideration and, after reviewing the facts, we have determined that the assessment of merit was not compelling,” Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada spokesman Patrick Girard says by email.

“Canadian consumers will continue to receive high quality Canadian eggs at a fair price and our egg and pullet industries will continue to prosper,” Girard says.

The government’s decision was handed down after it received a report with recommendations from the Farm Products Council of Canada in April. Pullet Growers initially applied for permission to establish the agency in July 2012.

Andy DeWeerd, chair of Pullet Growers, says they are waiting to receive both the Council’s recommendation and the government’s decision in writing. “By rights, we’re supposed to get a reply in writing.”

The lack of an official written response makes it hard to comment or even say a decision has been handed down, he adds.

Pullet Growers is also trying to arrange a meeting with federal Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz to discuss the decision. “I don’t want to say too much right now until after we meet with him,” he says, noting that a meeting hasn’t been set up yet.

DeWeerd adds that he’s hopeful they can talk with Ritz and “work with him.”

“It’s government so I’m not going to say we can change their mind” but Pullet Growers haven’t given up hope that they will at some point be able to get their agency status, he says. They want to meet with Ritz to discuss the reasons behind his decision.

There are 550 pullet growers in Canada. Pullets are young chickens raised to become egg layers. Pullet growers are the only part of the feather industry that currently isn’t under the supply management system.

Pullet Growers has been working to obtain marketing agency status for almost four years to give it the required powers to represent and make decisions on behalf of members. If they had a national marketing agency, that would have meant they would have had their own voice in the poultry industry. Another reason they were pursing a national marketing agency was to improve returns to individual producers.

According to the Farm Products Council report, Pullet Growers assert that “without managing the supply of pullets in Canada producers will be unable to achieve their cost  of production on a consistent basis and will always be secondary and dependent on the egg industry in Canada.”

The Council’s report says the majority of pullet growers are also egg farmers who own egg quota and benefit from the supply management system for eggs. Some pullet producers grow pullets for their own use along with selling them to other egg farmers. Many of those egg farmers consider pullet production as a cost “to be passed through to their egg production operation,” the report says.

For those with egg quota, they are paid an average pullet price in the layer cost component of the cost of production for eggs. Egg Farmers of Canada sets the national cost of production and adjusts it for each province according to the results of the cost of production survey done every five years across Canada.

Independent pullet producers grow pullets only for sale to eggs producers, hatcheries or feed mills and receive a growing fee, the report says.

Of the 550 pullet producers across Canada, Ontario has the most with 118 producers. Of the Ontario producers 77 have egg quota, the report says.

Pullets are a crucial part of the egg supply chain and all Canadian provinces have a certain degree of oversight, the report says. BF