Ontario’s egg farmers and food bank clients have struck a
gold mine with a new program announced by the Egg Farmers of Ontario marketing
board.
Under the program, quota-holding egg farmers donate $50 to
the Ontario Association of Food Banks.
In return, the egg board gives the farmers permission to add
a pullet to their flock.
That pullet will produce an estimated $50 worth of eggs
during its lifetime.
The farmer gets to sell the eggs that pullet lays at the
full cost-of-production formula price set by the egg marketing board.
In other words, the farmers get full compensation for their
$50 donation to the food banks.
But, if by adding birds to their flock they are able to
reduce their cost of production, the farmers actually pocket additional profit on this
deal.
It's easy to guess that every chicken farmer will fill his
barn to capacity.
It’s also easy to guess that food bank clients will quickly
clean out supplies of the free eggs coming through the system.
In fact, some enterprising types may take more than they
need and sell them to, say, restaurant owners who are on the lookout for cheap eggs.
If this gets out of hand, the egg board might have to resort
to Old School tactics of dying “surplus” eggs to keep them from undermining the
market for full-price eggs.
The only real donors in this scheme appear to be the grading
stations that are offering to process these eggs free of charge.
They will, no doubt, claim that as a charitable donation for
tax purposes.
Maybe farmers will try to make the same claim, although it’s
hard to see what they have actually donated.
One of my friends in the poultry industry says this is the
biggest quota-increasing policy he has ever seen in the industry.
But he wonders whether the other provinces in the national
egg agency are going to allow Ontario to continue with what amounts to an
open-ended quota-increasing scheme.
