The national chicken agency has increased base production by
1.8 per cent for this fall, but when offsets are taken into account, production
is planned to decline by 1.2 per cent nationally and by seven-tenths of one per
cent in Ontario.
Alberta, which has served notice it’s going to leave the
national supply management system, ended up with no change.
The outcome of the negotiations is bound to be a huge
disappointment for many in Ontario who believe the market is being shorted,
especially for specialty demands, such as kosher protocol slaughter and Hong
Kong dressed birds (feet and heads on) for Asian customers.
Last year for the same quota period, Ontario’s total was
about 50.1 million kilograms; this year it’s 50.6 million.
Last year the national total was almost 13 million
kilograms; this year it’s 12.3 million.
The allocation is for the six-week period from Oct. 6 to
Nov. 30.
It's long past time for Ontario to serve notice it's leaving national supply management because the province has been short of chicken for decades, and it's getting worse.
It's also time for farmers - not processors - to run supply management in Ontario and to scrap the plant supply quota system and let the processors compete.
If processors insist on paying premiums in a beggar-their-neighbour fight for market share, then simply keep increasing production until they have enough chicken to keep their processing lines operating at capacity.
That's bound to eventually get rid of premiums and perhaps to bankrupt one or two of the processors who are the least efficient and competitive.
And why, pray tell, has the Ontario Farm Products Marketing Commission, which is supposed to be supervising supply management on behalf of the public, been unable to address these long-standing issues?
Premier Kathleen Wynne needs to sit up and take notice.
She says she is keenly interested in rural Ontario. Does she notice that there are a number of multi-millionaires in the chicken business, and that they stick out like peacocks amongst most of the residents of rural Ontario?
