Urs Kressibucher, until two years ago a director of the Chicken Farmers of Ontario marketing board, lays things out plainly in a letter to the editor in this week's edition of Ontario Farmer.
Kressibucher says Ontario is chronically short of chicken. He was Ontario's director on the national agency for a number of years and wasn't able to get more.
He says the situation will be worse because of a court decision that allows French-speaking chicken producers in Eastern Ontario to sell to Quebec processors. And he says Quebec is the only province blocking a proposal from Ontario to allow increased production to meet the demand for specialty markets.
Kressibucher further blames the Association of Ontario Chicken Processors for much of what's wrong today. He says the system of guaranteeing each of the AOCP members a percentage share of the chicken that's produced in Ontario is wrong.
The AOCP has also argued against increasing production in Ontario, and especially against a policy that would give more chicken to the best marketers - many of them tiny family-run processing businesses - who have clientele begging for more chicken.
There are two huge specialty markets that are getting no chicken from Ontario producers today - the kosher market and the Asian Hong Kong dressed-bird buyers who want the heads and feet left on.
Kressibucher says he hopes the current situation can be rectified during hearings that the Ontario Farm Products Marketing Council plans to convene.
Good luck! Those do-nothings are entirely unlikely to rock any boats, even when the changes that are necessary are plain for all to see.
And where, pray tell, is Premier and Agriculture Minister Kathleen Wynne on these issues in the chicken and egg industries? Silent. Totally silent.
