by SUSAN MANN
Chicken Farmers of Ontario has once again come under fire for its policy allowing farmers to only produce 300 chickens a year without quota.
But unlike previous criticisms from Practical Farmers of Ontario, which has asked Chicken Farmers to increase the number of birds farmers can produce annually without quota, Manitoulin Island small flock grower Glenn Black is far more sweeping in his condemnation of the board and its policies. Last month, Black sent Chicken Farmers and the Ontario Farm Products Marketing Commission a 43-page report outlining his concerns about the small flock policy along with criticisms of the supply management system and general board policies and procedures.
Chicken Farmers officials couldn’t be reached for comment. In a Feb. 25 letter to Black, Chris Horbasz, Chicken Farmers director of policy and external relations, says the board will review his comments and concerns during any policy review and renewal process of its small flock regulation.
But Black says it could be decades before the next review and that’s not good enough. In a Feb. 25 email to Horbasz, which Black provided to Better Farming along with the letter from Chicken Farmers, he says “I feel this is an urgent matter for myself, other small flock chicken farmers and the Ontario public.”
Currently 10 per cent of Ontario families aren’t able to reasonably access the food they need. “If you have ever been hungry, I’m sure you will agree the situation cannot wait years,” he explains.
Black has requested a formal hearing about his concerns before the board within the next 60 days. If Chicken Farmers is unwilling or unable to hear his complaint in a timely manner, he says the board should waive its right to a hearing and he will take his concerns to the Ontario Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs Appeal Tribunal or the Ontario Farm Products Marketing Commission.
Black has also started a blog in part, he says, to advocate for small flock growers’ civil rights and to start a discussion about where small flock growers fit into the supply management system and the job of providing locally produced, safe and nutritious food to Canadians.
Since 2008, food bank use has jumped by 40 per cent across Canada, he notes.
In his report, Black says Chicken Farmers doesn’t advocate for small flock growers in under-serviced areas of northern Ontario. Black, who farms in Providence Bay, says his area is under-serviced because the nearest abattoir is more than 300 kilometres away on the far side of Sudbury. Having his chickens processed there would have added $3 a pound, making the total price $6 a pound, which is unaffordable for the people in his area. “That basically killed the idea of us being able to supply our chickens to anybody but ourselves,” he says.
Instead of helping small flock growers, the chicken board takes a “laissez-faire attitude about the under-serviced areas of Ontario and is exclusively focused on the quota-based mega chicken factory producers, who are generally in geographic proximity to one or more slaughtering plants,” he says.
The chicken board also discriminates against small flock growers by denying them membership in Chicken Farmers, representation by district chicken producer committees and the ability to run and be elected as a director, he writes. Black asserts in his report he’s totally excluded from input or representation within Chicken Farmers but is subject to their regulations.
“I believe my exclusion from membership and representation in CFO is a breach of fundamental justice,” the report says.
Black says he’s studied regulations and laws under the Ontario Farm Products Marketing Act and “no where in there does it state that this system must be run in the best interests of the public.” In fact, he asserts, a Chicken Farmers bylaw states its directors must act in the best interests of Chicken Farmers of Ontario and not the farmers or the public.
The regulations don’t call chicken board directors to a higher standard of serving the public’s need, he says, noting “they have a government-created monopoly, which is a little bit too self-serving to my liking.”
Black says he understands and supports what Practical Farmers is trying to do but he’s not joining forces with them.
Sean McGivern, president of Practical Farmers of Ontario, says they still plan to file an appeal at the tribunal but currently they’re seeking legal advice on their case. Chicken Farmers has twice turned down the Practical Farmers’ request to allow farmers to produce 2,000 birds annually without quota and market beyond the farm gate.
“We are not giving up on this project,” he says.
Practical Farmers has also requested a meeting with Premier and Agriculture Minister Kathleen Wynne to discuss the matter, he says. BF
Comments
A sad commentary which comes down to the board's determination to overcharge the consumer by keeping competition out. With more people than ever relying on food banks, the government helps a few thousand while turning a blind eye to 34,000,000 Canadian citizens. Raube Beuerman, Dublin, ON
And where is it helping Canadians to have food dumped on our doorstep , wow cheap food for short term and being ran by the rest of the world and very high food prices in the long term. If any one think that the rest of the world will keep dumping cheap food here or the farmers will operate at a loss must have not been in the real world for awhile.
And you forgot to say the foreign food will sneek into your refrigerator and steal all your beer too! We have as much evidence of that as what you are claiming.
