Pork marketing appeal begins

Thursday, November 26, 2009

by BETTER FARMING STAFF

The Farm Products Marketing Commission’s October 2008 decision to revoke Ontario Pork’s monopoly powers to market hogs suited “10 per cent” of producers, taking away from the other 90 per cent, Appin area pork producer Rein Minnema told the Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs Appeal Tribunal in Guelph today.

“We are losing everything we have in our collective marketing powers and we get nothing in return,” he testified in the opening day of the hearing scheduled to run until Dec. 4.

Minnema initiated the appeal last winter and was joined by Huron Pork Producers Association and Districts 10, 11 and 12 in appealing the Oct. 6, 2008 decision of the Farm Products Marketing Commission to strip the Ontario Pork Producers Marketing Board of its monopoly powers to market hogs in Ontario. The hearing opened today in the same rooms in a Guelph hotel as the Commission held the hearings in July of 2008, and also where the Tribunal heard arguments that led to the hearing de novo that began today.

Consultant Elbert Van Donkersgoed is representing Minnema in the hearing.

Respondents include Ontario Pork, Zantingh Direct Inc., the Open Marketing Group, Quality Meat Packers, Synergy Swine, Paragon Farms, RFW Farms and the Progressive Pork Producers Cooperative.

Interveners in the hearing include Dewetering Hill Farms, and Maple Leaf Consumer Foods.

The hearings are scheduled to continue until Dec. 4 at the Best Western Royal Brock Hotel and Conference Centre on Gordon Street in Guelph.

According to a provincial government website, the Tribunal provides an impartial appeal body available to any person who feels aggrieved by decisions of marketing boards, the Farm Products Marketing Commission or a director appointed under the Farm Products Marketing Act. BF