by BETTER FARMING STAFF
Ontario Agriculture Minister Carol Mitchell has ordered the pork industry to complete details of a new marketing plan by Dec. 4 of this year. The result will be more open marketing of hogs.
Under the principles Mitchell made public today, farmers will have two choices. They can sell pigs through an intermediary such as the Ontario Pork Producers Marketing Board, or directly to processors.
Ontario Pork loses its power to review all buyer and seller contracts. Under the new plan, the marketing board will review buyer and sell contracts only when requested by either party.
The pork board retains the power to collect and share price data.
The board will be extended the power to collect fees on all classes of hogs.
Ontario Pork will no longer exist as it is known. Mitchell ordered the board to “administratively separate its marketing side from its regulatory side to eliminate any potential conflict of interest and/or bias issues of being both the regulator and the regulated.”
Mitchell had reviewed a Farm Products Appeal Tribunal decision last February overturning a 2008 Farm Products Marketing Commission decision that had stripped Ontario Pork of its powers.
In February, the Tribunal ordered the industry to sort things out in 18 months. Mitchell said that was taking too long.
"I know my farmers wanted predictability and stability," Mitchell says. "The industry has certainly been facing struggles. This was impeding their ability to move forward with their strategy.”
The Commission and the marketing board will develop an implementation plan and they will be required to consult with the industry stakeholders on this plan. The method of consultation will be decided by the commission and the marketing board.
The province will work with the industry to develop a financial protection plan modeled on plans existing for grain and livestock industries. Mitchell described that plan as “cost effective, sensitive to an ‘open for business’ environment and . . . broadly supported by the industry.
“Both the Commission and the Tribunal agreed that a more open market system was needed in the pork industry. They just differed on the ways of getting there,” Mitchell says.
The minister says her decision doesn’t mean she doesn’t have confidence in the Tribunal.
“As the Tribunal readily pointed out in its decision, the adversarial process is not necessarily well-suited for resolving complex policy-laden questions.”
The Minister confirmed the Tribunal’s ruling that the Commission appoint a new chair to the Hog Industry Advisory Committee and require it to operate within revised regulations 419 and slammed the Commission while she did so.
“Although the Commission enacted Reg. 419, this does not mean that the Commission can simply ‘ignore’ its statutory obligations. The Commission is, just as every other government agency is, required to comply with all applicable legislative requirements. If the Commission believes that HIAC would be more effective if constituted differently, the answer is to amend Reg. 419.”
Mitchell found merit in the pork board’s suggestion that producers be licensed. The board could use the license for traceability purposes and also to enforce and collect marketing fees.
"We have been in favour of producers having choice in marketing and this gives us the solid footing to implement from," says Wilma Jeffray, Ontario Pork's chair. BF
Comments
what will Mitchell's decision do too improve the financial lot of the family pork producers in this province??? Dairy and feather business must be a higher calling as Liberal gov't doesn't suggest removing there marketing powers....kg
supply management is living on borrowed time itself - using them as an example of what pork marketing should aim to be, is foolish
and where is the predictability and stability now like we had once before????
this shows Carol Mitchell is nothing more than a puppet for bureaucrats and big business.Mitchell does not represent the people in her riding and is being influenced by the staff in the ministry and those in the packing industry. The appeals tribunal is a joke.
mitchell is a joke with this decision. She has no regard for producers in ontario or her riding
Minister Mitchell deserves credit for putting the long standing pork industry squabbles to rest. Let's get on with focusing on how to make the industry stronger. And we should also recongize that Ontario Pork has for quite some time been on the track that will now be taken. It is time to move on. Hopefully those who have stood in the way will now devote their efforts to making the system work. There are opportunities for all pork producers who embrace change and are willing to work together.
nobody deserves credit for being a spokes person for big business and individuals who have only their own self interestsand not that of the industry or the majority of producers
It would appear Mitchell is simply doing for pork, what has already been established for wheat, and for white beans. The dual marketing system seems to be working there. Those who want to use the services of the Board can do so, those who want to market their own product, in their own way, can also do so.