Wake up and join the real world. You have to compete with the world, not hide in the sand.
It's a widely known fact, in fact: immigrants will work for less, often coming from a nation with a significantly lower standard of living, they find living in Canada is like living in paradise, even on $13 an hour. In Europe immigrants are often quite happy to live on welfare. Being provided with housing, health care, and money with no requirement to work is paradise to them. They come from places where there are no such things.
The Blog referred to in the article is located at http://canadiansmallflockers.blogspot.ca/
The Google+ profile of the author is https://plus.google.com/109761243031599211637/posts
You have to keep in mind that we here in Canada have regulations that we have to grow and produce products by that other countries do not have to abide by . Competiton is good if it is done on a level playing field .
Right On. Bet the ones who say its all right to have other countries dump one us are likely sitting with big pocket and never worked where their job or farm was lost because of another country that has people that work for $1.50 a day or less. How many things do you read about that are supposed to be in something you buy and they find out there is none of it in the product or is counterfeit or full of chemicals
and is a danger to everyone doesn't matter if its food or a product.
Haven't heard a lot of farmers complaining about the us farmers having an unfair advantage so they sold the farm have heard the sm people have an unfair advantage so they sold the farm
You don't hear SM producers complain when other sectors are making a killing on their products and SM is held to their COP formula numbers . It is all an each will have their turn but some don't like it when they have had low feed and a low dollars for so many years . They are looking for some one else to blame .
A level playing field in our own country would be nice
We here in Ontario are always eating US eggs, the egg industry knowingly shorts the market, so that the major processor can buy in cheaper imported eggs and then sell them at the higher Canadian monopoly price, all well Egg Farmers of Ontario sits and watches this happen. The Supply Managed Boards are screwing the consumers and their fellow farmers, We needs a inquiry into the Ontario Farm Products Commission, I believe this agency is not doing its Job and there is no proof that they are, They along with the marketing boards all need to be investigated by a 3rd party auditor and i am positive that they will report back a failing grade.
Sean McGivern
PFO
I can go buy US eggs at my local Shoppers Drug Mart if I care to . I just wish I could find out where to buy US pork and beef so that I don't support farmers here who are screwing the system and getting Gov. cheques when they are not needed because they are not losing money .
You can buy U.S. pork or beef anywhere just like you can buy Canadian pork and beef anywhere it's just supply management products that can't be sold in Canada unless of course you have import quota
It should be checked out and see who are importing and who are selling those eggs. Someone or group are making a lot of money from begin well lets say not being honest and getting away with it. Like I said all along there is so much being dumped into Canada and we will all pay down the road. Look at the junk being brought in from China and we are paying big times, no jobs here in man. and big money being made at corp. top and no where else.
The debate about cheap imports vs. domestic production has been going on for 210 years now (see UK Corn Laws in 1800's).
Small Flock Poultry Farmers believes in having a strong domestic production capacity that is so efficient, that it can supply all of Canada's needs as well as gain significant export markets. Over time, Canadian consumers can move from one of the highest priced poultry meats to one of the lowest prices.
The choice is up to the Supply Management System & the processors. They can see the errors of their ways, and the future opportunities, or they can deny and avoid.
Better systems usually replace dinosaurs that deny reality.
The bureaucratic, fossilized and ineffective systems that serve special interests will be replaced by better systems that serve the Canadian public. The only question is how soon it will occur.
The solution is not tax cuts for wealthy Ontarians but increases in their taxes, OR, forcing corporations to pay employees for the value of the work they do. They can have it either way. No one is worth $1 million dollars a year, or 2, or 10, or 100, or 300, or 500 million. This is beyond obscene. And for anyone talking about competing with the real world, well, this is what tarrifs are for. They made Korea strong, they made Japan strong, they are making China strong, if we were to use them they'll make us strong too.
One of the most-basic and most-unyielding principles of economics is that tariffs make a country weak because its consumers/workers are denied the ability to profit from the principle of comparative advantage.
While the "higher tariffs will make us strong" argument might:
(A) garner some sympathy on this site
(B) place the author in line for a Leacock award for humour
(C) successfully challenge the Flat Earth Society for deliberate obtuseness
It's not just wrong, it's outrageously wrong.
I challenge the anonymous author of the above posting to Google "Corn Laws" to see just exactly how wrong he/she is.
Failing that please please humour us by telling us more of the outrageous NDP and/or NFU fairy tale wherein tariffs, rather than productivity, heavy industry and exports made Korea and Japan strong.
Stephen Thompson, Clinton ON
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