Pork board chair calls for 'year of renewal' in pork industry

Monday, March 29, 2010

by BETTER FARMING STAFF

Ontario Pork’s chair calls 2009 a “horrible year” and says it’s time to “lock away industry baggage and throw away the key” and make 2010 a year of renewal.

Wilma Jeffray made her comments at the provincial commodity organization’s annual meeting Tuesday. Among the challenges producers faced were poor hog prices and continuing upheaval in connection with industry and marketing restructuring.

A new industry philosophy is emerging, says Jeffray, and it’s time to forge ahead and finalize strategies.

Provincial Agriculture Minister Carol Mitchell’s invitation to submit comments in connection with a recent Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs Tribunal ruling, presents “a door of opportunity to state what we believe will best serve the industry,” Jeffray told nearly 200 producers attending the London meeting. Mitchell is reviewing the Tribunal’s ruling that the Ontario Farm Products Marketing Commission got it wrong in October 2008 when it stripped Ontario Pork of the remnants of its monopoly powers to market hogs. The Tribunal ordered the pork board to complete strategic planning and governance reforms in 18 months and hold an expression of opinion “to ensure its recommendations have support in the industry.”

Those orders are on hold until Mitchell reviews the decision. She asked parties to the Tribunal hearing to make submissions to her by Apr. 14. She is expected to make a decision by May 26.

Jeffray says Ontario Pork will stick to the strategy it started to develop two years ago and ask the minister to give producers more choice in marketing. Ontario Pork is proposing to retain its authority to collect fees, require mandatory price reporting as well as data reporting for traceability and continue to provide services through its marketing division and charging a fee to producers who use it. The organization also wants to introduce a universal service fee paid for by all producers.

“We believe that producers deserve choice and by providing the options of licensed selling agents or Ontario Pork’s marketing division, that the industry will be better served,” says Jeffray.

Because the deadline is short, the submission won’t be circulated to producers for their feedback, she adds.

Jeffray says Ontario Pork will continue to lobby for a business risk management program through the Ontario Agriculture Sustainability Coalition, which represents the province’s non-supply managed commodities.

Steve Illick, an Ontario Pork director and chair of the organization’s safety net committee, says the provincial and federal governments recognize the eight-member coalition as the official lobby of non-supply managed agriculture in the province. Efforts now need to focus on developing broad-based political will to support the program.

The proposal, outlined in a handout available at the meeting, is modeled after the grains and oilseeds risk management program. Commodity prices falling below historical costs of production would trigger program support. The coalition seek a 60/40 per cent funding split between federal and provincial governments and recommends that producers foot one third of the program’s premiums.

Illick says the coalition has hired Mississauga-based Redbrick Communications, a government relations consultant, to create a strategy to convince governments that the province’s agriculture and agri-food sector is in peril.

“We think that the circumstances in Ontario are significant enough that the province should step up and fund at least their 40 per cent in absence” of the federal government, he says. “And we’ll continue to lobby the feds to come on board.”

The coalition is developing a series of town hall meetings that target urban politicians and media to make them aware of the situation. The first session will be held in Stratford on April 6. Illick says the meetings will focus on the industry’s contribution to the province’s economy and use outside experts such as bankers to convey the message.

“The agriculture and agri-food industry now surpasses the auto sector in Ontario as a GDP (gross domestic product) developer,” he says. “I think the part of the equation we’ve really failed to demonstrate is that a failing agri-food industry in this province really means a weakened economy in this province,” he says.

The coalition is also planning outreach efforts April 13 in the provincial Legislature and at an unspecified date on Parliament Hill in Ottawa.

Illick says the group has not ruled out farm rallies but wants to first try to educate urban decision makers about the importance of agriculture.

During the meeting, producer delegates also voted 123 to 31 in favour of reorganizing the commodity marketing board’s electoral structure into four zones electing nine board members. The board currently has two zones, 12 districts and 14 board members. BF