The Farm Products Council of Canada limped through last year with only three members and no chairman after Laurent Pellerin’s term expired.
Mike Pickard, a poultry farmer from Saskatchewan, held the fort as acting chairman with help from the two other board members, Kimberly Hill and Maryse Dube, a Quebec lawyer.
Hill’s term has expired.
Brian Douglas, who was executive secretary to the provincial cabinet in Prince Edward Island, was appointed to a three-year term as chairman after the council's fiscal year ended.
Yvon Cyr, a poultry producer from New Brunswick, was appointed to a three-year term as a board member.
The agency’s annual report highlights issues such as a new quota allocation system for the chicken industry and a company that filed a complaint against the national turkey agency, went to court when it didn’t like the council’s decision to dismiss the appeal and then dropped the court case to engage in further negotiations led by Dube.
The national beef agency proposed a levy increase from $1 to $2.50 per head, but Ontario and Quebec objected.
There were also inquiries about setting up national promotion and research agencies for the hemp and barley industries.
The egg industry continued to increase production and that resulted in more levies to underwrite the diversion of surplus table-market eggs to processors. It also helped that prices for processing eggs, based to be comparable to U.S. prices, rose during the year, so the fund actually increased despite more eggs moving to processors.
The council reports that it has concerns about the “natural surplus” of eggs in the industry, an apparent reference to the heavy importation of U.S. eggs just before Christmas and Easter seasons followed by a deluge of surplus declarations.
Chicken demand continued to increase – production up by 4.8 per cent in 2017 and allocations up by 6.1 per cent in 2018.
That prompted the hatching egg agency to increase its marketings by 6.7 per cent in 2017 and by 4.5 per cent last year.
