Tribunal to hear poultry processor issues

For the third time in a year, poultry processors have filed an appeal over chicken board policies related to serving specialty markets.

The Association of Ontario Chicken Processors twice filed appeals and twice withdrew them at the last minute.

Now an appeal has been filed the Ontario Independent Poultry Processors association. It represents small-volume processors who have been unable to secure live chickens to meet market demand.

The Ontario Ministry of Agriculture and Food Appeal Tribunal has set July 14 and 15 for public hearings.

The independent processors are frustrated after years of trying to get chickens for their markets and angry about recent developments.

For example, Joe Abate of Abate Packers Ltd. at Arthur, said he’s frustrated that he can’t get chickens to meet niche-market demand. He’s also frustrated that the large-volume competitors, such as Maple Lodge Farms Ltd. at Norval, move in to compete whenever small processors develop a significant-volume market; most recently Maple Lodge has moved into Halal slaughter for the Muslim community.

Abate said some niche markets involve so much work that the large-volume processors aren’t interested, yet they continue to block all attempts to get more chicken for small-scale processors.

Abate said that processing for the Red Bird market, for example, is “very labour intensive and very slow” and takes his staff about half a day to process the same number of birds that the large-volume packers can process in a matter of minutes.

It was several years ago that the Ontario Farm Products Marketing Commission appointed is vice-chairman, Elmer Buchanan, to head a committee of five to address the issue.

That committee, made up of two people from the Chicken Farmers of Ontario marketing board, two from the Association of Ontario Chicken Processors (AOCP) and one from the Ontario Independent Poultry Processors association, made recommendations that prompted the chicken board to adopt a new regulation to deal with specialty markets.

But the marketing board has never put that regulation into effect.

After the most recent withdrawal of the AOCP appeal, there were hopes that the chicken board would go ahead to implement its policy. Last year it had gone so far as inviting processors to submit applications and a number of small-volume processors did.

But when the AOCP filed its appeal, they didn’t get the chickens they sought and both they are their customers were frustrated.

This time the chicken board decided to approach the parent Chicken Farmers of Canada marketing agency for the right to grow more chickens to meet specialty-market demand.

If it can gain the right to grow more birds in Ontario, it would not have to take from the large-volume processors to meet the demand from small-volume companies serving niche markets.

What it got was a pittance – 287,000 kilograms and all of it for Frey’s Hatchery’s dual purpose and Silky chickens to be processed by Wellington Poultry.

That has infuriated some of the members of the Ontario Independent Poultry Processors association who were left entirely out. They believe that it’s the AOCP influence – the largest poultry processing companies in Canada – who are frustrating their efforts to develop and serve niche markets.

They also question why the Ontario marketing board is allowing the national agency to dominate its response to requests for more chickens to serve niche markets.

That sets the stage for an appeal tribunal hearing that holds the potential to open a much broader set of concerns about how the large-volume processors dominate the politics of chicken production and marketing in Ontario, leaving the province consistently short of enough chicken to satisfy demand, especially demand that would not add any profit for the large processors.

Abate said an official from the Chicken Farmers of Ontario marketing board is coming to visit him later this week.

There are rumours that all of the Frey Hatchery birds are destined for two processors – Wellington Poultry of Arthur and ENS Poultry of Elora, Abate said.

“I want to know what’s going on, and why,” Abate said.

                          

Agropur continues expansion

Agropur continues to buy dairies in Atlantic Canada, expanding its operations in a Canadian market dominated by Saputo.

Farmers who own Dairytown Products cooperative at Sussex, N.B., have voted in favour of a merger with Agropur. Terms of the deal have not been disclosed.

Dairytown processed about half of New Brunswick’s milk, making most of it into butter and a range of milk and whey powders.

Last year Agropur bought two Nova Scotia dairies – Farmers Cooperative Dairy of Bedford and Cook’s Dairy.

Agropur is the dominant dairy in Quebec and has bought a significant presence in Ontario.

U.S. pork industry is losing export markets fast

The spread of Porcine Epidemic Diarrhea virus in the U.S. hog industry is costing it export markets.

Eleven countries have banned hogs from the U.S. and on has banned pork, according to Dr. John Clifford, chief veterinarian for the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Speaking at the World Pork Expo at Des Moines, Iowa, this week, Clifford revealed that El Salvador, Guatemala and South Africa have banned imports of live U.S. hogs.

China, Japan, the European Union and Russia have restricted hog imports, while four other countries have imposed unofficial limitations, he said.

Uzbekistan has banned imports of U.S. pork, while Costa Rica has banned imports of pork casings.

“This is beginning to have a much greater impact than what any of us initially thought that it would,” Clifford said about PEDv at the World Pork Expo in Des Moines, Iowa.