Although it's hard to complain when everyone gets at least a little, if not a lot, of what they wanted in the first place, it seems to be the case that those who want to make time stand still, or even turn back the clock, will always be unhappy.
-thanks-kg kimball
I do not think the minister read my submission. Ben Dekker
by the looks of it she did not read any submissions that did not go along with the commissions decision
Johnvb
The Tribunal's decision was a compromise that would have satisfied the the concerns of all "producers" in Ontario.
However the were several individuals with bruised egos who were not going to give up till they nailed the final spike into the coffin of Ontario Pork.
The Minister's decision makes the Tribunal look like kangaroo court. Why would anyone expend the time, effort and money to appeal a decision of the Farm Products Marketing Commission.
Carol Mitchell will find out at the next election the consequences of not representing "her farmers" in her own riding.
G. Love
If opening up the marketing system is such a good idea for all producers why not have a producer vote to decide the future direction of our industry. We live in a democratic society not dictatorship by one individual.
Jack and Marg Kroes Huron County
The Ontario Egg Producers Marketing Board was formed, by Ministerial decree, entirely without any producer vote at all, because the Minister decided it was in the best interests of all concerned to act in this fashion.
If it's good enough to close the marketing system for eggs by a decision of a Minister, it's also good enough to serve as a way to open the marketing system for hogs.
A vote would simply fragment the decision making process, and delay the inevitable even further. What would be the point?
there must have been stronger and better motivated documents / arguments than those presented by the producers who are not in favour to the minister's decission.
the one and only point that came out of my local MPP was the concern about the processors.
let it be known that her family made a good living with the support of the current supply managment system in the feather industry.
rein m.
Indeed, while you are correct in noting the Minister's decision must have been made on the basis of all of the documents presented to her, I have absolutely no idea what you mean by your veiled reference to supply management in the feather industry.
Do you want tariff barriers, and restricted production in hogs, or are you trying to say that your local MPP's experience with supply management in poultry, makes her unable to understand whatever point it is that you're trying to make?
Furthermore, and I don't want to be overly-critical, but if the Minister couldn't understand the submissions coming from people whose writing style made it difficult, if not impossible, for her to understand what they were trying to communicate, then she had little choice but to ignore them.
she must off ignored any submission that disagreed with the original decision
this was not a minister's decision lets be real. This was a staff decision influenced by big business. I douth if she even looked at the submissions.
I doubt Mrs. Mitchell, or anyone else, looked at any submission containing basic errors in spelling, and grammar. And without trying to be mean, or rude, a good number of the postings on this site opposing the Minister's decision, are riddled with both.
If I was the Minister, I'd read, and pay attention to, those submissions which were sent by people who could spell correctly, and who could express their thoughts in a grammatically correct manner.
Were the people who oppose Mitchell's decision, defeated by their own poor literacy skills? I'd think maybe.
We not all as well educated as you are
---is needed too see what the "producers of ontario" really want for pork marketing....a thing that the prov. liberals have been really good at is alienating pretty well all there supporters, with the debt they have put on our province and there questionable mandates I cannot continue too support the liberal party---kg kimball
If she thought that a vote on a detail like the proposed board structure was a good idea, than you would think that having a plebesite on something major, like changing the whole function of the board would be the greatest idea since electricity. I believe that she had her mind made up before even recieving any submissions. I have not heard her reference any of the concerns that I know were sent to her in many of these submissions. I would bet what is left of the farm that they went straight to the paper shredder.
I guess the minister in all her wisdom, decided that since open marketing was working out so well for the beef producers.
i guess the minister in her wisdom asked for a plan to be presented 2 full months after the election.
She is deferring making any decision because she knows her time is limited.
I hope the new leader at least pretends to like farmers. McGuinty has overstayed his welcome as far as I am concerned.
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