The appeal the Association of Ontario Chicken Processors has
filed to keep competitors from getting specialty-market chicken supplies has
been set for June 12 and 23 at the boardroom of the Ontario Ministry of
Agriculture and Food at 1 Stone Road, Guelph.
The AOCP is objecting to a policy enacted by the Chicken
Farmers of Ontario Marketing Board to invite processors to apply for chicken
supplies to develop specialty markets.
It’s a requirement of the policy that the new markets not “cannibalize”
existing markets, but the organization representing small-volume processors
says it’s hard to imagine that any new specialty product would not persuade
chicken customers to switch from what they’ve been buying.
The Ontario policy, even if it remains in place, will still
need either additional allocations from the national agency or will require
existing Ontario processors to yield a sliver of their supplies for the
successful applicants under this policy.
All of this is child’s play compared with the chicken
supplies at stake in a court victory by French-language producers in Eastern
Ontario who have won the right to sell their birds to processors in Quebec, and
to the pressure the Jewish and Asian communities are exerting to get kosher and
Hong-Kong dressed chickens produced and processed in Ontario.
And then there are small-flock owners who are pressuring the
board to increase the volume of birds they can raise without having to own
quota from 300 to 2,000 birds every six weeks.