                           

PED hits Middlesex County hog farm

The first case of Porcine Epidemic Diarrhea virus in more than a month has been confirmed at a farrow-to-finish farm in Middlesex County.

That’s all that the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture and Food is revealing at the moment. It typically does not name the farms involved in outbreaks, nor their precise location.

But the Ontario Pork Industry Council and the Ontario Swine Health Advisory Board are trying to convince farmers to voluntarily tell their neighbours, business contacts and service providers when they have an outbreak so it can be kept from spreading to other hog farms.

Slot out, Thompson in at chicken agency

Kevin Thompson has won election to be the representative for the Further Processors Association of Canada at the Chicken Farmers of Canada’s board of directors.

He replaces John Slot of Moorefield who has a long involvement in chicken-industry politics and in recent years has been spokesman for the Ontario Independent Poultry Processors Association.

Thompson was head of the Association of Ontario Chicken Processors, which represents the large-volume chicken processors, then went to work for Sargent Farms, a relatively large-volume chicken processing company based in Milton. He was also once a senior employee of the Ontario chicken marketing board and an employee of Maple Lodge Farms Ltd. of Norval, the largest chicken processor in the province.

Thompson’s election came in the midst of a long battle between small-volume independent chicken processors in Ontario and the large-volume processors.

The small guys want more chicken to expand their niche markets. The large-volume processors want to keep chicken production down so they can keep prices up and never have trouble moving inventories.

The big processors approach has led to rationing of chicken among processing plants, a ban on trade in live chickens between Ontario and Quebec, and a lack of chicken for the Ontario kosher and Hong Kong dressed (feet and heads left on) in Ontario.

The chicken-rationing system and the ban on live-chicken trade with Quebec are both intended to eliminate premiums processing companies were offering to get more chickens.

The chicken-rationing system has given rise to a value placed on the processing-plant right to Ontario-grown birds. That, for example, is how Chai Kosher Poultry of Toronto made a windfall profit by selling out to Sargent Farms. However, Sargent Farms does not process to kosher standards, so that market had only one Canadian source left, a plant in Montreal that was unable to keep up with demand so hiked prices.

The Ontario chicken marketing board is currently calling for proposals to serve the kosher market.

A big question remains, however, whether the Ontario board will take chickens from all Ontario processors to meet the kosher-market demand or will await approval from the national agency to grow more chickens to meet the kosher-market demand.

That’s one of the issues Thompson will be pondering as a director of Chicken Farmers of Canada representing the Further Processors Association of Canada.

Mac's wants to market milk in jugs

Mac’s Convenience Stores Inc. wants to test-market selling milk in three-litre jugs for a year, but the Ontario Dairy Council is opposed.

The council represents the overwhelming majority of fluid milk processors in the province.

The Ontario Farm Products Marketing Commission granted Mac’s permission for the test marketing on Dec. 19, but the Ontario Dairy Council objected and eventually filed an appeal with the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture and Food Appeals Tribunal.

That’s how the issue came to public attention.

The commission filed documents with the tribunal, but asked that several sections be sealed from public disclosure.

The Ontario Dairy Council objected, saying it needs to see the information to prepare its case.

The commission agreed that the council’s lawyers may see the information, but not the public. The tribunal has agreed and it’s that proceeding and decision that have been posted on a website with data on court and tribunal decisions.

There is no indication on the tribunal’s website on when it intends to hear the appeal.

The commission argues that the tribunal lacks jurisdiction to hear this appeal.

The whole deal is yet another indication that Canada's dairy industry is over-regulated to the point of near paralysis.

U.S. dairy farmers diss Canadians on trade

Two dairy industry lobbying groups have written to the United States Trade Representative to complain that Canada and Japan are not willing to make enough concessions during the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade negotiations.

The National Milk Producers Federation and the U.S. Dairy Export Council said Japan and Canada were dragging their feet and U.S. negotiators must insist on “meaningful” dairy market access.

Reuters News agency says the two lobby groups could persuade U.S. politicians to vote against approval of a trade deal that could emerges from the negotiations.

The two groups also complained about the structure of the New Zealand dairy industry where dairy farmers own Fonterra, the dominant processing company and exporter.

New Zealand is the world’s most aggressive exporter of dairy products.

Japan said it’s not willing to entirely give up tariffs protecting its rice, dairy, wheat, sugar, beef and pork producers.

Reuters said the Canadian dairy industry is waiting to see how U.S. negotiations with Japan turn out, indicating that it would seek equal protection.

U.S. Trade Representative Darci Vetter told the Senate Finance Committee that the U.S. remains insistent on eliminating tariffs on all goods, including agriculture.