And it was all promptly consumed as storage stocks declined
by 1.8 per cent.
Some of the change for farmers came because imports declined
by 9.4 per cent from the same month last year.
That has happened because exporters are no longer able to
cheat by calling broiler meat “spent fowl”. The Canadian government is now able
to perform a DNA test on imports to determine whether they are from egg-laying
or meat-producing strains of chicken.
The national supply management agency, Chicken Farmers of
Canada, complained for years about the imports which grew to volumes greater
than total U.S. production of spent fowl, but it wasn’t until they furnished
the government with the DNA testing technology that the imports were finally
disciplined.
Ontario farmers are benefitting more than most; their
production increased by 11.5 per cent in October. That reflects a new national
agreement, hard won by Ontario, to recognize that the Ontario market has been
chronically short of supplies for its market.
Now when the agency decides to increase production, Ontario
is granted a bigger slice of that increase than its pro rata share of the
national base production quota.
Ontario has used some of that increase to open the door to small-scale
producers to raise chicken without quota and to serve niche markets. It has
also opened its chicken-rationing system for processors for the entry of
newcomers, also to serve new and niche markets.
One wonders whether the Chicken Farmers of Ontario marketing board will now gain enough courage to scrap its supply-allocation system for processors, to scrap a ban on trading live chicken between Ontario and Quebec, and allow competition to determine which processors will prosper and which will falter.
The agency continues to forecast increased market demand, so
it has increased allocations for the next three six-week production periods by
5.24, by 4.75 and by 7.77 per cent. That extends to June 6.
Wholesale prices have increased – by 4.3 per cent for the
composite-bird measurement, but by 9.3 per cent for breast meat.
So far this year, chicken has been priced at retail 1.4 per
cent higher than last year, beef 2.6 per cent lower and pork 1.3 per cent
lower.
