Huge increases in demand for chicken have prompted the
national marketing agency to increase allocations by 4.25 per cent.
The rate of increase in demand is almost three times are
great as it has been in the previous four years, says the Chicken Farmers of
Ontario on its website.
Ontario’s allocation for quota period A-127, which runs from
Nov. 2 to Dec. 27, is 4.68 per cent.
In addition, the national agency has repeated its
precedent-setting allocation of 268,190 kilograms for special-breeds markets.
That’s a tiny beginning of meeting the demand in the Asian community for
red-feathered birds and for Hong Kong dressed birds (head and feet left on).
The Ontario board says it “will be announcing shortly its growth
strategy that will support more farmer-members and processors being more
innovative in meeting these (specialty) markets.”
So far the board has said nothing about what it has done
with five applications it has received to process chickens for the kosher
market.
One of its challenges is serving that significant market
without gaining greater allocations from the national agency or diverting
chickens from Ontario processors to meet that demand.
The Association of Ontario Chicken Processors has been
adamantly opposed to losing any chickens to others to meet specialty-market
demand.
The Ontario board also says it’s reviewing its policy on
producing chickens for export. The so-called market development allocations
from the national agency are designed to allow increased production to meet the
high demand for breast meat and allow for the export of less desirable dark meat.
So far Ontario has required these allocations to be shared
among all quota-holding producers whereas other provinces allow farmers
shipping to specific companies that are exporting to produce the extra birds.
The market development allocations have consistently been
larger for those other provinces.
