Price cut for Ontario egg farmers

Wednesday, November 6, 2013

by SUSAN MANN

For the second time this year, Ontario egg farmers are taking a price cut.

Egg Farmers of Ontario announced in a press release Nov. 5 the price paid to egg farmers for each dozen of large eggs is dropping by six cents to $1.90 from $1.96, effective Nov. 11.

Bill Mitchell, Egg Farmers public affairs director, says the previous price decline was in April when the price for a dozen large eggs dropped by four cents.

The November price cut is due to lower feed input costs as measured by Ontario’s farm pricing model, which tracks all costs of egg production. The cost of feed inputs for laying hens represents about 35 per cent of the calculated cost of producing a dozen eggs. Feed is farmers’ largest cost and it also tends to be the most volatile, he says.

The frequency of price changes for farmers depends on the volatility of feed costs, Mitchell says. In 2008, 2009, and 2010 the price changed once for each of those years while in 2011 and 2012 it changed four times in each of those years. The price range during the past five years was a low of $1.58 per dozen of large eggs in 2008 to a high of $2 in 2012.

The six-cent price reduction for farmers won’t necessarily be passed on to consumers since farmers don’t set supermarket prices, the Egg Farmers release says. Egg farmers sell their eggs to grading stations, which in turn sell them to wholesalers or retailers. BF