Glenn Black of Manitoulin Island is questioning the feed
conversion formula the Chicken Farmers of Ontario marketing board is using in
its chicken-pricing formula.
He says the board has changed the feed-conversion ratio it
was using between July, 2007, and December, 2008, from 1.82 kilograms of feed
to produce a kilogram of chicken to two.
That amounts to a 9.8 per cent increase in the cost of feed,
Black calculates, and because feed is 60 per cent of the total CFO formula cost
of production, it increases the prices processors pay farmers by 5.8 per cent.
Black then checked the margin between the farm price and the
Wal-Mart retail price at its store at Sarnia, and figures the markup is 853 per
cent.
At that rate, he figures consumers are paying an extra $947
million a year.
The chicken board is supervised by the Ontario Farm Products
Marketing Commission and at the national level there is supervision by the Farm
Products Council of Canada. Both have an obligation to check the pricing
formulas the marketing boards are using.
Neither one has much of a track record in defending the public from marketing board abuses of their powers and privileges.
Neither one has much of a track record in defending the public from marketing board abuses of their powers and privileges.
Black is a small-flock owner who is challenging the chicken
board’s limit of 300 birds that can be raised without owning quota. He agrees
with the Practical Farmers of Ontario organization, which also wants the limit
raised to 2,000 and says it will file an application for a hearing by the
Ontario Ministry of Agriculture and Food Appeal Tribunal.
Black is also asking Ontario Premier and Agriculture
Minister Kathleen Wynne to allow those who raise fewer than 300 birds per quota
period to do on-farm processing without provincial meat inspection.
