The Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs Appeal Tribunal has ordered the Ontario Broiler Hatching Egg and Chick Commission to reveal the details behind its calculation that its members spend 847.2 hours a year on management tasks.
It’s part of a new cost of production formula the commission has used to justify the price of poults for chicken producers.
Originally the commission had set the hours at 1711.7, but on appeal reduced that to 847.2.
The Association of Ontario Chicken Processors deemed that still too many hours and filed an appeal with the tribunal.
The tribunal did not post any notice of that appeal on its website, but now has posted its decision. The public had no way of knowing it could ask to be involved in the tribunal process.
The Chicken Farmers of Ontario marketing board, representing chicken growers, has agreed to the new formula.
It is in a position to pass through those increased costs via its own cost of production formula and it’s the processors who end up having to pay the bills or trying to persuade its customers they need to pay more.
The Tribunal said on its website that it “orders that OBHECC provide to AOCP and CFO a detailed list of tasks and associated hours for the annual hatching egg producer management hours considered as part of the cost production formula within 60 days of the date of the release of this decision.”
The decision is dated Aug. 27.
