'Pullet Growers' chair optimistic about supply management

Wednesday, April 4, 2012

by BETTER FARMING STAFF

The chair of the Pullet Growers of Canada is optimistic that the organization will succeed in its bid to become supply managed. “The National Farm Products (now Farm Products Council of Canada) has been very helpful and encouraging us to go this way,” says Andy DeWeerd, the Stratford area farmer who returns as the organization’s chair for another year.

If successful, it will be the first national organization in more than 25 years to achieve supply managed status.

The country’s 500 pullet growers supply Canada’s table egg farmers with chickens to lay eggs. There are 140 pullet producers in Ontario.

Not being supply managed, yet serving a supply managed industry, puts the organization in an unusual position, DeWeerd says. “We don’t have a market where we can export or anything like that,” he points out. “Really we are in a controlled market system where we are. The only thing is we don’t have price controls.” If growers decide to raise prices, they can easily be undercut by someone else. “This has happened in the past in some areas.”

Wanting fair returns on what they produce is one of the reasons the organization is applying for the status under Part 2 of the Farm Products Agencies Act, the section that deals with supply management. Obtaining a national voice for issues such as animal welfare, disease control, housing and quality control is another reason.

DeWeerd says he’s not sure that all provinces will buy in. “I think we have five, six provinces that are ready to start right away,” he says.  Western provincial governments, such as Alberta and Saskatchewan, are not as supportive of supply management, although the organizations there “do want us to represent them too.” DeWeerd plans to go to Alberta at the end of the month to discuss how to work out that representation.

He anticipates being able to submit the application by late spring.

Others elected to the organization’s executive at its annual meeting last month include Emmanuel Destrijker, Quebec, as central director and vice-chair; Cal Dirks, Manitoba, as western director and treasurer; and Marc Ouellet, New Brunswick, as eastern director and secretary. Jeff Clark, Nova Scotia, was elected as the pullet producer representative on the production management committee of Egg Farmers of Canada. BF